Friday, November 27, 2009

The "fois gras" EU way. Stuffed 'em citizens with more nonsense!

Find below letter to the Editor/Bird in reply to an article posted in the "a bird's eye view" column of the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News. Essentially the very human writer attempted to propose that "good things" could happen with the appointment of "Van Whatsisname" and "Baroness Who" to the highest sphere of the EU nonemklatura. The author furthermore implied that someone who had fought as a young Marxist activist (Greek commissioner nominee) against the colonels' dictatorship (but also for the dictatorship of the proletariat) would be the ideal person to enhance democratic values in the EU! So instead of finishing an essay, I wrote this letter and sent it to the Editor and the damn bird.
.

Letter to the Bird,

Birds are flying creatures and could be forgiven for missing the fine points of human activities. I propose to help. The Lisbon Treaty ratification was a scandalous affair. A tale of lies (the political kind), yes-bullying (of electorates who “don't get it”) and self-congratulations (only the leadership who knows best is celebrating its “victory”). “We the Sovereign Peoples” were promised more democracy and transparency. What we got was less of both. The learned Bird may have overlooked the undeniable fact that the appointment of the new EU team was conducted in a public-free zone after much backdoor deals and horsetrading. Such a system cannot possibly lead to more democracy and is reminiscent of Soviet Politburo politics. Even the leftist newspaper The Guardian had nothing positive to say about the process!
.
Could the new pair make Europe a better place? Why should they? The system works for them. The President credited for some fine haiku poetry and saving Belgium from political implosion, wants more Europe. The European “Federalist” kind with more powers in the hands of an unaccountable bureaucracy supported by a parliament - the traveling one - short on popular legitimacy (43% turnout rate in the last EU elections). The rise to the post of High Representative (novlangue for foreign minister) of a non-elected British peer with no experience in foreign affairs is baffling. She has obviously emerged from this "process" because she is a women (the Barrosso touch?) and lacks what it takes to impose a vision. Let's call “It” charisma, a sense of accountability to the voters, expertise or something. In fact as a Labour party apparatchik (a quangocrat), she had the perfect CV for the job. So we, human citizens, could be forgiven for indulging in "other thinking", namely doubting that the EU will go anywhere fast with an "accidental" foreign minister! It will be interesting to see how her “charm” - the default word used for lack of anything else to say - will help shape something resembling a common foreign and security policy. I bet the Russian leadership is already under the spell...
.
But hey, let us not make a storm in a cup of tea. The “Kissinger phone question” has been answered. A small step for the EU and a big laugh for the rest of the world! Less funny of course is the claim by the Honourable Bird that democracy in Europe could be enhanced with a bunch of people who in their youth fought against democratic capitalism and for the imposition on land of the Marxist utopia. I relate to the point that fighting the colonels' dictatorship was a courageous act (Greek commissioner mominee) but fail to see how freedom could be enhanced with a gradual push for a dictatorship of the proletariat. The collectivist experiment was tried in the Soviet Union with devastating consequences (gulags, show trials, famines, executions, psychiatric internment). Many so called socialist democracies (Cuba springs to mind) continue to enlighten their proletariat with chronic toilet paper shortages, free tutotials in Marxist-Leninist ideology for “other thinkers” in prisons or in youth camps. One can only conclude that winged creatures do not read history books - yet curiously write.
.
In truth, the European Union has chosen another road; a new kind of "soft dictatorship” of the elite. To confuse the unsuspecting citizens, they call it some fancy name like a multi-layered polity, a social democracy based on post-modern governance and functionalist spill-overs... Unlike birds, human elites know a lot about public finance. They have also learnt some lessons from the mistakes made by communist elites. You just don't kill the goose (democratic capitalism) that laid the golden egg but slowly stuff it with more nonsense (the fois gras technique). So indeed confused French tax payers may be spared the insult of another record breaking EU hyperpresidency (€ 171 million) but make no mistake, any savings will be heading towards Brussels for more scandalous use of public funds with less accountability. “Our” new President favours direct taxation and he might well get it. The self-amending treaty does not need the pretense of our “say”. But one should not blame a bird for oversights. It cannot possibly grasp the significance of the continued refusal by the Court of Auditors to sign off the Union's accounts.
.
A more observant bird passing over Brussels might have spotted that the recession affecting ordinary European humans has had no impact on EU staff expenditures (no freezing of salaries but on the contrary an increase!). The obscenely high salaries of our newly anointed self-serving vanguard (£320,000 a year for the president) know no crisis (cuts). Would it not be a fine thing for a former Marxist activist (the Labour Baroness) to show some solidarity with the toiling masses and propose a serious reduction in her own salary? Birds may be incurable utopians but on land, humans are considering civil disobedience to stop the stuffing!

No comments:

Post a Comment