Herman Van Rompuy. Get used to the name. He is the first President of the European Union, which with the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon by all the 27 EU member states in early November was transformed into a genuine United States of Europe.
The President of Europe has not been elected; he was appointed in a secret meeting of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states. They chose one of their own. Herman Van Rompuy was the Prime Minister of Belgium. I knew him when he was just setting out, reluctantly, on his political career.
To understand Herman, one must know something about Belgium, a tiny country in Western Europe, and the prototype of the EU. Belgians do not exist as a nation. Belgium is an artificial state, constructed by the international powers in 1830 as a political compromise and experiment. The country consists of 6 million Dutch, living in Flanders, the northern half of the country, and 4 million French, living in Wallonia, the southern half. The Belgian Dutch, called Flemings, would have preferred to stay part of the Netherlands, as they were until 1830, while the Belgian French, called Walloons, would have preferred to join France. Instead, they were forced to live together in one state.
Belgians do not like their state. They despise it. They say it represents nothing. There are no Belgian patriots, because no-one is willing to die for a flag which does not represent anything. Because Belgium represents nothing, multicultural ideologues love Belgium. They say that without patriotism, there would be no wars and the world would be a better place.
Yes, the shade of John Lennon is the guiding hand behind the political philosophy of the European Union. No more wars! No more suffering! No more dissent! No more independent thinking!
We no longer have any need for such things. Everyone should just drink their soma, copulate indiscriminately, and spend all their spare time at the feelies.
Mr. Belien concludes:
- - - - - - - - -
Now, Herman has moved on to lead Europe. Like Belgium, the European Union is an undemocratic institution, which needs shrewd leaders who are capable of renouncing everything they once believed in and who know how to impose decisions on the people against the will of the people. Never mind democracy, morality or the rule of law, our betters know what is good for us more than we do. And Herman is now one of our betters. He has come a long way since the days when he was disgusted with Belgian-style politics.
Herman is like Saruman, the wise wizard in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, who went over to the other side. He used to care about the things we cared about. But no longer. He has built himself a high tower from where he rules over all of us.
Fjordman adds these thoughts:
I’m not surprised that Herman Van Rompuy is evil. You cannot get to the top of a thoroughly evil system such as the European Union unless you are evil yourself, or at least willing to play ball with evil. It’s the entire system that is the problem, not one particular man.
I’ve heard some observers say that the EU elites want to reduce us all to the status of medieval serfs. This is incorrect for a number of reasons. The roots of many of our parliaments and self-ruled institutions, including the British Parliament, date back to the Middle Ages.
The EU imposes a centralized, authoritarian structure which used to be alien to pre-Communist Europe but in some ways resembles a bureaucratic empire such as Ming Dynasty China, if not the Soviet Union.
During all of previous European history, no single authority has ever been able to successfully censor ideas throughout the entire Continent, which, frankly, has been one of Europe’s greatest strengths. What’s more, while medieval European rulers were not elected and certainly didn’t believe in “democracy,” for better or worse they usually at least upheld a minimum of law and order, and didn’t indoctrinate European children to hate their own heritage or import people from hostile tribes to rape their daughters.
The EU elites do these things every single day.
We shouldn’t insult medieval European rulers by comparing them to the EU. I stand by my previous assessment that the only sensible thing to do with the EU is to pull down the entire structure before it kills European civilization.
24 comments:
He's an obvious and natural choice. Able to keep the unnatural state of Belgium together, able to compromise where common sense dictates that no compromise is possible.
Unknown to most and with a narrow electoral base, he'll have little power compared to the all-mighty Commission, and he should be easy to manipulate.
But he did say one offensive thing: That Turkey is not an European country and does not belong in an European Union. This will be a litmus test:
If he renounces on that, he has jettisoned all personal integrity and deserves to be forgotten before he has even taken office.
If, on the other hand, he stands by that opinion, things can turn interesting still. A person with some integrity at the head of the Union would be a refreshing change.
Not holding my breath, though...
wasn't the first world war ostensible fought over Belgium??
That should just remind us that the EU was seen as the antidote to war. Maybe that should be its only function, as an oversight committee to solve disputes etc, where member states can trade with each other freely.
When did the EEC morph into the EU monster??
When did the EEC morph into the EU monster??
With the Maastricht Treaty.
But it was latent well before that. I encourage everyone - the British in particular - to read The Great Deception and find out exactly how.
Who is this Witch of Quangos, usurper of European democracies.
Hands up anyone in Europe who has ever voted for Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the EU's first High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The history of the late 19th and 20th centuries should be an ample refutation of the notion that Europe should return to the nation-state model of governance.
The solution is not destruction of the EU, but a takeover of it, and creation of a new continent-wide model of governance that protects the interests of Europe's peoples against the threats from other continents.
The history of the late 19th and 20th centuries should be an ample refutation of the notion that Europe should return to the nation-state model of governance.
Former Gordon, I disagree deeply.
If one studies the origins of WWI, which wasn't all as sudden as it may seem, one will notice that lack of democracy, not nation-states, was the root problem leading to WWI. Paranoid emperors chose to demonstrate the raw power of their great countries, at the expense of their neighbours. Let me recap:
Austria-Hungary opened the game by attacking Serbia. They dedicated their full force to destroy that country, leaving their northen flank open to Russian attack. Russia mobilized, causing alarm in Imperial Germany, who saw clearly that their ally to the south was on the verge of a disaster - a fast Russian invasion.
Further, the Austria-Hungarian army was pulverized by Serbian artillery (marching into the training ground of your enemy is a Bad Idea!), and Germany entry into the war became a necessity to prevent a fast and bitter defeat for Austria-Hungary.
These are the opening events of WWI. See how the non-democratic emperors, not the democratically elected leaders, started the war?
Related, when you mention the 'late 19th century', what kind of problems are you referring to? In those decades after the French-German war, the economy boomed, living standards soared. We had a stable international currency (gold) and trade was flourishing. No major war broke out in Europe.
I might have missed something. Please point out what.
Out of curiosity, has the EU managed to standardize phone jacks, power generation and appliances, any of the actual useful and worthwhile things that the EU was initially formed to do? Or is it still difficult to travel and move around in Europe as it was but now you have a Politburo.
Henrik, the second half of the 19th century, which witnessed the rise of two new nation states (Germany and Italy) to match those already existing (France and Great Britain) led to increasing destabilization and threat of absorption and domination of lesser states as the two new states created destabilizing power alliances with the existing nation states and the two remaining multi-cultural empires (Austria-Hungary and Russia, although the latter was desperately trying to reorganize itself as a modern Great Russian nation-state). Many new little nation-states were also created (the Balkans), which both tried to destabilize their neighbors and ethnically cleanse their own boundaries of "outsiders." Given this powder-keg, a cataclysmic war was inevitable.
After World War I, the peoples of the European nation states themselves turned away from democratic rule to some degree or another (perhaps only Great Britain remained immune, although Oswald Mosley made a run for it). They willingly embraced fascism, Nazism, or some plain old caudillo who promised a return to "order." (see, e.g., Portugal, Hungary, Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia, Poland, Estonia, etc.). Even nations that remained democratic had significant populations who turned away from this mode of government (France, Belgium) and worshipped fascism or the like. The people themselves became disillusioned with "democracy" and threw away their rights to the dictators and totalitarians.
I see this happening again if the nation-state world were to return. A much better way for Europe is not demolition of the EU, but its takeover by parties who are ready, willing and able to defend the interests of Europeans against other parts of the world, while respecting the differences among the European peoples themselves.
Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans can be traced back to imperial decisions as well. It was common for empires to move populations around if they should become uppity, or to bring a stable element into an unstable province. Thus, genocidal killings are not a result of nation-states, but of empires, in the case of the Balkans, the Turks.
Former Gordon, I appreciate your interest in and knowledge of history. This is important.
Still, that lends no significant support to your claim that nation-states were the problem. I maintain that lack of democracy was a problem, not the nation-states.
A core point to that is that the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, which kindled the war, was neither a democracy nor a nation-state. Italy and Germany, freshly unified, were hardly nation-states yet. Rather, they were federal states bound by a common language. It's worth recalling that Italy was on our side in WWI.
Nor was the Ottoman Empire, where the call for Jihad rang out all over the country at their entry into a war, a democracy nor a nation-state. It became the latter after genocides of their Armenian, Assyrian and large part of their Greek populations. But that's another story.
Certainly the 1920's were a period of great Hope for Change in many respects. Fascism, at that time a new system of government, as well as its cousin Communism, was being actively tried out in several countries, not least in those where democratic traditions had not yet set firm roots. Parts of the European intelligentsia (H. G. Wells, for example) admired the 'Russian-Italian experiment', penetrating neither the absurd theater of Mussolini nor the deep evil of Hitler/Stalin.
The basic ideas of the European Union was born out of this period, the 'decade of fascism', where abolishing the nation-states, creating a grand, unified Europe, was seen as a solution to the problems that led to WWI.
Unfortunately, Hitler and his goons, ehm, intervened...
Europe was vastly different after WWII. The greatest challenge after the defeat of Hitler was now not the European empires, but the Soviet one. NATO was created to counter that threat, and that worked well.
The European Union was created as well, although it was really designed as a solution (a wrong one, in my opinion) to the problems that led to WWI. It was marketed as a 'Common Market' initiative, but was really conceived as a European mega-state. And then we're back with the empires that started the whole mess of WWI.
I strongly discourage trying to take over the European Union, intending to turn it from Evil to Good. The System would change you faster than you could change the System.
Vlad: Yes, these standardizations are being put into effect. At time with excessive zeal, but also to great benefit. To the Chinese as well, as they're equally able to produce to meet EU standards. But then, abolishing the 'technical trade barriers' has worked as a pretext to create a European super-state.
They say that without patriotism, there would be no wars and the world would be a better place.
Without the nation states that reasonably inspire worthwhile patriotism, there would more than likely be CONSTANT war. Properly functioning states protect both people and private property. Without that personal liberty and the material stability to pursue it, things would rapidly degenerate into tribalism and the warlords who capitalize upon that mayhem with such unabashed delight.
Nodrog: A much better way for Europe is not demolition of the EU, but its takeover by parties who are ready, willing and able to defend the interests of Europeans against other parts of the world, while respecting the differences among the European peoples themselves.
Back again, are we?
What you suggest is remarkably similar to the notion of:
"In order to save the villiage, we had to destroy it."
A centrally planned economy, the wet dream of Socialists everywhere, is so corrosive with respect to Democracy's hallmark traits of personal liberty and private property that, much like Islam and the West, the two may as well be immiscible.
Central planning has routinely show itself as having the greatest difficulty when it comes to "respecting the differences" between people. Central planning only works to even its own limited extent by treating people as interchangable parts. Otherwise, the broadbased forecasting and projections as central planning requires do not work.
Read Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" if you have any questions about the sort of people who prefer individuals to be interchangable. Her book "Atlas Shrugged" is equally instructive about central planning. History's most famous centrally planned economies, the Soviet Union and Communist China, proved to be giant meat grinders for humanity and the current track record of Europe's budding social engineers is pointing in that exact same direction.
The only question is who will be screwed through the forcemeat plate first, Europe's indigenous populations or their Muslim interlopers.
Nodrog is sprouting crap yet again.
WWII can be seen as little more than WWI part II....
Pre WWI Europe was a largely patchwork of multicultural imperial states very poorly matching national boundaries. Post WWI europe was somewhat better, but still with largely mixed states.
THERE WERE ALMOST NO TRUE NATION STATES ANYWARE BEFORE WWI, AND FEW TRUE NATION STATES BEFORE WWII. THe legacy of WWI and WWII was a (bloody) disentaglement of nations into cohesive states, this lead to an unprecedented era of peace, prosperity and cooperation post WWII. This era of peace is being redissolved into the pre-WWI multicultural era, except they want to redo Austria-Hungary on a pan-Euro scale.
Does a former-Yugoslavia bloodbath across all Europe sound inviting? A YUGOSLAVIA IS WHAT THE EU IS TRYING TO SET UP TODAY.
When I read the various comments at Lawrence Auster's place and Dennis Mangan's blog, Takuan Seiyo's recent piece at The Brussels Journal and the latest post by El Inglés at the Gates of Vienna, I get the feeling that tensions are rapidly building up and that something big is going to happen within the coming decade, probably within the coming five years. Since I have been writing about geology and Earth science lately I will use an analogy from plate tectonics: The tectonic plates of the Western world are now about to make a big move.
Tensions have been building slowly beneath the surface for many years and sooner or later these forces will suddenly be released in the form of a series of devastating earthquakes, followed by some secondary political and economic tsunamis. Some of the structures that currently appear to be rock solid will collapse like a house of cards during this period and the political landscape will change considerably. What appears unthinkable today will appear natural or inevitable twenty years from now. This is the discontinuity that El Inglés talks about.
I think we need to be realistic and realize that the current political-ideological order is completely broken and beyond repair. Instead of wasting energy on attempting to fix what cannot be fixed we need to prepare as best as we can for the coming crash and hopefully regroup to create something new and stronger afterward. I hope to publish an essay about this next week at The Brussels Journal. If anybody has any good ideas I'm all ears.
We need to get rid of the EU, ridicule the UN and starve it for funds. I'm not sure whether I see the need for NATO, either, although I'm willing to debate that part. The American defense umbrella may no longer be sustainable when the US economy fails, which it will. Besides, it is laughable to think that the US military would "protect" native Europeans from Muslims. It is the official policy of both major American parties to support - no to accelerate - the continued destruction of Europe, just like it is their policy to continue the destruction of their own country. The current US President Obama has pledged himself to combat opposition to Islam rather than Islam. Uncle Sam is Uncle Sharia, as we have recently seen demonstrated. If the Soviet Union was the Evil Empire during the Cold War then the USA is the Diversity Empire today, committed to spreading Multiculturalism and genetic Communism around the world, especially to white majority countries.
US General Wesley Clark during the bombing against Serbia said more or less explicitly that the war was undertaken to impose "diversity." I don't hate Americans is general but their elites are just as hostile as the EU elites, and they have bigger guns. When I see how Nidal Hasan was treated by the US military I don't think I want these people to get involved in my affairs. They would probably say that native Euros are Nazis who oppress the poor Muslims. Then they would bomb us and say it is for our own good, just like they did to the Serbs.
I think we need to be realistic and realize that the current political-ideological order is completely broken and beyond repair.
Probably true. People are forgetting how to hold political and/or economical power to themselves, assuming - and forcing others to assume - that abolishing both of these will lead to a better - or at least more 'Just' - society. It has become deeply stigmatized to hold on to any of these powers, personally or nationally.
'Starving for funds' will probably be key to dismantling dysfunctional structures. Fort Hood has demonstrated that much of the US structure is broken as well. Not so much that it could happen in the first place, more the cover-up reactions to it, reminiscent of how the Soviet Union used to 'handle' their problems.
I'm all for a strong defence union - but am havin' doubts about NATO for that purpose. It's too multikulti and politically correct to protect us today.
Direct democracy and voting with our wallets is what I'd suggest in the construction of a new order. But what will come of that - I have little idea.
I would suggest, Fjordman, that if we Americans truly want a fragmented and disunited unit, destruction of the EU will be a giant step in that direction. A Europe fragmented into many nation states, big and small, fighting and squabbling among each other, setting up border and trade barriers to impede economic growth, "cleansing" each other of remaining ethnic and religious minorities, will be a Europe ripe for the plucking.
I am not suggesting that the current EU is doing a good job -far from it. I am suggesting that an EU with a different mission, to promote economic growth and European culture and civilization, is a better answer to this problem than no EU at all.
History lesson:
Ex-Gordon's first comment's are outright stupid. He makes no sense what so ever.
Europe has seen "two anti christs". Two men who put her at her knees: Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler. They were exactly the same, just happened to be adapted to different eras.
The Congress of Vienna (great, at my eyes) transformed Europe into a somewhat secure place after Napoleon, creating 5 great powers that would solve all European things thus avoiding a new Napoleonic-like figure to emerge and devastate Europe once again.
The history of the XIX century up to the First World War is the eroding of that order. It ended up with WWI where the five powers took sides and fought. Then they lose and the wise people noticed that it was not possible to built long peace based on just hard power, because that mutates with time and there's always someone to gain power.
And so emerged the Nation State: A pristine way of securing peace all across the European Continent:
In Eastern Europe, it was a blessing. The expulsion of the evil Turk; The rebirth of Poland, the revival of Greece... an oportunity to old Balkanic peoples and the end of opressive empires: Austria-Hungary, Germany, the Otomans, and a stop to a Russian offensive.
In the West, the abuses on Germany would make Hitler rise.
Communism also appeared in this age, due to multiculturalism in Russia, combined with a discontent population. Fernando Pessoa described Communism as "the gathering of all human vices and flaws".
In a time of crisis, the only ones who appeared to fight Communism were the Nazi/Fascists, who were on the same side of the Nation State.
World War II started because the abuses on Germany. Germany was soon abuse others (more the Czechs than the Poles).
Ex Gordon jubilates with the death on the African States over National, er... tribal wars. He has learned nothing with what happened in Jugoslavia, and does believe the good side won the war.
In Coratia and Slovenia, maybe. But what about Bosnia? What about the Serbs in Kosovo or Bosnia?
People have always prefered a Nation State to a centralised state ruled by people far away that have nothing to do with them.
And Henrik, I don't care about democracy and I don't think it was a factor on WWI.
The factor was that the higher classes hold the lower ones with contempt, like they do now.
The King is the head, the people the body of a Nation.
The nobility (elite) cannot just be the neck, behaving like small pretentious kings towards the people.
But the nobility must be the members of the Nation. It's legs and arms that make the nation move, creating a perfect synchrony with the head and the whole body.
What we lack is nobility.
What was wrong with WWI was the lack of nobility of the higher classes. They acted merely as a neck, and not like vibrant and precise arms and legs.
Any great Nation has an elite that serves as the arms and legs of it.
Concerning the Belgium President of Europe.
I think he's a rat (in Portuguese, it would mean like he is an old fox that can get dirty but knows he's doing what he thinks he's right) and from Belien's words, I think he's a very interesting character and by no way evil.
Him and Obama will be very interesting figures.
I'll hate none. But Americans have all the right to hate Obama...
Henrik, I think that you should read The Decline and Fall of the Habsrburg Empire by Alan Sked. Austria-Hungary may have been dominated by the Emperor, but there were parliaments in both halves of the Empire. The Germans also had their own parliament, and even though the Russian parliament was totally subervient to the Tsar's will, they too were moving in that direction (they'd have had it fourty years sooner had Alexander II not been assasinated).
It was not so much a lack of democracy as the timing of the assasination that led to WWI. Everyone was away on holidays, so things got out of control. Europe had maintained peace in spite of rising nationalism and tensions for decades prior (the Concert of Europe). Though certainly regional wars had been conducted, no Continental war had occured since Napoleon was defeated, and frankly, had the diplomats been there, the Austro-Serbian war would not have escalated to WWI.
As for the actual topic, I recall that this very blog referred to a CIA report recently predicting the collapse of the EU within 20 years without significant (and difficult) cutbacks to the welfare state and tax reform. Accompanying this would be, of course, demands for political reform. Demographic changes as have also been referred to on this blog are adding to the difficulty of these reforms (not to mention social tensions too). Thus, I concur with Fjordman's suggestion that the EU's collapse will be sparked by a sudden and unforseen event.
It's just like anything of poorly maintained Byzantine complexity; one spanner in the works and the whole thing collapses.
@ Hendrik and Gordon, for your consideration, maybe also include Socialism in your analysis as a dominant factor. For the late 19th and 20th century also saw the rise of Revolutionary Socialism. Just think of Proudhon (Property is theft) and "Interest is slavery" of the Revolutionary Socialist, anti Globalist and co-founder of the Nat.Soc. party, Gottfried Feder, etc.
The "November Revolution" of 1918 in Germany [like in the Netherlands and elsewhere] did not bring the "Socialist Utopia" many Socialists had been expecting as result of WWI. Gregor Strasser (Nat.Soc.) in 1927: "We hate that day [November 9, 1918, procl. of the Republic] and we despise its supporters [Social Democrats], just as we hate its fruit: the present state! [Weimar] Not as reactionaries […] we hate that day and its revolt but as revolutionaries! As Germans! As front soldiers! As Socialists! […] Nationalism and Socialism, this dual unity, whose recognition and achievement were the German meaning of the Great War, were equally betrayed. Were was the revolution which, in the name of Socialism, would have carried the red banner of victorious self-affirmation against the enforcers of hostile capitalism?"
Goebbels (Nat.Soc.): "We are Socialists, are enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system!" And to a Bolshewist he wrote: "We want freedom, as you do, but with other means, with means that lead to the goal. International solidarity is your program; the solidarity of the nation, the community of the people is ours. […] You and I, we fight each other without really being enemies. In this way we splinter our forces, and we never reach our goal."
And the Nat.Soc. mentioned in their draft program of 1926 an aggressive foreign policy and to strife for a "United States of Europe as a European league of nations with a uniform system of measure and currency."
Back to the present EU, a quote from a recent article by Paul Belien, "Leviathan Is Born: The Annexation of Europe by Brussels":
"I have always considered this treaty [Lisbon] a step in the wrong direction,” Czech President Vaclav Klaus said last month. “It will deepen the problems the EU is facing today, it will increase its democratic deficit, worsen the standing of our country and expose it to new risks.” Klaus calls the EU doctrine “Europeism.” In a speech last August, he defined “Europeism” as “a neosocialist doctrine, which believes neither in freedom, nor in the spontaneous evolution of human society.”
Former Gordon, I detest your aggressive stance towards us Europeans! You represent the worst of American imperialism and deceptive demagogy. Yikes!
One of the virtues and strengths of Europe is that it has never been unified. Even during the times of the Spanish Empire, awash in inflationary amounts of American gold to further its imperialist causes, there always remained pockets of resistance, most notably Britain, the Netherlands and Switzerland, where freedom and thrift survived.
Today, under the Leadership of the European Union, things are turning in a different and, ehm, interesting direction. It is a lot easier to conquor an area if you need to infiltrate only one government. This is why Islamists like Kareem Shora are finding the US easy pickings for Islamic influence, while people like Bashy Quraishy are steaming with frustration over the impossible task of taking over Europe, with all its different governments and 'extremist' political parties not 'sensitive' to his views.
Your views are nonsensical.
As for Socialism, including it in the collection of European malaises is utterly relevant. Both in international and national variants, and to a lesser degree in its less evil little brother fascism, socialism has caused immense suffering throughout the 20th century.
Related, I think Keynes deserves a position up there with the great criminals of the 20th century.
I think that you should read The Decline and Fall of the Habsrburg Empire.
Thanks, added to wishlist. I tend to purchase about twice as many books as I read - there's so much interesting stuff going on - and I like having a rich personal library.
This seems to be my comment #4. CU in other threads!
Looking at the above comments they are mostly centered around block politics what should also be looked at is why the individual the small man or common man of Europe has lost his political will to be the master of his own destiny and has become a spectator absurdly indifferent to his own enslavement.
Here is a video of the great man himself: Herman Van Rompuy on global governance
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