Ze Liberty Ronin

Guy Sorman sur la tragédie grecque

2011-11-03T22:35:00.000-07:00

Les hellènes sont tombés sur la tête et Greek mythology.
.

Angela, do you have 110 billions to give him? What don't you give him instead of waging war.
.

Quand la Chine l'aidera... L'Europe s'en repentira

2011-11-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

Publié sur Un Monde Libre, Hürriyet Daily News (in ze langue of Shakespeare) et Contre Points.

.
Le battage médiatique a consacré le sommet européen de la semaine dernière, comme beaucoup avant lui, de réunion de la « dernière chance ». Pour sortir de ce vortex de dette souveraine auto-infligée, l'élite européenne imbue de théorie keynésienne, insiste sur le fait que nous devons engager davantage de dette et devons avoir un plan de grande taille. Est-ce la solution? Le mécanisme de sauvetage proposé (FESF) n’est pas seulement antidémocratique, comme les Grecs vont nous le rappeler par référendum après le revirement de Papandréou. Il est fondé sur le soutien financier du Parti communiste chinois. Si c’est cela la route vers l'intégration, nous ferions bien d’occuper Bruxelles dès maintenant!
.
Le dernier plan a été vendu comme le « triomphe de la politique sur les marchés ». Ajoutant sa voix au concert en faveur de toujours davantage d’intervention publique, l'influent philosophe constructiviste Jürgen Habermas professe que « L'UE ne peut s'affirmer contre la spéculation financière que si elle obtient les compétences politiques de guidage » (Le Monde, 25/10/2011). (1) Eh bien, « guidage » dans le monde réel s’est toujours traduit par la centralisation de la prise de décision et moins de liberté. L'UE réelle envisage maintenant d'entrer dans la centralisation.
.
Le mécanisme de renflouement à effet de levier va accumuler plus de compétences pour faire face à la dette souveraine et pour faire la « police » derrière les gouvernements dépensiers. En d'autres termes, les technocrates seront habilités à passer les budgets en revue avant leur soumission aux parlements élus des pays de la zone. Comme certains observateurs le soulignent avec justesse, les parlements nationaux ne contrôleront plus les fonctions les plus essentielles du gouvernement : les décisions en matière de fiscalité et de dépenses publiques. (2)

Combiné à un gouvernement économique centralisé sous le « guidage » du président non-élu de l'UE pour relancer les économies en stagnation, le plan de sauvetage jugé nécessaire pour enrayer la crise de la dette, retire aux Etats membres et à leurs citoyens un élément central de leur souveraineté (Point 26.4 de l’accord). La politique sans souveraineté peut-elle marcher ? Elle a échoué en Union soviétique.
.
Les tenants de la centralisation (l’intégration) pointent du doigt le mauvais travail des gouvernements des PIGS en matière de finances publiques comme la justification impérieuse d'une action centralisée. On choisit encore une fois le chemin de davantage de pouvoirs supranationaux, malgré les échecs patents du processus d’intégration « toujours plus étroite », afin de promouvoir une croissance soutenue. Au lendemain du sommet certains prédisaient que le mécanisme ne fera pas long feu . Pour le professeur Pascal Salin, tenant de l'école autrichienne d’économie, le FESF n'est pas la solution parce qu'il récompense la mauvaise gestion et le renforcement de l'intervention du gouvernement. Un tel système, soutient-il, ne fait que créer plus d'instabilité et doit être combattu. (3)
.
Ironie de l'Histoire, l'UE a envoyé son envoyé spécial « ès-sauvetage » à Pékin pour demander (quémander?) à la Chine d’investir dans ses obligations « de stabilité » : une étape hautement symbolique. (4) Jadis, la CEE se tenait fière, indépendante, libre et prospère face au le bloc communiste « non libre ». Aujourd’hui l’expérimentation social-démocrate en perdition a besoin d'aide des mandarins communistes chinois qui ont appris une chose ou deux du « monde libre ». L’investissement ne sera accordé que s’il est sage et profitable, et non au nom de toute notion floue de solidarité redistributive socialiste à l'échelle mondiale.
.
En 2011, l'UE est sur le point d’effectuer le grand bond en… arrière dans le monde connu de l’antilibéral et de l’antidémocratique. Si le soutien de la Chine se matérialisait, cela serait avec de nombreuses conditions et scellerait de facto l'entrée du Parti communiste dans le système émergent post-démocratique de la gouvernance européenne. L'ironie, mais jusqu’à quel point ?

Le président Mao doit joyeusement se retourner dans sa tombe. Un ancien camarade, le président Barroso, se tenait à l’apex de l'Euro-Léviathan et annonçait fièrement que « dans ces moments les plus difficiles [ou intéressants ?], nous pouvons nous unir ». En effet. Mais l'unité sans la liberté économique est le certificat de décès d'une Union Européenne libre et démocratique.
.
Mais qui sait ? On nous avait annoncé que nos dirigeants avaient mis fin à la crise, que le monde avait été sauvé par cet accord de la dernière heure. Pourtant, l'intrigue de l'UE se complique avec la possibilité désormais donnée au peuple grec (par le premier Ministre grec) de faire entendre sa voix lors d’un référendum. Espérons que la mort lente de la démocratie européenne sera stoppée là où tout a commencé, à Athènes.
.
(1) http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2011/10/25/rendons-l-europe-plus-dem...
(2) http://unmondelibre.org/Video_Salin_UE_271011
(3) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8857533/This-was-the-...
(4) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8857165/Eurozone-rescue-fund-tries-to-tempt-China-with-bonds-issued-in-yuan.html

La Fayette, héros des deux mondes

2011-10-20T00:11:00.000-07:00

On se plaint parfois du fait que la France manque de grands symboles historiques ou de figures emblématiques capables d’unir les Français par delà leurs divisions. Pourtant dans l’histoire moderne, il y a un homme qui transcende les partis et les querelles idéologiques et cet homme, c’est le marquis de La Fayette.

Lire la suite de l'aticle de Damien Theiller sur ContrePoints.org. Ou encore celui de Jacques Le Guenin pour en savoir plus sur La Fayette, inlassable champion de la liberté.

Ou encore en anglais ce post de ze liberty ronin sur la réplique de la frégate Hermione en construction à La Rochelle.

Some trivial questions on European pursuits

2011-09-25T05:55:00.000-07:00

Published in Hürriyet Daily News

Angela, m'fraid we are stuck again. By Réné le Honzec (Contre Points.org)

Once upon a time there was much ado about Eurobarometers, especially when the results of the European Commission’s opinion polls would indicate trends of Euro-love (pro-integration). These were the "BC" days (Before Crisis). Not surprisingly with the current Euro-mess and growing Euro-wrath, no-one in Brussels is keen to “take the temperature” of disgruntled publics…
.
To fill the silence and provide some comic relief, here is a quiz. Find out how much you can laugh about Europe’s predicament. If this totally predicted mess was not so tragic it would be funny.
.
Q – If you disagree about the bailouts what can you do?
a) Blame the “Anglo-Saxon in Chief” Cameron for doing nothing.
b) Pray that the disenchanted German electorate will be heard. No-one else is.
c) Get together with many millions of taxpayers to waste time with the citizens’ initiative.
d) Watch Euronews to be reassured that all is well in the “ever-closer, fairer and greener” Europe.
.
Q- When will the democratic deficit be resolved?
a) Forget it. Euro-apparatchiks enjoy being disconnected from the citizenry.
b) When subsidized pigs fly.
c) “More democratic and transparent” is something Russian politicians must be.
d) Happiness is to be a travelling MEP working for the nomadic European Parliament.
.
Q- What caused the sovereign debt crisis?
a) Mother earth because capitalism upset her.
b) Irresponsible politicians for sustaining the unsustainable welfare state.
c) Perfidious rating agencies because they exposed the truth.
d) Global warming.
.
Q- Do you think that Europe is a “force for good” influencing the world with soft power?
a) Possibly. Napoleon invaded Egypt to free its people from autocratic rule.
b) Yes. France and Britain are using air power to bring freedom to the Libyans.
c) Absolutely. According to Euronews.
d) Not really. Its protectionist barriers are hard to penetrate.
.
Q- When Council President Van Rompuy addressed the UN General Assembly in a historic (first) speech he repeated some key points twice. Why?
a) To increase his charisma after being called a bank clerk without any.
b) He is an unelected unaccountable president who can say what the hell he wants.
c) The peoples of Europe never get it.
d) As the president of the presidents, he should emphasize the state of the dis-union.
.
Q- Turkey cannot become a member of the EU because:
a) It meets the Maastricht criteria.
b) It has a liberal economy growing at the rate of 10%.
c) Turkish MEPs would outdo others in Brussels' Byzantine corridors of power.
d) Sarkozy wants Communist China to buy Greek debt.
.
Q- Should the EU have a Robin Hood tax?
a) Yes. Tax everything. Sodas, financial transactions, fat, CO2 emission, love…
b) No. Robin Hood was Anglo-Saxon.
c) Bad idea. Europe’s financial sector will lose out to Asia.
d) Not sure. It looks green on the outside but is probably red inside.
.
Q- Do you approve of the IMF policies towards Europe.
a) Yes. Somebody needs to teach Greek politicians basic maths.
b) No. The French are turning the institution into a global Ministère des Finances.
c) Bad idea. The institution is located in Anglo-Saxonia.
d) Not sure. Liberalizing its economy could be detrimental to the lobbying sector.
.
Q- Should the blowing up of party balloons by children be regulated?
a) Yes. A directive on this critical issue is long overdue.
b) No. As long as they blow up balloons with the EU flag.
c) Not sure. Eurocrats may have more important things to do these days.
d) Don’t care.
.
Q- EU institutions should have more powers because:
a) Europe has more than 400 cheeses.
b) Barroso is a Maoist revolutionary who thinks he is the €uropean Ch€ Gu€vara.
c) Its civil servants have three months of paid holidays.
d) It is an empire. Get over it!

Why the Arab world should embrace economic liberalism

2011-06-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

Early last year, European politicians were assuring the public that Greece would not require a bailout. One year on, the same cure is seemingly to be prescribed to the sickest man of Europe. For its southern neighborhood, the union is also mulling the same medicine: more aid. While the political uprisings continue to unravel, the economic revolutions must be urgently prepared and pursued. In the Caucasus, Georgia has implemented some of the most radical libertarian-inspired reforms. A few lessons could be learned.
.
Faced with a paradigmatic shift in the Arab world, the European Union must now translate its lofty promise of “solidarity to the peoples” into action. A review of its Neighbourhood Policy is currently taking place but the joint declaration on the “Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean” provides some clues. The new relation is to be based on the principle of “more for more.” The idea is that in return for more democracy and reforms, states receive more money. If the new external aid euro-buzz sounds like conditionality reloaded, it is because it is.
.
The EU principle of ‘more of the same’.
.
Momentous times warrant momentous thinking. Unfortunately, whether dealing with internal or external problems, the European leadership is hopelessly stuck in a path dependency of “more of the same.” To most ordinary people it is counterintuitive to address a problem by adding to it. Not to our politicians who cure sovereign debt with more debt, solve failed bailouts with more bailouts.
.
For the past 50 years, development policies have followed the same pattern. An estimated $500 billion of international aid has been disbursed in Africa to little effect for the prosperity or freedom of its peoples. Budgets for North Africa and the Middle East have consistently increased without the cycle of poverty and oppression being broken. With more money on offer, there is little incentive for local politicians to think beyond the “foreign aid-ism” box. Old development habits die hard.
.
Alleviating the broke European man burden.

Paraphrasing Professor Easterly, the time may have come for Europe to rid itself of its “white man burden” of “feel good” but mostly ineffective and counterproductive development assistance.
.
As policy expert Nicu Popescu notes, the ongoing review should prompt a wider debate. The option of less aid should be explored. Why are countries like the BRIC busy shopping for expensive European technology still receiving public money? Does it make sense for bankrupt countries to help others by incurring more debt? The United Kingdom took the radical step to cut its own international development budget to many emerging economies. Development has gone on for the simple reason that aid is not a determinant factor.
.
The idea of cutting aid is not new. However, it is controversial in equal measure to international bureaucracies and aid-dependent local state apparatus. Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo has been a vocal advocate of no aid at all in “Dead aid: why aid is not working and why there is a better way for Africa” (2009). To European development luminaries, her radical thinking and proven free-market solutions are pure heresy. Oblivious to the failure of their “softer” often opaque and mostly ineffective top-down approach, “more of the same” is what they continue to advise.
.
Radical libertarian reforms work.
.
Yet a shock therapy of deregulation, liberalization and rule of law is precisely the medicine the Arab world must urgently take to meet the aspirations of a jobless disgruntled youth. For the economist Guy Sorman, it is imperative for the region to move away from statist economies to free market societies based on property rights, the right to entrepreneurship and competition. Only with this second revolution – not more aid – will the hope of millions to be lifted out of mass poverty will materialize (The City, “Egypt’s unborn revolution,” 18/02/2001).
.
Looking east, not north could inspire reformist-minded Arab leaders to be bold.
.
In her first book “Why Georgia has succeeded” (2011), Russian economist Larisa Burakova maps the course of the country’s economic revolution. Under the stewardship of Kakha Bendukidze (Minister for Reform coordination, 2004-2008), Georgia has transited from a statist economy stifled by a corrupt state bureaucracy and red tape into one of the most successful post-Soviet economies. The spectacular increase in economic freedoms (12th in 2011 World Bank, “doing business index”) has generated economic growth (6.4 percent, 2011) and more prosperity. A few years only after the 2003 Rose Revolution, this feat is truly remarkable. The author argues that this success bears testimony to the idea that radical liberal economic reforms, if well handled, can work anywhere.
.
There is no such thing as an ideal or painless transition model but only fools can ignore what works and what doesn’t. European leaders would be well advised to take a few lessons in “Bendunomics.”

Earth hour: for Japan and progress keep your lights on

2011-04-08T02:37:00.000-07:00

Article published in Hurriyet Daily News (TR) and Un Monde Libre (FR).

Japan’s struggle with the aftermath of a natural disaster has created an odious kind of green chain reaction. The priesthood of the cult of “Mother Earth” (Gaia) is back with a vengeance and scaremongering tactics. The “avatar-esque” personification of the planet in the article by Mr. Semih İdiz (March 14, 2011) is evidence of this phenomenon. Apparently, "Mother Earth demands respect.” This incantation is directed at us, the blighted human-consumers who buy cars, use electric coffee machines and want to keep warm in the freezing winters as we live out our global-warming doomsday scenario.

That a healthy debate should arise on the safety of nuclear power, disaster preparedness and alternative energy sources is right. But that the disaster afflicting Japan be used by some politicians and journalists to connect the embattled thesis of global warming reloaded as “climate change” with geological events and their nuclear aftermaths is disgraceful. To claim that humans are not heeding “warnings” and have therefore brought upon themselves the destructive powers of a “merciless mother nature” is grotesque.

Judging by the flurry of commentaries by the bien pensant intellectual and political class, James Lovelock's controversial “theory of Gaia” which posits that the Earth is a “single living organism” (and Man a "disease" killing the planet) is alive and well outside the “deep ecology” movement. Never mind that many scientists view it as little more than a neo-pagan new age religion, even the Brussels bureaucracy is seizing the moment to preach its simplistic “green truth” by making a spurious connection between climate change and the Japan earthquake. On March 11, the European Economic and Social Council published on its website an official statement that concluded, “Mother Nature has again given us a sign.”

The skeptical climate-change blogger Vincent Benard nails the argument in a damning post (Objectif Liberte, March 12, 2011): “How dare they [Ils ont ose] link the earthquake to climate change!” He asks inter alia the inconvenient question of why it has not even occurred to European Economic and Social Committee Staff that this disaster demonstrates a simple truth. Billions of public funds are being thrown in the pursuit of the anti-carbon chimera, in turn diverting limited financial resources from the search for solutions to the very real problems populations are confronted by.

“Surely coal thermal plants ought to no longer be seen as an unreasonable option notably in seismic areas even with their CO2 emissions?” Benard ponders. That would be rational, but sadly with global warming rationality and science have fallen prey to politicization and “cultishness.”

So how can the highly paid president of a consultative body – arguably one the most useless institutions of the ever-growing Euro-bureaucracy – cross the Rubicon to enter the realm of green cultishness? Well, to put it simply, it is all about “believing and belonging,” about being seen as a friend of the "good guys," the earthly “Navi” people of Planet Brussels, namely the tribe of green lobbyists.

Of course, the European Union is not quite like the utopian planet of Pandora. So aside from “communing with mother nature,” the neo-Navis are kept busy by green greed. The friends of Gaia have many friends in the Brussels bureaucracy. As the International Policy Network study “the Friends of the EU" (March 2010) revealed, green advocacy groups like Friends of the Earth, Birdlife or WWF (the so-called big 8 or 10) receive plenty of funds to lobby for more funds and provide environmental expertise to the commission. It is a self-serving circle. Nothing, not even the debt crisis, appears to be able to slow the EU green-spending spree. If anything the Japan crisis should trigger a new euro-funding wave.

Nuclear power is not risk free but the fact is also that political ecology is having a profound impact on global governance and policy-making in Europe in particular, whether we like it or not. As the above-mentioned report concludes, “sponsoring the narrow interests of such NGOs undermined the democratic process.” No matter, European politicians have embraced the green dogma with gusto. None more so than Nicolas Sarkozy. One should be grateful for the timely Arab uprising because France was prepared to help Gadhafi’s regime “go green" with "cleaner" energy (read: construction of a nuclear plant). It is also time for the French government to face some tough and necessary questions over its all-out nuclear policy at home (80 percent of electricity production).

A democratic debate is vital but it must be based on reason, not cultishness. In the meantime, implying that the victims of a natural disaster in one of the most technologically advanced countries are in some way “paying for their sins of progress and materialism” is pure nonsense. It is also unbecoming while shattered communities are battling to cope, displaced families trying to piece together their lives and grieving the death of their loved ones.

On March 26, the modern day followers of Gaia will also demand with renewed fervor that darkness be celebrated by having us switch off our lights to join in their absurd ritualistic global communion against progress: the Earth Hour. I will keep my lights on in memory of those who perished, out of respect for the extraordinary courage and dignity of the Japanese people in the face of a national disaster, for their contribution to human progress with cars, technology and a unique culture.

Tunisia uprising: "ethical Europe" has no clothes.

2011-02-13T03:49:00.000-08:00

Article published in Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet Daily News and Un Monde Libre.
.
The moral standing of the European Union in its Mediterranean neighborhood is taking a serious blow. Events in Tunisia – and now Egypt – have caught its leadership by surprise. The overthrow by a popular uprising of a corrupt and authoritarian leader supported for years by European leaders showed that “ethical Europe” has no clothes. The moment is opportune for a liberated Tunisia to reset its relationship with the EU.
.
To those who believe in freedom and democracy, the revolution unfolding in Tunisia has been heart-warming news. How it was received in Brussels is anybody’s guess. Suddenly, the Zine El Abidine Ben Ali regime, the “example for the region,” the “important and reliable partner of Europe” – to quote Stefan Fule, the Czech commissioner for enlargement and neighborhood policy – was being challenged. “Jasmine” revolutionaries were pouring onto Tunisian – but also European streets – to demand freedom and democracy.

The shambles of conditionality.

The bloc must face up to the fact that until the revolution, its policies in Tunisia had hardly been the “force for good” bureaucrats like to trumpet about. Rather, as human rights activists have often stated, they had helped maintain the status quo. Brussels' decision last year to pursue “advanced status” talks even emboldened the regime to suppress dissent further. Direct contacts between local NGOs and European institutions were criminalized. European leaders' “business as usual” attitude with the man most Tunisians called a “dictator” made a mockery of EU human rights rhetoric and conditionality.
.
Development aid and trade agreements are theoretically conditional to the fulfillment of “political and economic conditions.” So-called “conditionality clauses” are included in all agreements with third parties. But why bother? Studies have shown that conditionality is irrelevant in both countries that with existing strong democratic constituencies and in autocratically-ruled states. Be it in Tunisia or in Egypt – or for that matter in Europe – most politicians have only paid lip-service to it. For oppressed peoples of the continent, it has been a bad joke.

Illiberal EU and France.
.
If the response of the “Lisbon-ized” EU was meek – a knee-jerk reaction of aid for elections – the initial silence of Paris was deafening. For days after the popular uprising, the French executive remained embarrassingly mute. In the National Assembly, Foreign Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie was asked to account for the incoherence of the government's foreign policy in Africa. How could the country ask for the respect of democracy in Ivory Coast while simultaneously supporting the dictatorship of President Ben Ali. Indeed that is the question, and also the answer why the EU could never really have any coherence of its own.
.
When it comes to EU-Africa relations, the common foreign policy is more often than not “steered” behind Brussels’ “closed doors” by former colonial powers. Powerful administrations with privileged contacts with local politicians ensure the continuation of their prevalent role in policy-making. With enlargement to 27 states, decision-making has become overly complicated and its tell-tale of the lowest common denominator seems to have sunk lower. On sensitive topics, tension quickly flares. In the case of Tunisia, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables revealed the deep division between member states. While Germany and the United Kingdom favored a tougher approach, other key states (France) were reluctant to criticize the regime. But in the end, no pressure was applied.
.
Appeasement does not foster stability.
.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, keeping political stability in the region has been the linchpin of Europe’s security policy, whatever the cost to democratization. In the light of recent dramatic developments, it is clear that its “soft” engagement with “model autocrats” has failed. Rethinking relations with its southern neighborhood is urgent.
.
For France that will not be easy. Emmanuel Martin, a researcher at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, argues that the root of the problem is deep. Behind the discourse of “de rigueur” liberty and fraternity, the French political class has remained highly suspicious of individual liberties and profoundly anti-liberal. “La Françafrique,” a mafia-like system of economic and political cooperation based on state monopolies, economic dirigisme and statism, has fed on this reality. The promise made by Nicolas Sarkozy that the country would be on the side of the peoples of Africa has yet to be fulfilled. Last September, the French ambassador to Senegal resigned in protest.
.
Europe and Tunisia are bonded together by history and geography and need each other. But right now, Tunisians could do without hot “eurocratic” air. The foreign policy chief's declaration affirming the “solidarity of the EU with the Tunisian people” was just that. Unfortunately, with a protectionist union struggling with a democratic deficit, a disunited foreign policy, institutional turf wars, economic recession and an unresolved debt crisis, change anyone can believe in is misguided hope.
.
Tunisians have now the opportunity to take ownership of their country’s political and economic reforms. Hard times lie ahead but, “yes, they can” walk the bumpy democratization road with their heads held high. We, the freer peoples of Europe, can be thankful for the lesson in courage and dignity given.

The bEUROcratic Leviathan rising

2011-01-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

Article published in French on Un Monde Libre.org and in the University of Portsmouth student newspaper, Pugwash News, anniversary issue No 50.
.
During the recent Bielarussian presidential elections, the EU flag was flown as a symbol of freedom and democracy. In Europe, it is being burnt by angry demonstrators. With the sovereign debt crisis gathering pace on the bloc's periphery, austerity measures of payfreeze and other cuts starting to bite, EU civil servants and politicians enjoyed a very festive season indeed. Our supranational ruling class fêted on a bonanza of payrises and bonuses. What austerity at the centre of the “empire” as Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso referred to the EU... In the “promised Euroland” some have truly become “more equal than others”.
.
The EU often complains that it is “unjustly” accused of being out of touch. Recent decisions can only reinforce the perception that the euro-elite is now in orbit. The Supreme Parliament of our post-democratic polity awarded itself a nice little Xmas present. In 2011, MEPs will pocket around €100,000 of tax free expenses (pay hike and perks). While promising more accountability and transparency to the Euro-toiling masses, they will not be required to provide any proof of expenditure! "Doublespeak" à la EU....
.
More disconcerting news from the “fairy kingdom of Luxembourg where the European Court of Justice rules supreme without a ‘supremacy’ clause’” as American scholar E. Stein famously remarked. The judiciary annulled the Council decision curtailing the 3.7% pay-rise of EU civil servants. From a legal standpoint, the Court merely applied EU law. Struggling taxpayers across Europe will have to pay. 46,000 civil servants (including ECJ judges) are poised to receive their frozen pay-rise plus interests pending new rules. A Happy New year to them!
.
We, citizens of Europe, are all equal but some are more equal than others. In the subsidized farm that the EU has become, one cannot help but think that the “pigs” are living in Brussels. Shocked by the Orwellian metaphor? Think again.
.
At the centre of the EU empire, the neo-gosplanners are planning for more 10-year-plans (the 2020 Agenda) unable to review their failing integrationist momentum course. To save the Euro, the bloc nudges towards the establishment of a centralized economic government and to carry out this impossible mission, an economic governance Czar, Council president Herman Van Rompuy, is to be anointed. In the meantime, anger is pouring onto the streets and the governments of the PIGS are fighting for their political survival.
.
In the late 1980s, the political vision of the single currency driven by Jacques Delors, a socialist now acting as a “wise man” of integration, prevailed. It is worth recalling that the final endorsement of the Delors Report by the member states took place against a background of extraordinary events: the fall of Communism. The quantum leap of integration (1991 Maastricht Treaty establishing the union) is therefore linked to the desintegration of the Soviet Empire. The old French fears of a powerful neighbour provided additional diplomatic momentum for the Monetary Union.
.
Realists would argue that the Euro was the political price Germany had to pay for reunification. In 2010, its taxpayers are bearing the financial cost of the debt mess. The question is: for how long?
.
Whatever form the rescue or control mechanism eventually takes, it will imply more bureaucracy to enforce convergence on 27 divergent economies. The parallel with the centrally planned economies of the former Soviet bloc and their eventual failure to deliver prosperity is pertinent. Grand centralizing bureaucratic schemes eventually fail and in the process dwarf individual freedoms. Have we not learnt the lesson? Evidently not.
.
The quasi-authoritarian technocratic measures imposed by the troika (IMF-EC-ECB) are undermining popular sovereignty, i.e. who rules. As a recent survey revealed, 56% of Irish people believe that by accepting the bailouts, their country has surrendered political independence. Eurosceptics have long argued that the Brussels elite are actively seeking to replace sovereignty by bureaucracy, voters by experts. As the rejection and eventual adoption of the European Constitution in all but name amply demonstrated, popular sovereignty is deeply unpopular with the European leadership. To illustrate the arrogance of our new “vanguard”, suffice it to recall the comment made by former Labour Commissioner Neil Kinnock in the aftermaths the referendum in 2005. The French “non” said he, was “the triumph of ignorance"....
.
How ironic that the European Union now fighting for its survival would owe so much to the demise of another supranational utopia; the Soviet Union with its own kind of highly centralized supranational state apparatus and privileged elite. In a thought-provoking essay, "The Soviet Roots of European integration” (2004), former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky explains how socialist ideas have gradually transformed a successful economic area (EEC) into a new bureaucratic hegemon. Food for thought.
.
Of course, the “post-democratic” Union is constituted by democratic states enjoying high standards of political freedom. To Bielarussian democrats, the EU represents a beacon of freedom. But everything is relative. In fortress Europe, it is no longer possible to ignore the obvious. The on-going surrender of sovereign rights to a self-serving nomenklatura is a step towards the establishment of a supranational economic government, and a bEUROcratic Leviathan. In 1944, Austrian economist F.A. Hayek called it the “Road to Serfdom”.

Reforme des retraites: carton rouge pour la gauche.

2010-10-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

Article published in UnMondeLibre (France), 3Hs (Turkiye). In la langue de Shakespeare(shortened version) in France's largest English language paper (November issue), called funnily enough, theFrenchPaper. Finally in the University of Portsmouth students newspaper, Pugwash News.
.

English version, The French Paper.

.
In the name of “solidarité”, a vocal minority of “grèvistes” (strikers) appears to be prepared to fight to the bitter end to prevent the government doing the right thing, namely reforming the pension system. While there was plenty of solidarity in evidence in Chile with the whole nation pulling together behind its “33”, what we are witnessing on French streets is a flurry of irresponsibility and selfishness. In a well-rehearsed action plan, two million or so of my compatriots are once again taking the country hostage in their latest attempt to save a floundering model of welfare state.

Since the shameful fiasco of the national football team, you could be forgiven for thinking that the French love to wallow in endless strikes. But just as most fans were disgusted by the attitude of the striking players, private sector employees are unimpressed by the repeated strikes of public sector workers (1/5 of the labour force). The international media is predictably painting the French with a broad brush, a nation of demonstrators. The other side of the argument – let’s call it the “other France” - rarely features in programmes presumably because "l'autre France" rarely demonstrates. The stories of the hard-working entrepreneur-boulangers and artisans, innovating small family enterprises struggling to remain competitive despite one of the highest burden of taxation in the developed world do not have the same news appeal. But they are many untold tales of real solidarity between bosses and workers reaching compromises to try and save together their livelihood. Unions do not approve.

Impervious to the fate of the “other France”, members of the unions (8% of the work force) have been joined by a minority of politicized high school students steeped in the same cult of job-for-life and “acquis sociaux” (none-reviewable social rights), the sacred cows of the Left. Ironically the teenagers' prospects of finding work are being curtailed by the very system their parents are trying to keep in place. With youth unemployment at a record 23%, a sizeable number of them after graduating will be seeking employment across the Channel in the more flexible British labour market. Until then, they add oil to the fire by mindlessly, and sometimes violently, protesting against all-things liberal (and Anglo-Saxon).

The democratic choice of the people is inexorably vanishing in the commotion created by the latest wave of street protests. Polls can be made to say anything. The much quoted “support” to the strikers is probably more an expression of the people's belief in the right to protest as a cornerstone of democracy than anything else. Other polls have shown that a majority understand that action must be taken to avoid a Greek-like tragedy. For those who want to see, the right to strike is now blatantly being abused and used as an undemocratic tool for a few to reverse a democratic decision (pension reform law) with street coercion.

Amazingly, Martine Aubry, the General Secretary of the Socialist Party seems unperturbed by the abyssal social security deficit and the mounting sovereign debt. Having recently celebrated her 60th birthday, she could lead by example and retire. But the great architect of the economically disastrous 35-hour-working-week fights on and continues to enjoy the privileges bequeathed on our politico-administrative nomenclature. The fact that politicians can hold several electoral mandates – and salaries – is an absolute scandal but it is a gravy train few, be it on the Left or the Right, would like to see stop at some “austerity” station. Needless to say, they are not bound by a compulsory retirement age.

Are radical self-imposed austerity measures “à la Cameron” plausible? Not really. To the government's credit, reforms to change a damaging culture of welfare benefit-dependency have been introduced but it will take more than modest politically correct steps to have any real impact. As to meaningful cuts to France’s sprawling administration, dream on. Half of the members of the French Parliament are civil servants so serious reforms are more likely to be imposed by the EU - read Germany - or forced upon any government by the “evil” market and its credit rating agencies (looming downgrading).

Oil shortages are looming too and violence could spread to the suburbs. While the Left backs the workers of state-owned refineries' against privatization, the “other France” can only hope that the government will stand firm and show the kind of resolve Margaret Thatcher exhibited in the 1980s when the coal miners' strike threatened the British economy. The behaviour of our “équipe nationale” was a disgrace and deeply hurt the nation's pride. The irresponsibility of union leaders and their political masters is no less disgraceful. The consequences for the fragile recovery and the future could be far-reaching.

Brussels Declaration, 28 August 2010 at the first European Libertarian Students Summit

2010-09-02T06:51:00.001-07:00

From democratic deficit to “Avatar” Euro-democracy.

2010-08-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

Published in Hürriyet Daily News, Un Monde Libre and EurActiv-ated.
Also published in a slightly different version in The Globe and Mail (Can.), The Providence Journal (USA) and The Australian (comme son nom l'indique).

.
The summer period is always an ideal time for administrations and legislatures to introduce unpopular measures or launch ridiculous projects. Enter “Citzalia”, a simulation game or the European Parliament’s newest communication tool. When you thought things could not get more disconnected from reality, they literally got more “virtual”. Soon citizen-avatars will be able to experience “democracy in action” in virtual reality. The democratic deficit has not been seriously addressed but the EU may be about to enter a new dimension: virtual democracy.

After the failure of its on-line TV “Europarl” (C-span à la EU), the Parliament is preparing to launch “Citzalia”, an educational "platform" described as a “3D world that captures the essence of the European Parliament”. Thus through “role play” and “social networking”, citizen-avatars will have the opportunity to walk the corridors of the Brussels’ nebulous power, and interact with MEP-avatars [1]. British journalist Christopher Booker was quick to spot the irony and drew a parallel with the situation in the UK under the present coalition. “We walk around, network, debate issues of the day, even propose legislation. But as with that computer game, it is an empty charade”[2] (Daily Telegraph, 7/08/2010).

Presumably the point - at 275,000€ - is to shed some light on the terribly important role of the EU legislature without which there would be no democracy worth talking about. With record low participation in the last parliamentary elections (2009, 43%), things are getting desperate. Frankly, the thought of citizen-avatars unleashed in the virtual corridors of power to try and figure out the “co-decision” legislative process is dizzying. Good luck to them with the arcane complexity of consultations between the Commission, the Council, the Parliament and the culture of deals behind the proverbial “closed doors”. Under the Lisbon treaty, a new consultation procedure with the 27 national legislatures (the so-called “Barroso initiative”)[3] should add to the bureaucratic fun.

Exposing the boring, poorly attended and entirely “managed” nature of debates in the hemicycle would be in the interest of transparency. Not to mention the outrageous nomadicity of the Parliament’s “democratic” business with its epic shuttling between Strasbourg and Brussels (annual cost, €200 million). But too much “realism” might confuse citizen-avatars who once back in the real world, would be entirely justified to question their MEPs - if they can find them. So the virtual experience is most certainly “idealized”. For the Euro-élite, the line between information and propaganda is not just “thin”, it is more often than not virtually invisible. The report by the Swedish think tank Timbro, “the European Union’s burden”, accuses the EU of “creating a propaganda machine” (EU Observer, 29/07/2009)[4].

The Lisbon Treaty “Citizens’ Initiative” (Article 11) should feature prominently in a compensatory sort of way. On planet Europe, the initiative purporting to enhance citizens’ participation by enabling them to propose legislation is hopelessly bogged down in red tape and controversy. It is slowly but surely being, well, bureaucratized to the point of meaninglessness. The unelected Commission is the sole arbiter in determining what constitutes a valid or “silly” proposal. The truth is that elected representatives are confined to a “rubber-stamping” job with the right to throw occasional “delaying tantrums” to earn their credentials as the guardians of EU “democracy”. The German Financial Times described the screening process as an example of “managed democracy” [5] (03/04/2010), a term one normally associates with Russia.

Forget the citizen-avatar. To really learn how it works, there should be an option for using a lobbyist-avatar. After all, interest groups are ideally suited for the European multi-layered, consensus-driven polity. Take the environmental policy sphere. It is hardly the utopian Navi community of planet Pandora. Behind the official discourse of “greening our economy” and “saving future generations” (and closed doors), lobbies are very active. But not just to save us from eco-Armageddon. The friends of Gaia have many friends in Brussels who allocate funds to them. As the International Policy Network study “the Friends of the EU”[6] (8/03/2010) highlights, green advocacy groups are subsidized to lobby for more funds and provide expertise. This self-serving cycle undermines the democratic process.

“Managed” democracy, virtual or real, is a risky business. Citizens - like avatars - can be unpredictable and uncommonly ungrateful. In Europe, the propensity of the former to rebel by giving the wrong answer (No-votes or abstentions) to the unique brand of “yes-only-democracy” is amply demonstrated. The game designers insist that there will be no censorship [7] (The Guardian, 06/08/2010). So maybe a formula for a freer Europe might actually emerge from a silly idea because in the real EU, all we get is more of the same old democratic deficit.

[1] http://blog.citzalia.eu/about-citzalia/
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7932343/We-are-given-virtual-democracy-in-exchange-for-real-power.html
[3] http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/treaty-opens-eu-door-national-parliaments/article-187888
[4] http://euobserver.com/883/28505
[5] http://www.ftd.de/politik/europa/:lissabon-vertrag-gelenkte-demokratie-in-der-eu/50095937.html#utm_source=rss2&utm_medium=rss_feed&utm_campaign=/
[6] http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu
[7] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/06/eu-parliament-role-playing-game-online

Rescuing Europe from its politicians

2010-05-05T02:00:00.000-07:00

In 1993 Alan Milward posited the controversial thesis that the EU had rescued the nation state. To survive, he argued, Europe would need to integrate more. With Greece on the “brink of the abyss”, reviewing the integrationist assumptions is now an urgent necessity. Since the completion of the single market (early 1990s), the construction of the European social and economic model or “way” has been pursued by politicians and ideologues without regards to the cost. Sovereign debt now threatens the Union in an unprecedented way. Yet whether the unfolding crisis will act as a catalyst for change is the million-Euro question.
.
Deriding the Anglo-Saxon model (limited government and free market economy) has been the favourite pastime of our élite on all sides. Nowadays, no-one is gloating. Bill Emmott (Times, April 30, 2010) puts it like it is: “Europe’s economy is the sick man of the world”. This year, “Schuman Day” was a more sombre occasion. Still, reflecting on the past is crucial to understand what went wrong. Indeed, Post-WWII integration into a single market was undeniably a success story. The basic economic assumption of the European model of regional economic integration was liberal (free trade, deregulation and small government), and it delivered what the peoples of the founding nations had expected of it; prosperity and peace.
.
In 2010 alarm bells are ringing across Europe with sovereign debt threatening to unravel the success of the early decades. How did we get here? To cut a long story short, from the Maastricht Treaty (1992) onwards, the European political class could not resist the sirens of “social” Europe or to be more precise “socialist” Europe (growth of big government, the welfare state and statism). In the noughties, the establishment of the single currency with the ECB policy of “strong Euro” led politicians to succumb to the folly of growth and development through borrowing. Preaching the saviour, more protectionist welfare state has become the electoral mantra resulting in Europe being run à la socialiste, and on credit (future generations would pay the bill!).
.
Since the first signs of scepticism appeared in the publics (late 1990s) culminating in the rejection of the Constitution in 2005, the EU leadership’s response has invariably been the same; more integration. This process has now fossilized into a dogma. Pushing for more centralised decision-making powers, a more social and overtly less liberal Europe has become the prevailing political discourse. The rise of the unsustainable welfare (member) state has been unstoppable. The Greek disaster should be seen in this context. While irresponsible and corrupt politicians should be held to account, it is evident that the mess has been enabled by the Post-Maastricht “European way” as framed by socialist-minded “éminence grises” (Jacques Delors, Tony Blair or philosophers like Juergen Habermas, to name but a few). Paradoxically, the idea of big-government has been embraced by right-wing politicians too.
.
The EU “way” (which incidentally includes turning a blind eye on Greek deceptions and probably many others) has created havoc. Europe’s economy has lost its competitive edge and now faces tough competition from emerging countries. Growth is near-zero, unemployment is high and citizens disillusioned. Predictably, the European Commission’s plan for the future (2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth) calls for the creation of a more “social market”. Like the previous one, it is destined to fail. The Lisbon Treaty is likely to act as a roadmap for this utopia as well as a straight-jacket preventing any flexibility. Gone is the pragmatism of the early years.
.
French economist Guy Sorman warns that dealing with the Greek debt without addressing its fundamental cause will miss the mark. The author of “Economics Does Not Lie” opines that the rescue package can only be a palliative. In his opinion, the most pressing issue for politicians is to confront and end the current “strategy of decline”. More dogmatic integration (economic governance, regulation) would be counterproductive. However breaking out of the dominant socialist (statist) ideological mind-set which guides the élite to resort to more of the same policies, will require courage and leadership. In this regard, one can only welcome the resurgence of the British Conservative Party. At least, a healthy doze of scepticism will act like medicine for the "sick EU patient".
.
If one needed a reminder of how completely alienated from society and its realities the Euro-political class is, the recent drama of the volcanic ash-cloud provides a perfect illustration. The rigid bureaucratic and chaotic political response which led to huge economic loss, was a striking example of poor leadership compounded by a paralyzing culture of risk-aversion. As journalist Yulia Latynina aptly observed, bureaucrats had proved "more harmful than volcanoes” (Moscow Times, April 20, 2010). While the EU political élite huffed and puffed, the Russian Presidential plane bringing Dmitri Medvedev for the funerals of the Polish President landed in Krakow without a glitch . The leadership of the Union was conspicuous by its absence.
.
Right now, politicians could prove more dangerous than Greek economic woes. The painful truth for our élite is that their decisions have led Europe on a path to economic decline. It is high time to bite the bullet and change course. To start with, citizens must be engaged with more than personality cult of the founding father and “what-Europe-has-done-for-us” brochures and rhetoric. The pretence that the EU can afford the social(ist) model it is purporting to download across the continent must be dropped, or more disillusionment (and anger spilling on the streets) will be fostered.
.
Verbose sermons of solidarity and unity professed in official receptions and academic circles are aloof words spoken on the deck of the ship battered by howling winds. The markets and the increasingly Euro-sceptic electorates are no longer listening. The EU needs to go back to its wealth-creation way, and it needs it fast.

The EU Easter egg....

2010-04-05T11:57:00.001-07:00

The chicks are: the new President of the European Council and High Representative for foreign affairs...

Eco-cultishness and the petition threatening la liberté!

2010-04-02T04:07:00.000-07:00

In France, the "debate" on climate change has taken a turn for the worse. A petition signed by 410 scientists (mostly involved in climate research) was presented to the Minister of Education and Research, Madame Pécresse, asking for more political support for the global warming thesis as postulated by the IPCC. And even more astonishingly, requesting the government to "take action" against two climate sceptic scientists; former minister Dr. Claude Allègre and Professeur Vincent Courtillot whose views were expressed in recently published books (see below).

The signatories feel that these dissenting scientific opinions are discrediting the supreme seriousness of their own work. The mind boggles.
.

What kind of "action" is not clear. Science by decree? Criminalization of the denial-dissent of IPCC climate truth ? Internment in psychiatric hospitals for those "deranged" scientists? Et pourquoi pas un goulag climatique? The methods used by Trofim Lyssenko to impose his scientific truth under Stalin spring to mind.... But je m'égare - I digress. La France is not ze Soviet Union.

Of course not. But eco-intolerence amongst environment activists, scientists and greened politicians is becoming a real threat to freedom of speech and scholarship. After the former socialist minister Michel Rocard's comment, namely that the decision to scrap the carbon tax was a "crime against humanity" - oui, je répète un "crime contre l'humanité"! - we have now scientists requesting government's intervention against climate-sceptic thinking and research.

What this is about is an attempt by a group of interested climatologists defending the thesis of man-made global warming, to discredit the work of scientists who dissent. The "niet" of the latter to climate alarmism hype does not go down well with the former, namely the self-appointed priesthood of Gaia .... Behind the carefully crafted text (accessible in article in Libération ), it appears that the objective of "alarmist scientists" (two are members of the IPCC-GIEC) is to see the UN "absolute climate truth" protected by the State, and the publication of dissenting research/opinions vetted.
.

Why? Because these climatologists live from climate alarmism - massive public funds allocated to it - and in the wake of the various climate-gates, scepticism among the publics has risen hence potentially threatening their jobs and could undermine the "climate business" (See post on ze blog Objectif Liberté). Fearing that research budgets might melt away faster than polar ice-caps, our "endangered" climatologists strike back!
.
For more on this latest twist français in the culte de Gaïa, climate alarmism et autres réchauffismes liberticides, read this excellent post by Jean-Michel Bélouve author of "La Servitude Climatique" (see below) in the Cri du Contribuable.: Petition against Allègre and Courtillot: French climatologists are losing it" (Les climatologues français perdent tout sens de la mesure). The author points notably to the fact that the two French "other thinker"-scientists are not alone. Many more have not endorsed the so-called IPCC "scientific consensus"! He notably recalls the 1992 Heidelberg Appeal signed by 4,000 scientists (including 70 nobel prize winners) who inter alia voiced concern about the intrusion of ideology in science (Earth Summit in Rio).
.

Answering the accusations that his work is not peer-reviewed, Prof. Courtillot puts his record straight in Le Monde. and Le Figaro. He notes inter alia: "It is the mechanism of the IPCC I am criticical of. I maintain that even with many more scientists, such a system cannot possibly garantee to tell the 'scientific truth'.

Also see the "lettre ouverte" by the mathematician Benoît Rittaud ("Le mythe climatique", see below). His critique hits the nail. The implications of this démarche for state intervention - if acted upon by public authorities - against two scientists are serious; introduction of political censorship of scientific work, infringement of freedom of speech and thought.

Douce France, cher pays de mon enfance et des droits de l'Homme... Quid la liberté d'expression et de penser? Pauvre science! With Liberté pour l'Histoire historians have been fighting against state edicted historical truths (lois mémorielles). It now looks like minority view scientists might be forced to do the same "pour la Science".... Aux armes citoyens!
.

That climatologists would resort to this kind of "trick" is deeply troubling. Frankly, this latest épisode climatique begs the question of whether the French "rechauffiste" brigade is not actually prepared to go down the road of green authoritarianism. It is a sad day for our democracy....

.
"Pour rire it's tax free", enjoy the caricature très drôle of a French climate lesson created by Yann Goap for the blog "Pensée-unique" . In the front row, two GIEC-IPCC children-scientists (a Dr. Pachauri or le breton Hervé le Treut?) snitching on their dissenting classmate-scientists (Courtillot and Allègre). The teacher is Madame la Ministre and the leçon is - in franglais - "In réchauffisme we trust" (In warmism we trust). The language used in French is childish and would translate in something like "Mistress, they are pestering us...."
.

Ce à quoi on pourrait répondre (answer) en français de cour de maternelle: Maîkresse, yaka lire queske les bonomes verts veules pas qu'on sêt!

Loosely translated in good franglais this means: read what les druides verts do not want you to know en français.

Dr. Claude Allègre: L'imposture climatique où la fausse écologie.

Benoît Rittaud : Le mythe climatique.

Professeur Vincent Courtillot: Notre voyage au centre de la Terre.

Jean-Michel Bélouve: La servitude climatique: changement climatique business et politique.

Dr. Emmanuel Martin: Un Monde Libre

Le blog de Vincent Bénard: Objectif Liberté, dossiers et gazette du "réchauffement" climatique.

Nananèèèère (so haha see)..

Earth Hour: the tyranny of Gaïa?

2010-03-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Version longue:

Before 1972 (first European environmental action plan), there was darkness in Europe. The nation-state, its citizenry and industries were blighted, selfish polluters not paying due care to “Mother Earth” (Gaïa) and its creatures. And then there was light, green light that is, switched on permanently by a common environmental policy (Single European Act, 1987). Or so goes the official tale. Curiously with the Earth Hour, the friends of Gaïa were asking us to celebrate darkness again, quite literally by switching off our lights for an hour in an absurd ritualistic global communion against progress.
.
The organiser of this initiative, the World Wildlife Fund trumpeted success. In France the national electricity company EDF observed a mere 1% decrease in electricity consumption, a situation that can surely best be explained by the fact that only the modern day followers of the cult of Gaïa - the “greens” - and, their new priesthood - NGOs, experts, politicians - heeded the call. Environmentalists have been influenced by James Lovelock’s “theory of Gaïa” which claims that the earth is a single living organism. Unperturbed by the fact that many scientists view it as little more than a neo-pagan new age religion, environmentalism regards Man and modernity (notably energy production and consumption) as a “disease killing the planet”.
.
The controversial hypothesis has influenced the “deep ecology” movement and is a foundation stone of political ecology in the Western world. It has had a profound impact on governance and policy-making in Europe. As academics like to point out, the environmental policy is the perfect example of Jean Monnet’s neo-functionalist method of integration through “spill-over” in other sectors. Hence the green policy has “stealthily” grown in size and is now on its 6th Environmental Action Programme (2002-2012). Addressing climate change, nature and biodiversity, environment and health, natural resources and waste, it basically permeates all aspects of policy-making, and by implication, of our lives.
.
Apparently we should only be grateful. Questioning the scientific or moral foundation of green economic integration and cultishness is considered politically incorrect. If you do, you are treated as barking mad or ignorant. When your “scepticism” comes out of the closet, you fall into the category of the “bag guys” or deniers. The “good guys”, namely the green experts are a bit like the Navi people in Avatar. They “commune” with Mother Nature and know best. Armed with the absolute Truth, they preach the cult of Gaïa in its less extreme form through policies, laws, campaigns and by resorting to climate alarmism to impose their “noble” cause on the masses.
.
Of course, the European Union is not the utopian planet of Pandora. Behind the official discourse of “legacy to future generations”, (green) greed, power and interests play an important part. Organisations like the WWF are friends with big corporations. Greening one's conscience has a price: donations. The friends of Gaïa also have many friends in Brussels and receive public funds (EU budget) whether taxpayers approve or not. As the recent International Policy Network study “the Friends of the EU" revealed, green advocacy groups like Friends of the Earth, Birdlife or WWF (the so-called big 8 or 10) receive plenty of funds to lobby for more funds and provide environmental expertise to the Commission. The researchers concluded that “sponsoring the narrow interests of such NGOs undermined the democratic process”.
.
Politicians have embraced the green dogma with gusto. When the French government recently scrapped its carbon tax plan, the socialist politician Michel Rocard crossed a verbal Rubicon by calling this decision a “crime against humanity”. The proposed tax promoted by environmentalist leaders with no democratic mandate is in fact opposed by a majority of people (59%). The Secretary of State for ecology declared herself “distraught” by the setback, prompting some bloggers to comment that too much ecology on one’s mind could be a mental health hazard... Rest assured that the proposal will be pursued with a vengeance at supranational level in one form or another. The proverbial democratic deficit of the EU has served Gaïa well.

.
Eco-cultishness is relentless. A friend of mine (No. 34 left) is passionate about off-road motor biking and takes part in amateur races in rural Brittany. His idea of a fun time keeps the local bike shop in business. On racing weekends, the villages burst into life with competitors and support team-families. It is festive, noisy and definitely not carbon-emission free. These armour-clad, mostly middle-aged male weekend-bikers stand accused by the local “écolos” of riding the planet to eco-Armageddon. The green fundamentalists call for a ban but the slow regulation of this activity out of existence is the most likely outcome. The friends of Gaïa with friends in the EU can avail themselves of eco-directives they lobbied for and helped draft. The quasi sacred 1979 Birds Directive springs to mind. Surely there must be a few feathered creatures they could find and whose rights are infringed.
.
European NGOs, like the migrating birds they care so-much about, are not stopped by borders. Driven by a missionary spirit, they are fighting to impose “sustainable development” in the name of Gaïa everywhere possible. In Ethiopia for example, a “coalition of the irresponsible” (NGOs including WWF) is campaigning to stop the government’s project to build the Gibe III dam which would bring progress to millions. In a recent article, Nathalie Rothschild, the editor of Spiked-online, makes a compelling case against “green madness”. She notes that “the needs of the Africans are clearly not a priority for environmentalists. … They are more concerned about preserving the biodiversity of the Omo river than lifting its people out of abject poverty”. In 2010, 70pc of Ethiopians are still unable to switch on a light and the friends of Gaïa would like it to stay that way.
.
Environmental protection and nature conservation should be based on reason, not cultishness. I kept my lights on during "Earth Hour" and celebrated human achievement, progress and the pursuit of happiness in all its forms.

The French elections that changed nothing.

2010-03-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

French people take democracy seriously when there is a stake and a sense that their ballots will make a difference. Politics is endlessly debated with passion, especially over good food. But for the second round of regional elections, half of the electorate chose - again - to linger over lunch. In the search for explanations for this mediocre turnout, pundits are invoking the usual suspects, i.e. the rise of the left and a sanction against the ruling party (UMP). No one seems to be considering that many voters might have found it more rational not to vote to elect councillors whose job it is to oversee a decentralised bureaucracy with reduced fiscal powers and plagued, like the rest of the State, with worrying levels of debt.
.
The facts are compelling. 21 of the 22 metropolitan regional councils now have left-leaning majorities (Parti Socialiste and Europe Ecologie). The overall results (including the resurgence of the far-right Front National) are clearly humiliating for the UMP but it should not be forgotten that they also mirror those of the 2004 regional ballot. Using a rugby analogy on the weekend the national team had won the six-nation-tournament, analysts were quick to point out that the Left with its electoral tsunami had not succeeded in “converting the try” in the 2007 presidential elections. The leaders of the victorious side, Martine Aubry (PS) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit (EE) are jubilant. But no-one is fooled, least of all the electorate, who know too well that in a highly centralised state like France, the real power lies at the centre, Paris.
.
Still, regions matter and the socialists love them. Since their introduction in the current form during the Mitterrand years (1984 Law on decentralisation, 1986 first direct elections), the Left has been the dominant force of this extra layer of the proverbial French administrative “mille-feuilles” (like the cake, with many layers). Regions have acquired competences in the fields of economic development, education, transport and culture. Over the years as budget expanded and local taxes increased, the Regional Council has become a nexus of considerable power and influence. In a region like Bretagne (Brittany) with a strong sense of cultural identity the President presides over a deliberative assembly of 83 councillors and a small executive. Importantly, he administers a budget of €1.1 billion (2009, population of 3.1 million) supported in this task by a large bureaucracy, namely 3500 agents spread across the four departments. The state-appointed regional governor (Préfet) nevertheless remains in law the most powerful authority.
.
France is a rich patchwork of cultures but historically regionalism has never sat comfortably with the Jacobin tradition. With the creation of the regions, critics have observed that the State has only paid lip-service to decentralisation by simply inserting another costly layer of administration, effectively co-opting local political élite into the national political class. For the economist Emmanuel Martin, the regions illustrate the root-problem of the French style decentralisation. He argues that the model has had to counter excessive centralising forces which in turn led to the establishment of a jungle of local spendthrift fiefdoms with no real fiscal or budgetary responsibilities. The mounting debt of French regions - €25 billion by 2012 - has the Fitch Ratings agency worried (1). Ultimately regions are only accountable to their pay-master, Paris, not to the citizens. From a rational choice theory perspective, it makes sense not to vote.
.
For all the democratic hullabaloo (at a cost of €136 million), many would agree that under the supremely absurd system of “cumul des mandats” which sees politicians holding several elective mandate complete with the cumulative sum of privileges and remunerations, regional elections matter more to the political class than to the citizens. As journalist Yvan Stefanovitch puts it in his thought-provoking book “La Caste des 500: Enquête sur les Princes de la République”, France is ruled by a caste of 500 professional politicians who, be it in their local fiefdoms or at national level, exercise quasi regal powers and live well at the State's expense. Every six years, the “new feudal lords" (an expression borrowed from the essayist Roland Hureaux see "Les nouveaux féodaux. Le contresens de la décentralisation") joust for the control of local administrations and a well-established system of clientelism
.
The Socialist Party Secretary General - the Soviet Union collapsed but not the socialist utopia and its paraphernalia - Martine Aubry is a prominent member of the French nomenklatura. The daughter of former socialist and federalist commissioner Jacques Delors, she sponsored inter alia the economically disastrous 35-hour-week law. On promises of safeguarding the social acquis, saving the public services and redistributing a lot of solidarity, she has made a credible political comeback. How resorting to more statist policies will help resolve the ominous deficit and debt is not clear. While disaffected voters abstained, the SP’s traditional support base (employees of the state sector, 1/5 of the labour force and workers) massively mobilised during the elections. The all-powerful unions with their well-rehearsed disruptive capacity can be trusted to launch public sector demonstrations to obtain concessions from a ruling majority weakened by an electoral "Bérézina" (defeat).
.
Ironically, although elected on a platform of liberal reforms with notably promises to downsize the state and create a favourable environment for the private sector, Nicolas Sarkozy has championed more state intervention in the economy and extravagant public spending (2009 stimulus plan: €39.1 billion. 2010 state loan: €35 billion). In the meantime, unemployment has continued to rise. The ruling party's political discourse is not socialist but by and large, its policies have maintained “l’état providence” (Nanny-state), the very model hailed by the Left. In France, be it at the regional or national level, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” (2)
.

(1) Journal des Finances, 22 March 2010 http://www.jdf.com/indices/2010/03/22/02003-20100322ARTJDF00036-la-dette-des-regions-francaises-sous-surveillance-.php
(2) "The more things change, the more they stay the same"

Guy Sorman sur la catastrophe keynésienne

2010-03-10T12:33:00.000-08:00

La catastrophe keynésienne vu par Sorman. A lire.

Lettre ouverte: M. Putine muselle les libertés

2010-02-22T17:19:00.000-08:00

Lettre ouverte dans Le Monde de citoyens russes.
.
Dans les capitales européennes, des dirigeants épris de liberté annoncent fièrement une nouvelle ère de coopération avec la Russie. A Berlin, on se vante d'une "relation spéciale" avec Moscou tout en progressant sur de gigantesques projets énergétiques avec le monopole gazier Gazprom. A Rome, Silvio berlusconi rentre d'un voyage à Saint-Pétersbourg, où il a fêté le 59e anniversaire de son "ami"Vladimir Poutine. Et, à Paris, les négociations avancent sur la vente de navires de classe Mistral, porte-hélicoptères ultramodernes..... More.
.
In the field of cutlure, the year of Russia in France and of France in Russia (en russe).

The "mistral" is a strong southerly thermal wind blowing in the south of France. Quite unpredictable and treacherous for sailors.

European Tea Party Movement. It's happening!

2010-02-19T11:29:00.000-08:00

Tea bags are being dumped in European waters too. The Washington Times made a call for such a movement to start. In fact it had already started in various countries, including in the UK! I am aware of two events taking place in London and Portsmouth last November (below Portsmouth, pre-Flopenhagen ).

Tea Partiers have started to mobilise across the continent and on the net (a Facebook group and a Euro-Tea Party website). How far this will go is unclear but as the debt crisis in Greece deepens and more bad news appears every day (UK's debt could surpass Greece's. Daily Telegraph), anger is brewing... Time for a cuppa! In England everything starts with a cup of tea. What could be more British than a tea party as Daniel Hannan MEP puts it!
.
Previous post on tea partying. Let them eat cake. Or dump tea!

Atlas Shrugged Europe?

2010-02-15T03:59:00.000-08:00

The article appears in Un Monde Libre - blog post -, African Liberty and Hürriyet Daily News.
.
With the financial crisis hitting the American real economy and government’s spending (and debt) reaching unprecedented levels, sales of “Atlas Shrugged”, the 1957 novel by Russian-born author Ayn Rand have surged (1). In welfare Europe, this hymn to individualism and laissez-faire capitalism has mostly been dismissed by the intellectual class as Anglo-Saxon “rant” or just “fantasy”. Looking at Greece’s fiscal turmoil, mounting sovereign debt, near-zero growth rates across the bloc and the risk of social unrest spreading, one has to wonder if the prophecy described in the novel has not come true.
.
Cato scholar and economist Daniel J. Mitchell argues convincingly that Greece may well have turned into the real-world version of Atlas Shrugged. The burden of the public sector on the economy is such that “the job creators and wealth generators have given up and/or moved their money out of the country”(http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/02/10/maybe-greece-should-go-bankrupt/).The public sector and interest groups like farmers have grown so powerful that reforms of the bloated civil service (1/4 of labour force) have never seriously been contemplated by successive governments. But it is time for reckoning for the Hellenic Republic has ironically turned into the sick man of Europe (debt of 125% of GDP). In the meantime Turkey’s economy while also experiencing hardtimes, is expected to grow by 3 to 5% this year. Furthermore its public finances have been brought under control and now meet theMaastricht criteria (2009, debt of 40% of GDP).
.
The problem for the Union is that its waiting room is full of patients. Every new election brings renewed promises of reform of big government but rhetoric rarely translates into the kind of bold action necessary to address the problem. In France which also runs a record deficit (€1,500 billion) and whose debt is estimated at 80% of GDP (and rising), reformist agendas are hampered by unions prepared tofight to the bitter end to keep their privileges. President Sarkozy’s mediatized support to Premier Papandreou and his austerity plan was truly a case of the “sick aiding the sick”. Of course no-one wants to see the Balkan state - and other patients of the PIIGS club - descend into full-blown economic collapse but rewarding it for its failings with a bail-out could be equally damaging. The European leadership is naturally cautious and jittery. And so are the markets hardly reassured by the vagueness of political statements and the lack of details on a possible rescue package (2).
.
To the relief of most politicians, the debate in the mainstream media has shifted from Greece’s blatant lies and evident responsibility in this mess to accusations of “immoral” speculation against the Euro. The market - capitalism - has once again become the “convenient”culprit. Commenting on the US, Stephen Moore opined that "The current economic strategy is right out of Atlas Shrugged. The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you" (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 9, 2010). Well, the Franco-German directoire is mulling over the idea of experimenting along those lines with an “incompetent” member state. It is a dangerous precedent and raises issues of legality.
.
It is widely acknowledged that public opinions are against the idea of bearing the burden of risks. The Brussels-based think tank Open Europe asked the "inconvenient" question (June 2009) and found that “70 percent of German voters were opposed to using taxpayer funds to bailout countries in financial difficulties such as Ireland or Greece.” (3) Its recent study - A Greek bail-out: is it legally possible and what will it cost taxpayers. Feb. 2010 - warns that “a bailout would involve massive political and economic risks. To try to convince taxpayers in one country of the need for them to pay for the mistakes of a government in another country – which they cannot vote out of office – is a massively difficult task. For most people it is simply unreasonable and fundamentally undemocratic to make taxpayers liable in this way.” In other words, the sounder option would be for Greece to sort its problems by itself, even if it means defaulting.
.
Greece has been on the receiving end of a lot of solidarity (EU funds). In 2010, it apparently expects more as a “right”. For a majority of the Greek demos, the European budget is a - German - cow to be milked. But let’s be honest, they are not alone. Paraphrasing 19th Century French liberal economist Frédéric Bastiat, most people see the EU - like the state - as "a great fiction through which everyone is trying to live at the expense of everyone else". The comment made by a demonstrator in Athens sums it up. “We gave the world democracy” said the civil servant “and we expect the European Union to support us” (IHT February 11, 2010). The truth is that some taxpayers on the giving end of solidarity are starting to ask themselves a more relevant question. What has Greece done for them since 1981? For now the "tragedy" of lies and irresponsibility and its risks for the Union remain theoretical. But time is running out, and the Hellenes' legacy to Europe for the 21st Century could ultimately be one of less prosperity and a lot of bitterness.
.
For the proponents of bigger EU government, the current crisis is an“opportunity” to push for more centralised powers and more regulations. In the new presidents-top-heavy institutional architecture, the most enthusiastic is Herman Van Rompuy who would like to see the European Council as the seat of economic governance. The “EU 2020 strategy” is starting to look like a blueprint for the establishment of a centrally-planned economy. Will the Commission be its Gosplan?
.
Fed up with the mounting cost of the “ever-closer union”, many Eurocitizens may be tempted to “do a John Galt” like the hero of Atlas Shrugged. Rebelling against the imposition of more sacrifice in the name of European solidarity might be the only choice left to them.
.
(1) The Guardian, March 10, 2009
(2) Daily Telegraph, Feb.12, 2010
(3) http://www.openeurope.org.uk/media-entre/pressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=117

From Brussels with more fudge of the theatrical kind

2010-01-16T03:56:00.000-08:00

The new Europe is marching or, to be more precise, it is now “hearing”. Reference is made to the on-going hearing proceedings of commissioner-designates before the European Parliament. Having passed the written “test” (reply to some basic questions), nominees have been invited to take their "grand oral" (confirmation oral exam). Auditions can be watched on Europarl TV, the C-Span à la EU that no-one really watches - except EU watchers. Quid these proceedings? Democratic and transparent or just more fudge?
.
Eurobarometers, no-votes and low elections turn-outs have consistently indicated that the two actors (Commission and Parliament) now involved in the proceedings do not enjoy a high level of trust among the peoples. The failure of the ratification of the Constitution (2005) and its reappearance in the form of the Lisbon Treaty (a near identical document) without direct public consultation (except Ireland) further exposed a bureaucratic and political élite united in deep mistrust of the citizenry. As Professor Ian Ward put it in no uncertain terms; “the new Europe is fundamentally undemocratic” (1). Short on legitimacy and popular support, the élite needs to create its own legitimazing processes. Hence the mediatized “accountability” play now being performed between Brussels and Strasbourg with a script written by EU élite for the EU élite. A popular audience is not essential. Besides the populace has the Eurovision song contest.
.
Indeed for those with a taste for the theatrical, the "Barroso II" play has all the necessary ingredients. High flying rhetoric of values to be upheld and goodness to be bequeathed on citizens, twists in the plot and surprises. The latter came from Stefan Füle, the Czech nominee for enlargement and neighbourhood policy, with his stance in support of Turkey’s membership. In a bloc led by a Franco-German directoire, his honourable opinion on a sensitive issue will not influence policy-making a bit. Yes, in the EU size does matter. As the polity becomes more centralised, some member states are seemingly becoming “more equal”. A little drama was provided with two commissioner-designates (Lithuania and Bulgaria) flunking their audition. Tension, tit-for-tat exchanges between political groups and accusations of “witch hunt” ensued. Gripping. For the internal market portfolio Michel Barnier's solemn declaration to the MEPs that he would not take orders from Paris was so, well, moving.
.
After the politburo-esque appointments of the European Council president and foreign policy chief, few are happy in fortress EU. Behind the wall (the other Europe), the Kremlin is probably satisfied. Quizzed on the Ukraine-Russia gas crises, Baroness Ashton stated her determination to “put pressure” to ensure that the Moscow leadership saw “these issues in an economic way not a political one”. By its very nature, the “siloviki regime” (2) can only see it as both. The “securocrats” in charge have repeatedly demonstrated that they have little time for EU moralising, Sakharov prize winners (arrest of Lyudmila Alexeyeva of NGO Memorial), and that territorial integrity in its “near-abroad” (EU neighbourhood) is to be determined on its own terms. In the final analysis, a google search will yield more information on the bloc's foreign policy than the hearing. Type: “quiet diplomacy”, "soft power" or "energy dependency".
.
Most pundits have dismissed the process as largely ceremonial. It is also incredibly dull. The formula chosen for the proceedings has a lot to do with it. The “one minute for questioning” and “two for answers” format reflects the utterly “managed” nature of debates taking place in the European Parliament. A more adversarial process like the one used in the US Congress committee hearings might have given the publics a chance to experience the frisson of politics. But that is not the EU way of governance. Add to the equation, uninspiring orators (the quangocrat kind), technical subjects and interpretation, you have a recipe for boredom. Furtermore it is clear that the nominees’ grasp of issues pertaining to their portfolios cannot be seriously tested within such contraints. On the positive side, it provides EU watchers with a window to discover the candidates from nations other than theirs.
.
European citizens have not bothered to watch the carefully choreographed proceedings. Who can blame them? Some observers have dismissed the whole affair as a “stitch-up” between member states governments and the EP. Indeed nominees were carefully chosen to appease the main political groups. And so, for that matter, are the words chosen by the Commissioner-designates. Everything had to be "regulated", "greened" and "socialised". In truth, the hearings are a façade, a show for "public" consumption. No-one is trying very hard to dismiss this evidence. Yet few would admit that the real drama is taking place in the “behind-closed-doors" (wherever that is) so characteristic of the EU supranational decision and policy-making process. Thus rest assured that the consensus-building machine is now busy at work in that "public-free zone" where since the onset of European integration, a culture of “secrecy” has prevailed despite the rhetoric of "transparency”.
.
The more powerful Parliament is flexing its muscles. Will it seize this occasion to block the Commission and risk a political crisis after the Lisbon ratification saga? The final act will be played in Strasbourg. Whatever the dénouement, for the euroligarchy the full Lisbon-isation of Europe cannot come a moment too soon. Commissioners "designated" can therefore start looking forward to a mandate of hard work but also a lifestyle of privileges and high salaries (€20,000 monthly+ allowances) (3). Living in the EU bubble, they will enjoy the kind of isolation from the publics once experienced by the top echelon of the Soviet nomenklatura.
.
In times of crisis, eurocrats love to pontificate ad nauseam about the principle of solidarity (4). Let us see if the new "vanguard" can lead by example and show some towards the toiling masses by tightening their belts (dropping the controversial 3.7% pay-rise). But as the former Marxist activist and new foreign policy chief said, idealism is for the young.
.
(1) Ward Ian. A Critical Introduction to European Law, p. 19
(2) Illarionov Andrei. “The siloviki in charge”, Journal of Democracy, April 2009, Vol. 20, No 2
(3) Regulation No 422/67 EEC
(4) TEU, amended by Lisbon Treaty, consolidated version, preamble paragraph 6

In defense of the Turkish Ministry of Environment

2010-01-06T03:20:00.001-08:00

Below find my letter to the editor of the Hurriyet Daily News in response to an article by Dr. Cengiz Aktar who has been consistantly criticizing the Turkish Ministry of Environment for not doing enough in Copenhagen. In the EU accession process, Turkey has just opened the environmental chapter and will need to incorporate all the "green acquis". The cost for Turkish taxpayers is estimated at €59 million. The chances of the EU letting Turkey in? Pretty slim indeed....
.
Here is my letter (more like an Op-ed given its length).
.
With reference to the “Response to the Ministry of Environment” (Dec. 31, 2009), I believe the Turkish government is absolutely right to have kept a low key and pragmatic approach in Copenhagen. The performance by the French delegation (governmental and civil society) led by our now “hyper-green” president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was less than impressive. In fact, it was embarrassing and ended in failure – in my humble view, a blessing in fact.
.
Given that prior to the summit, the “Académie des Sciences” declared that there was no “scientific consensus” on climate change, this frantic push for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, agenda to control the climate (the 2 degree objective) by reducing CO2 emissions appeared all the more disconnected with reality.
.
For those who wanted to see, there was indeed something rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark. Many high profile politicians, activists and UN climate luminaries were so engulfed in their apocalypse rhetoric that they looked more like the high priests of a cult than the cool-headed deciders we need to address environmental issues in a sensible way. The inconvenient truth for experts is that the silent majority was relieved that the hysterically vocal green minority did not get its way at the conference.
.
Of course not everything about the climate change agenda is bad. But the more important question is whether “Climate warmism” (or change-ism) is really about science. Like the “response” to the Ministry of the Environment which makes some valid points, in the final analysis, it aims to support the establishment of a new order with globalized environmental economic “dirigisme.”
.
The cult of Gaïa, this not-so-new mysticism, is just a tool for the new collectivists. The letter further illustrates that there is never a shortage of “red-green,” profoundly anti-liberal leftist French intellectuals whose “deep thoughts” can always be mustered to fight capitalism.
In an interview to the newspaper Libération (Dec. 8, 2009), philosopher Michel Serre lamented that the “Biogée” – earth and life merged into one concept – had not been invited to the summit. We can all agree for the need to discuss measures to protect the environment but should “Gaïa” – or the “Biogée thing” – also sit at the negotiations table and add to the chaos of global governance?!
.
Not surprisingly, both the French and Turkish pro-climate press – the overwhelming majority – have chosen to ignore "inconvenient" news. In a recently-released study, Russian scientists (Institute for Economic Analysis) assert that the already compromised Hadley Centre and Climate Research Unit (University of East Anglia) “cherry-picked” temperature data from the vast Russian territory (only 25% of data used).
.
The report calls for the IPCC to recalculate temperature increase. This is not “flat-earthing” or a “skeptic’s rant” but what science should be about; reason, questioning, transparency, free and open debate. Unfortunately the UN “machin” will do the “climatically correct” thing, i.e. nothing.
.
In France the book by Jean-Michel Belouve (La servitude climatique; changement climatique, business et politique) is attracting more and more attention in spite of the media. It tells the tale of what the proponents of the global warming thesis do not want the general public to know. The “dirty” side of the lofty climate ideology in other words.

Economic development and a measured approach to environmental issues is what will make Turkey a better place to live in for its citizens. Following the incantations of environmentalist gurus and green-red "warriors" as our government in France is doing is a sure recipe for less prosperity and freedom. Copenhagen has failed but it is not the end of the world. Mutlu Yıllar without eco-Armageddon!

Bloavezh Mad!

2010-01-02T11:01:00.000-08:00

A new year with less servitude and lots of happiness! As we say in Breizh (Bretagne), Bloavezh Mad!
.

Tokyo "Rainbow bridge" from Shinagawa

Vœux de nouvel an climatiquement incorrects

2009-12-30T13:03:00.000-08:00

Le Télégramme de Brest, Le Petit Bleu, Le Pays Malouin, Le Ouest France
.
Monsieur le Rédacteur en Chef,
.
De retour au pays pour les fêtes de Noël, je constate que notre classe politique toutes tendances confondues analyse Copenhague en termes négatifs. Dans les journaux tout le monde est d'accord et répète le même message comme au temps de la Pravda des Soviets. La charmante capitale danoise, une des villes les plus eco-friendly de la planète, serait en passe de devenir synonyme de fiasco, de honte, de débâcle. En bref de Bérézina. Comme la bataille du même nom (une rivière en Russie) pour la Grande Armée (1812), le souvenir de la conférence restera graver dans les esprits des écologistes comme un traumatisme. Le parallèle me parait intéressant car la défaite des uns est toujours la victoire des autres. En ce début d'année 2010, je me sens profondément russe si l'on peut dire, et me réjouie de la déroute de l'idéologie réchauffiste !
.
Parler de “gavage” climatique en période de ripailles est un peu facile. C'est surtout politiquement incorrect. Outre-Manche où je réside comme ici, la vérité qui dérange le plus c'est que la fin du sommet et de sa «surmédiatisation » ont été accueilli avec soulagement par la majorité silencieuse. Le catastrophisme écologique n'a pas marché. Les citoyens restent dubitatifs alors que les politiques continuent de jouer les passionarias du climat. L'eurodéputée Corinne Lepage se lamente de l'échec de l'Europe et fustige dirigeants politiques et économiques (Le Monde, 23 décembre 2009). Comment prendre de tels propos au sérieux lorsque l'intéressée qui critique les “méchants” lobbies commerciaux, se fait la porte-parole du “gentil” lobby écologique de l'économie dirigiste verte que Bruxelles souhaite tant imposer! La solution préconisée (plus de pouvoirs aux institutions européennes) reviendrait à agrandir le trou déjà béant du déficit démocratique européen. Réjouissons nous plutôt que l'UE ait raté son premier test de l’aire de Lisbonne et que les appels à plus de « supranationalité » soient restés lettre morte.
.
Les idéologues anticapitalistes camouflés en vert ont raté leur coup d'état dans le bunker gris comme le remarque avec esprit l'essayiste Guy Sorman. La pyramide climatique renversée qui repose en fait sur une poignée de fonctionnaires onusiens et de scientifiques (une cinquantaine) est apparue bien fragile à Copenhague. Il y avait bien quelque chose de pourri dans le Royaume du Danemark - la conférence elle-même avec son bilan carbone record ! En fait, c'est l'ensemble de l'édifice climatique construit par quelques hommes dont les intérêts vont bien au delà de ceux des "générations futures" qui doit être revu. Le réchauffisme n'a pas rapporté que des images au gourou du GIEC, le Dr. Pachauri ainsi qu'à son compère américain Al Gore, "the green millionnaire". Il serait grand temps d'ouvrir la matriochka climatique onusienne. On y trouvera certainement autre chose que de l'altruisme et des bons sentiments. Pour mieux comprendre les enjeux, lire absolument "La servitude climatique : changement climatique, business et politique" de Jean-Michel Belouve.
.
Nos hommes politiques et ONGs menés par notre président sauveur-généralissime tous unis sous l'étendard de la "vertitude" étaient donc partis va-t-en-guerre contre le réchauffement de la planète pour assurer la survie de l'humanité. Comme la Grande Armée de Napoléon, ils sont rentrés au pays dans le froid sans gloire. Personne n'a remarqué lors de cette retraite en ordre dispersé que l’étude de l'institut de recherche moscovite, l’Institute of Economic Analysis, révélait que les centres britanniques Hadley et CRU déjà impliqués dans le « climategate » (le scandale des courriels) n'auraient en fait utilisé que 25% des données de température du vaste territoire russe. Tiens un autre bidouillage ? Inutile d'attendre que le GIEC refasse ses calculs. Tout le monde l’a compris maintenant, le brouhaha climatique c'est avant tout une histoire de gros sous et de politique. La grande perdante c'est la science, la vraie, celle qui demande transparence, scepticisme, débat et liberté d'expression.
.
Quelle insulte pour l'humanité toute entière qui n'a eu cesse de maîtriser la nature et de s'adapter que de vouloir faire croire qu’une augmentation de température de deux degrés puisse conduire à la fin du monde, l’éco-Armageddon ! Quel gaspillage aussi. Les ressources disponibles devraient être utilisées pour résoudre les problèmes environnementaux existants. Pourtant c'est une bulle financière qui est en train d'être gonflée (celle du carbon trading) et l’Europe prêche le protectionnisme vert mettant en danger le développement des pays pauvres. Tout ceci est absurde et dangereux. A Copenhague on l’a échappé belle. Des mesures contraignantes - un traité - auraient sonné le glas du progrès et de la liberté. Les historiens français ont du se battre contre les lois mémorielles liberticides. Les scientifiques et les citoyens devront eux aussi se défendre contre la clique écolo-politico-climatique qui ne recule devant rien pour imposer sa vérité. La liberté pour la science c'est la liberté pour tous!
.
Le vrai danger n’est donc pas le climat qui change depuis 4 milliards d'années sans que les hommes de sciences n'en comprennent encore toutes les causes mais la prise de pouvoir par une minorité au nom d'une idéologie et moralité environnementaliste. Selon notre gourou national Nicolas Hulot, à Copenhague c'est la démocratie qui aurait échouée (Journal du Dimanche, 20 décembre 2009). Sur ce point il est en parfait accord avec le grand "démocrate" Hugo Chavez. Si la fin - la révolution environnementalisme - justifie les moyens, on peut craindre le pire. Méfions-nous donc des tendances totalitaires de notre intelligentsia rouge devenue verte et des journalistes qui n'osent plus la critique. Et la taxe carbone dans tout ça, une autre bérézina? Dans sa grande sagesse, le Conseil constitutionnel l’a annulée et tant pis si cette décision a laissé au vice-président du GIEC, Jean Jouzel, "un arrière goût de déception" (Le Télégramme, 30 décembre 2009). Qu'une majorité de français s'y oppose n'interpelle malheureusement personne dans les hautes sphères politico-climatiques. Cette entente pragmatique entre le gouvernement qui a besoin de remplir les caisses vides de l’Etat et la minorité écologiste qui veut imposer son diktat vert à la majorité est une grande fourberie.
.
Mes résolutions pour la nouvelle année sont donc climatiquement incorrectes puisqu'elles sont raisonnables. Soutenir le développement économique moteur de la prospérité et d’un environnement plus propre. Continuer à protéger la nature avec des gestes "verts" dictés par ma conscience. Refuser d'être réduite à une empreinte carbone. Ne pas me soumettre au règne du climatiquement correct. Dire «niet » à l'"oppression climatique" par la peur, au dirigisme écologique et au culte sacrificiel de la déesse Gaia (la terre mère), ce «nouveau» collectivisme mystique. Jamais les paroles de l'écrivain et philosophe russe Ayn Rand n'ont eu autant de pertinence aussi je lui laisse le mot de la fin: “Il va sans dire que lorsqu’on évoque un sacrifice, il y a toujours quelqu’un pour récolter les offrandes sacrificielles… L’homme qui vous parle de sacrifice parle d’esclaves et de maîtres, et il a l’intention d’être le maître”.
.
Sur la Côte d’Emeraude en 2010 soyons heureux et libre. Bloavezh Mad!
.
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur le Rédacteur en Chef, l'expression de ma plus haute considération.

Copenhagen failed but it is not the end of the world.

2009-12-19T09:22:00.000-08:00

University of Portsmouth (UK) students newspaper
.

Do we need more “climate summiteering"? If Copenhagen is a barometer of where global governance is at, the answer is obvious. The conference was shambolic. Too much global hubris was bound to lead to nowhere. It did with global-esque proportions and we have now "climate conflict" to add to the long list of climate issues. The "climate bubble" has burst, or at least deflated, leaving the world more disunited than before. As conference garbage is being recycled, polar bears costumes put away for the inevitable next climate pow-wow, it is time to cool it and reflect. It is also time to be positive because it is not the end of the world.
.
Pointing fingers at the hosts for poor management is hypocritical. The eco-friendly Nordic nation took upon itself to organise a planetary event with the most fatuous of aim; saving humanity from eco-Armageddon. The bar was set so high that mundane issues of accreditation cards and queuing up in freezing temperatures were bound to heat up excited minds. In fairness to the organisers, theirs was a mammoth task. 192 official delegations, thousands of lawyers, lobbyists, activists, journalists and climate tourists had descended upon the capital. Everybody who was a “climate somebody” - famous or anonymous - was there, eager to be seen, filmed and heard. Handling the “touch-and-go” influx of world leaders on tight schedules, inflated egos and diverging agendas while keeping an eye on climate warriors, hooded trouble-makers, benevolent demonstrators and, the far more sinister potential threat of terrorism, was never going to be easy. The problem is elsewhere.
.
Reporting live from Copenhagen, a French radio correspondent was critical of the “Danish government's agenda”. The summit could be best described as a “clash of agendas”. Green millionnaire Al Gore came with his carbon trading agenda while poor countries came with "climate justice". Greenpeace with a lot of "climate banners". Behind the world leaders' "climate zeal" lies the naked truth of national interests. To explain President Sarkozy's newly found “vertitude” (green attitude), one needs to look at his many agendas. Hugging Brazilian trees and President Lula da Silva before the conference was primarily a trade-agenda stunt. In the declared war on fossil fuel-generated power, the state-sponsored nuclear industry stands to win a lot. But until lucrative deals are signed, something needs to be done about the state deficit (€1,500 billion). "Climate taxation" is the government's weapon of choice. Some analysts put his eagerness down to resurgent Gallic anti-Americanism, and an attempt at re-invigorating French clout in Africa now wallowing in Obamania. A lot of the "hyper-climatehood" is meant for home consumption too. With upcoming regional elections, the ruling party (UMP) needs to be in a position to counter the rise of the "climate left" (red gone green).
.
Predictably after weeks of "climate overload", most people are experiencing “climate fatigue”. In the absence of CO2 propaganda, one is strangely left with the realization that for two weeks, “Big Climate brother” had been watching and intruding into our lives. Indeed escaping the eco-moralising disseminated from the moral heights of the summit's bunker and relayed by cheerleading media, was simply impossible. Putting the kettle on for a hot brew suddenly felt like a crime. "Thou shall feel guilty" was the message. According to British journalist Christopher Booker, this is precisely the point. Scaring the populace with "climate alarmism" is how a few can impose their diktat on the rest - and naturally profit from it. Hungarian-born education expert Frank Furedi warns that governments are going down the road of turning kids into "Orwellian eco-spies" (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7830/). The fine line between raising environmental consciousness and indoctrination through fear has been crossed.
.
At times, politicians, activists and UN climate luminaries appeared so engulfed in their apocalypse rhetoric that they looked more like the high priests of a cult than the cool-headed deciders we need to address environmental issues in a sensible way. The UN "climate machin" is an unstoppable train, busy justifying its existence, hiding its "climate tricks" and fittingly driven by a railways engineer Dr. K. Pachauri. Unfortunately bad ideas never die and "climate hype" is now big business. While "climate chaos" was making the headlines, the outcome of the big bang summit was eventually decided by a few leaders. What was the background show (conference) all about one might ask? Outside the bunker in the EU, sovereign debt is mounting, economies stagnating and societies are more fragmented than ever. The prospect of social unrest is very real but leaders keep on pledging money they do not have.
.
Emerging economies need more development and freer trade, not hand-outs. Europe proposes protectionism of the green kind. "A disastrous idea" says the London-based International Policy Network (IPN) as it will hit poor countries the hardest. Failed international aid is to be revisited into a vague "climate fund". For corrupt recipient governments, this is heart-warming news because the cash will keep coming. For disappointed young activists, a word of comfort. Even with a non-binding agreement, there will be enough jobs for the "climate boys". Why worry then? “Climate crime”, warns Europol, is rising and already costing taxpayers dearly. Soon it will cost lives and those deaths will not be caused by the climate changing - it has been doing so for 4 billion years - but by decisions taken by a handful of people. The list of bad ideas goes on. The British PM with his "meilleur ami" from across the Channel now wants to turn the Union into a global "climate police" (post-conference proposal for a new agency equipped to "snitch" on countries suspected of non-compliance). Soon perhaps UN "climate-enforcing" operations...
.
Finally there is the central but clearly inconvenient question of the science upon which decisions are being taken. IPCC truth followers and opportunist politicians accuse “other thinkers” - scientists, economists, ordinary folks who dissent - of endangering the survival of humanity. In short of being heretics. This is profoundly disturbing. Yet hope is not completely lost that reason and science may prevail. The French “Academie des Sciences” quietly announced before the summit that there is no scientific consensus on global warming. More voices of reason continue to rise above the politically correct climate brouhaha. The Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) suggests that the British climate research institutes (HadleyCRUT and CRU) have “cherry-picked” (Again?!) temperature data of the vast Russian territory. Given that 75% of available data was not used, the report calls for the IPCC to recalculate temperature increase. This is not “flat-earthing” or “sceptic rant” but what science should be about; reason, questioning, transparency, free and open debate.
.
To end on a note of optimism, the failure of Copenhagen is in fact a blessing. By putting themselves under the spotlight, the proponents of warmism stood with no clothes for the whole world to see. The climate change agenda is all about high politics and (carbon) money dressed in a lofty moral garb. Is it essentially anti-freedom and anti-progress. Predictably the IPCC will blame politicians for the failed talks and hope to pursue its illiberal agenda unchallenged. We have seen it all before. When the UN fails it huffs and puffs. Then nothing. Or rather business as usual. It too must be held to account, and "climate resignations" should be tendered. The world is not short of talent and new thinking is clearly needed. In the meantime, we can now all get on with life on earth and look forward to the new year without eco-Armageddon.

Messieurs les Anglais tirez enfin!

2009-11-29T08:11:00.000-08:00

Letter to the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph,

Messieurs les Anglais tirez enfin! - do something at last. This is not the battle of Fontenoy (1745) with all its romantic talk about which side should fire the first shot. In the opaque “business” of allocating posts in the public-free and undemocratic zone that the EU polity has become, my country is firing away. To be precise, it is calling all the shots (Sarkozy Taunts Britain as Losers in the EU Jobs Battle, 29 Nov. 2009). A first year political science student - but apparently not the Labour leadership - could have concluded that after the appointment of Madame la Baronne as high representative, the UK was heading for a diplomatic “Berezina” as we put it when referring to a major disaster (since the Russian victory over Napoleon's forces in 1812).
.
President Sarkozy is the winner because with his man (Barnier) at the helm of the Internal Market and Financial Services, this means more economic dirigisme and over-regulation a la francaise from the new seat of power, Brussels. Thinking otherwise would be naïve and reassurance to the contrary the height of hypocrisy. Unfortunately it gets worse with France having also “won” another important portfolio by proxy with the nomination of Dacian Ciolos (Romania) for Agriculture. In both countries the sector is dependent on state and EU subsidies so forget any serious reforms of the CAP and an end to protectionism. A former leftist radical for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (Greek nominee Maria Damanaki) does not abode well for the future of our fishing communities. The messy failure of 30 years of Common Fisheries Policy will most probably be addressed with more central planning. The road to more berezina of the maritime kind.
.
The irony is that our President's push for more Europe (centralisation of decision and policy making) is not in our best interest. The EU needs a re-think, more free trade and more democracy. The French people voted “non” to the Lisbon constitutional treaty. But as former President Giscard infamously said after the democratic slap to the ego of our self-serving elite, the Sovereign People's decision (no) is not France's (..). There is something rotten in the Union and now the UK is the last line of defense. So where is your gallant hero to fight for freedom? Messieurs les Anglais tirez les derniers (be the last to shoot) but for goodness sake, do fire that referendum at the EU knowsbestocracy!

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

2009-11-27T07:16:00.000-08:00

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!

The truth behind the cult of Che and communism.

2009-11-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

Letter to the editor of the University of Porstmouth newspaper "Pugwash". Unpublished but replied to by the students' society flying the flag of socialism (Issue 33, below) with an invitation for a debate.

Dear Editor,
.
Judging by the statement made by the Socialist Worker Student Society (SWSS) that “the enemy is profit” (Issue 32, Politics, Socialist Students London Trip), and the viewing of a film glorifying Che Guevara on campus, it is time for some clarification. To some, the Marxist revolutionary is the ultimate hero who fought for the oppressed against the “evil” system of capitalism. The truth is that he was a stalinist fundamentalist who upheld a murderous ideology. He was a ruthless fanatic who legitimized his killings in the name of a utopian ideology, marxist-leninism. Yet some students are prepared to wave the banner of socialism - or wear his image on T-shirts. Time for some “myth busting” about Che Guevara and the ideology he stood for.
.
The image of “el Che” the humane hero is a Cuban state-sponsored myth which unfortunately is also propagated by Western leftist intellectuals. In 1960 when French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was glorifying his “superior” intellect, hundreds of ordinary citizens were being sentenced to death by his revolutionary tribunals and executed by the firing squads he helped indoctrinate and train. Back then, Big Brother Che was watching! In fact, he still is from the giant mural of the secret police force HQ in Havana. Thankfully nowadays the icon is only watching foreign tourists ushered by tourist guides (members of the communist party naturally). In other words, he is doing his bit to bring into the ailing economy the much needed cash, and no longer “executing out of revolutionary conviction” as he once boasted at the UN (1964).
.
In 1959 the marxist revolution ousted an undemocratic regime only to replace it with a dictatorship of the proletariat. Nowadays unlike the Che idolizers of the free world, Cubans long for democratic capitalism. The egalitarian utopia promised by the Soviet-backed revolutionaries turned into a totalitarian regime whose centrally directed collectivist economy has failed to deliver prosperity (recently people were running out of toilet paper!). Many have left the desperately poor island in search of freedom and a better life. Many perished at sea desperately trying to escape. But that millions across the world fell victims to this lofty ideal should not worry the members of SWSS. They are free to demonstrate. Or "shout" their views in the Student Union bar every wednesday!
.
Of course the British National Party and his leader are promoting disgraceful ideas that should be condemned in no uncertain terms. But communism does not have the moral high ground to other extremist ideologies. In the Soviet system (also in China) marxist-leninism killed millions through purges, executions, collectivization of the land, show trials, psychiatric internment and hard labour (gulags). So the question must be asked whether those who wear the T-Shirts know what they are doing. How can anyone be the standard bearer of a murderous ideology and fight against the economic system that gave us individual freedom and prosperity (capitalism)? How can anyone seriously ask for the establishment of a socialist utopia here in Europe?
.
Given the popularity of Che T-shirts, the chances are that most are simply ignorant or themselves indoctrinated. Sadly his stylized image will continue to be used in the fight against progress and freedom. But here is another fact. Be it on snowboards, underwear or cigars, the “Che” brand sells rather well. And guess what, these consumer goods have entered the market for a profit! The "comandante" turned capitalist icon? Not quite, though certainly evidence that the marxist ideology the revolutionary so fervently tried to impose has ultimately been defeated by capitalism.
.
Reply from the comrade president of the society.
.

11 novembre 2009. Le devoir de memoire.

2009-11-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

Fusiliers marins bretons (Lorient, Breizh) sous le commandement de l'Amiral Ronac'h en route pour le front. Bataille de Dixmude (Belgique, octobre 1914). Envoyes pour tenir 24 heures, les 6000 marins peu habitues au combat terreste, combattirent 34 jours et au prix de pertes enormes barrerent la route de la mer aux forces allemandes.

May the soul of those who perished on the killing fields of

this insane war rest in peace,

May we never forget.

Qu'ils reposent en paix.

Is the European Union too big to fail?

2009-11-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

Tis the dawn of the “more transparent, more effective, more democratic” Europe, the Lisbon era. Yet curiously, apart from politicians and bureaucrats, no-one is celebrating. In Brussels, no sooner had pen been put to paper in the Czech capital that the pro-Lisbon camp was fêting the capitulation of its most vocal opponent with evident relief. The constitutional treaty will enter into force in December, and a new legal entity endowed with more political, judicial, administrative and legislative powers will come into being. For any rational person, the lofty goal of a better, fairer, greener, more egalitarian Europe can only cause apprehension about the future. Regardless, the EU thinks "big” for us. Like so many giant inefficient corporations and banks, it may have become too big to be allowed to fail.
.
Functionalist integration, or the "paradise" found.
Since its cautious first economic steps (ECSC 1951) in the post-war years, the European integration process has gradually become a one-way road, a one-size-fits-all-system in a one-ideology environment; the “ever-closer” economic, social and political union. The ideals of federalist luminaries - Monnet "federalism with instalement" method or Spinelli's constitutional method - have turned into reality. Give it to our democracy-dodging elite, 2009 is a turning point, one only they will celebrate. Soon too, official publications praising Eurocitizens for "their infinite wisdom" for "supporting" the Lisbon treaty will go into print. Who will remember that in 2005 the sovereign people of France rejected the constitutional treaty by a majority (54.67%)? Irreversibly, the EU bloc is caught in its own functionalist momentum - expansion of competences through spillover effect. Even though there is plenty of empirical evidence that the centralisation of policy and decision-making has led to spectacular failures (The Common Fisheries Policy for e.g.), EU institutions are about to become more powerful. While the Treaty provides for more involvement of national parliaments (ToL, protocols) through a consultation procedure on legislative acts prepared in Brussels (75% of national legislation), it is doubtful that this concession to national sensitivities will have much effect in practice on the incremental aggregation of powers at supranational level. There is simply no stopping the tide.
.
What this all means translated into “ non Euro-speak” is simple: bigger central government in Brussels in the hands of an unelected, unaccountable elite whose tolerance of open and free debate on European integration is dubious. Indeed questioning the integrationist mantra that more central planning, harmonisation and regulation of society is in Europe's best interest, is not welcome. Paradoxically this behaviour is nowhere more evident than in the Parliament. More generally, those who advocate an alternative find themselves isolated in a sort of “intellectual gulag of political incorrectness" as former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovski puts it. Equally worrying is the fact that the growing gap between European citizens and the elite (and institutions) is not seriously being addressed. The issues of democratic deficit and lack of popular legitimacy are mostly subjects of academic debates. Or talk shows during elections. Frustration, lack of trust of EU institutions and uneasiness about the process is increasing amongst the citizenry.
.
Rescuing the “Etat providence” with the super-nanny state.
In France the “malaise” is becoming more acute. The country seems to be teetering on the brink of deeper social and political crisis. President Sarkozy's approval ratings are at their lowest (39%). The silent majority is not fooled by the official rhetoric that the “exception française”- economic dirigisme, high taxation rates, a rigid labour market, high level of welfare benefits - is coping better with the economic downturn. Resentment is seething. The leader elected to unshackle entrepreneurship from its fiscal and regulatory bonds, and to reform the state has gone the populist way. State intervention has increased in both the market and society. The saviour-state is back with a vengeance. Its quest for fiscal revenue to fill the empty coffers now also comes in green (fossil fuel tax for e.g.). A phenomenon aptly described by French economist Jacques Garello as a "green fiscal tsunami". And if over-taxed citizens and enterprises object too strongly, just circumvent the National Assembly. Where there is a political will, the EU backdoor is the way (policy-making in Brussels).
.
More debt does not create prosperity, it endangers it. But in Paris, “C'est la fête" (party time). The government awarded itself the EU presidency budget "gold medal" with an all-time record of €171 million (the €1-million-a-day presidency!). The ruling party is unrepentant. Alarm bells are ringing for the social security - €23 billion in the red. The public debt has hit the €1,500 billion mark. Desperate fishermen caught in a vicious circle of aid-dependence are forced to stage port blockades in order to survive. High unemployment continues (peaked at 15% in January 2009) while the inflated public sector (1/5 of the labour force) weathers the crisis with the safeguard of jobs for life. And, if its privileges (social "acquis") need protecting, "c'est la grève" (strike). The heavily-subsidised agriculture sector is in meltdown. Only a few days after the Commission allocated an emergency aid package to milk producers (€280 million), President Sarkozy went on a statist spending spree promising more regulation and naturally more support (€1 billion in low-interests loans, €650 million in direct aid). "Not enough" said the largest syndicate, “what is needed is the state control of retail prices”. In the health sector, it has been argued that the current reforms are best described as a “soviétisation”. Clearly the decision to close the Commissariat général du Plan - a Gosplan à la française - was premature (2006).
.
France needs the EU. So our self-serving political class (50% of deputies are civil servants, many holding up to three elective mandates) zealously pursues more of the same at the supranational level. The Jacobin state's tradition - and powers - are thus being transferred to the European “nebulous”, namely to more “opaque and undemocratic” pastures. For some diversion from the real issues at stake, the French Minister for European affairs slams British Eurosceptic Conservatives for being “autistic”. A war of words goes down well with the media. Nothing - least of all the “perfide Albion” - can stand in the way of the new Lisbon order.
.
The new Union for ever.
Sadly the positive achievements of the single market – opening of borders, liberalisation of trade, post-war prosperity - are gradually being undermined by the growth of a system the dynamics of which inexorably take it on a path to collective irresponsibility. In these post-democratic statist times, watching the appointment of the new president and foreign minister is starting to look like déjà vu - a politburo election "à la sauce européenne"... The EU has become too big to fail so forward it marches into a brighter future. How ironic that the treaty's fate should be sealed in Prague, the city whose inhabitants stood up to the collectivist ideals of communism (Spring 1968). Once upon a time on the other side of the Iron Curtain, there was a highly centralised union led by an unaccountable elite who over-spent and indulged to sustain a system that was to be for ever. Therein lay its problem.

Cold shower times for French taxpayers.

2009-10-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

The latest cold shower for French taxpayers: 245,722€. That's the cost for the installation in the Grand Palais on the occasion of the July 2008 Mediterranean Summit of a temporary presidential space (8 offices) with "douche attenante" (a shower equipped with radio, a seat and various "fonctions jet" for the exclusive use of the president). These revelations have made headlines across Europe (see for e.g. article in regional newspaper Le Telegramme and the Guardian).
.
In France the controversy of "la douche" - the "shower-gate"- came shortly after the "Défense-gate", namely the candidacy - and very near election - of the president's 23-year-old son to the directorhip of the body responsible for managing the Paris business district. The blatant act of cronyism was prevented at the last hour by a massive public outcry leading the young man to withdraw his candidacy (the famous Arche, right). A photo of the now equally fameuse douche here.

C'est la crise but nothing can possibly get in the way of the grandeur de la France and its rayonnement in its own backyard, the Mediterranean basin. The real scandal of course is not the shower itself but the extravagant cost (€16 million) of a summit which yielded little result. According to the Cour des Comptes report, the dinner held for heads of states had a price tag of €5,000 per person. A hearty menu in times of crisis.... And the kind of state cuisine many families who struggle every day to put food sur la table will find very hard to stomach.

Our nomemklature is unrepentent and trumpets that the French EU presidency was a resounding success. History will be the judge but what's very real for now is that it was the most expensive on record (€171 million). Perhaps we should rejoice about this gold medal in state budget management. The new one-man EU European Council presidency , argued a député, would cost less. Some comfort to the citoyens who were not even given a chance to vote on the Lisbon Treaty! (Someone else here believes that its implementation could rein in EU spending, a federalist...).

In the meantime, the sécurité sociale is in the red - €23 billion - and the deficit de l'Etat has hit the €1500 billion mark. French agriculture is en crise (again). A few days after the Commission allocates an emergency aid package to European milk producers (€280 million), President Sarkozy goes on a populist shopping spree promising more central planning, more regulation and of course more "support" - state aid is naturally forbidden - (€1 billion in low-interests loans and €650 million in direct aid). "Not enough" says the largest syndicate, what's needed is the state regulation of retail prices. Since French agriculture is being "sovietised", closing down the Commissariat général du Plan in 2006 was clearly a mistake. Just like in Soviet times' l'Etat and l'élite continue to over-spend in order to sustain a system "that will be for ever", le modèle français....

La petite histoire will remember that the shower was in fact never used. The mot de la fin must go to Hugo Chavez , a grand admirateur no doubt of France's leadership to make the world a greener place - or was it redder? "We are not in times of Jacuzzi" said he, urging his compatriots to save water (Newsweek, 2 Nov. 2009). Somebody in the Palais de l'Elysée must have heard the call. In France we are in shower times. Mostly cold ones....

Euroscepticism and liberty

2009-10-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Published in French in Un Monde Libre on October 19th.
>

.The EU leadership is not amused and is showing signs of impatience. Czech President Vaclav Klaus is not toeing the yes-line and announced that he wanted an opt-out on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a move which in turn could unravel re-negotiation requests from other member states. What is wrong with this? The problem is that the EU leadership demands an unconditional ratification even though by granting "guarantees" (July 2009 European Council conclusions) to Ireland, it opened the pandora box of a ratification a "geometrie variable". The problem is that the Union is neither comfortable with democracy nor with dissent.

Yes-democracy.
Citizens are expected to fall in. In France, our political class chose to “consult itself” so to speak (ratification through parliament) rather than risk a public consultation and another rebuke (2005 no-vote on EU Constitution). With the financial crisis and economic downturn of the past year, EU leaders and eurocrats were anxious for good news. After the Irish yes-vote, nothing appears to be dampering their eagerness to have the treaty in force by the end of the year.

“There is no pressure as such” said the president of the EU Parliament Jerky Buzek “all discussions are taking place in a democratic context”. So the yes-camp makes it known that delay from the Czech Republic is not acceptable, diplomatically lambasting its president for pulling an “unfair” rabbit. Apparently the “Lisbon-ned” Union urgently needs to anoint a guide (President) to lead its blighted citizens. If you don’t understand what’s democratic and transparent about that, please try again. The correct answer is “yes” naturally this new phase of supranational governance requires a supreme leader but also new diplomatic staff, more bureaucrats, more budget for more common policies.... When member states are urged to reduce expenditures and downsize their administrations, the EU is preparing to inflate its own.

What kind of a democracy is yes-democracy? A growing number of citizens are no longer amused. Could Lisbon be a “treaty too far” as British academic William Horsley argues? He warns that its implementation will come as a shock to British people. After Westminster's expenses scandal, coping with a new rabbit from the EU hat will prove difficult. Across Europe, disillusionment with EU politics runs high. Politicians - not surprisingly - have failed to prepare electorates for what’s afoot, namely a system of collective decision-making with extensive new powers, and not as they claimed a “mere amendment" to the Nice Treaty currently in force. "Stream-lining" is the buzz word. But what we are talking about is the creation of a Europe-wide government and that means a superstate complete with legal personality.

Yes to British euroscepticism!
President Klaus’ stance for freedom is a beacon of hope, and so is the prospect of the return to power of the Conservative Party in the UK on the other side of the Channel. A healthy dose of British euroscepticism could be the light at the end of this illiberal tunnel... David Cameron’s speech at the party conference last week has hit the nail though his message of “taking on big government and the culture of irresponsibility” has probably not gone down well in the corridors of power in Brussels. Should he stand firm on his principled platform (and the referendum), a Conservative-led UK could act as a counterbalance to a more centralised and powerful EU. Let us see if outbursts of “consequences” by outspoken European leaders will impress or scare the British electorate. In the chess game of Euro-politics, the Lisbon camp is planning its next move, probably the offering of a sweetener. To neuter the rebellious islanders, “Let them have Blair!". Call it a socialist icing on the EU supercake, eurocitizens will need to digest. Citizens are mobilising against him ("Stop Blair" petition campaign) but he has already the support of powerful states.

The wind of liberty coming from Prague.
The fact is that the European project has always been an elite-driven ideal for which democratic legitimacy (direct elections) was never a priority. From its onset, it was influenced by inter alia federalist intellectuals like Jean Monnet - a statist - and Altiero Spinelli - a communist - who believed that peace in Europe would be achieved with the establishment of a superstate. That this ideal would in 2009 turn into reality without public support and legitimacy is fitting. It is no longer possible to question the integration model which in effect has become a dogma.

The plot is thickening but for us the French, the "ever-closer union" dies are cast. As Europe pompously celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is both ironic and fascinating that, in the immediate future, hope for a freer EU should come from the East. Whatever the outcome, President Klaus dares say "no" and in our brave new world of EU political correctness, it takes courage.

Green movement or green ideology?

2009-10-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

Letter to the editor of the University of Porstmouth fortnighly newspaper - Pugwash News - in reply to an opinion by environmental officer Chris Spackman. Published on 05 November 2009.

Greenly incorrect travel log in the Med

2009-09-26T01:42:00.001-07:00

19 September 2009: 15h00, motoring into strong headwinds (22-25 knots, NW), sighted an unusually large 3-mast-vessel on a course to enter the Gulf of Hisarönü. N36, 43' 80. E27, 55' 60: came half a mile directly north of it (photo right) and realised it was the flagship of Greenpeace, the Rainbow Warrior II.

Of course, unlike the rest of us leasure sailors, the green warriors were not in the Turkish Aegean to enjoy this sailing paradise and its natural beauty. The organisation was there to save it. This visit was part of its wider Akdeniz/Mediterranean sea campaign (in English) with planned actions against tuna fishing, for a nuclear free region, to fight climate change, etc.... Green is "in" as French economist Guy Sorman remarked with esprit in a recent post (in French, l'ONU, sauce verte). Leaders are now competing to prove their green-ness - or "vertitude". The UN GA in New York was only further evidence of the green political correctness fever gripping the world these days at the detriment of more worthy topics. Lots of talk of "virtuous" green goals but little mention of democracy, economic development, human rights. Was the word "freedom" spoken even once? At least the carbon foot print of the Libyan leader's tent was low...

Funding must be flowing to Greenpeace. Green crusaders have the weather-political gauge (advantage).... Next thing this region will be turned into a marine reserve, anchoring forbidden because every bled of seaweed will be sacred! All hands on deck! Every action counts to counter the ideology of "ecologisme" so expertly described in Vaclav Klaus' new book "Blue Planet in Green Shackles" (published by the CEI and the Press Universitaire d'Aix-IREF). So in order to protest against the pressure Greenpeace is putting on the government of this developping country not to go nuclear for the production of its energy and inter alia to close the coal power plant of Kemirköy (photo above) in the Gulf of Gökova, a spontaneous plan emerged.... :

A few days later, sailing in 23 knots of wind (NW) on a close haul , shorthanded and outfunded, the freedom warrior headed towards the conspicuous landmark of the tall chimney of the coal power plant on a course to make a point.

A pod of dolphins joined the protest. Below the final sail powered by the wind, the book and ideas Greenpeace must be cursing everyday.

For thousands of years the peoples of the Mediterranean basin have being trading, adapting to changing times and should continue their economic development on their own terms. Not on those dictated by a new religion of environmentalism, its legal norms imposed by the rich and with green warriors to do the preaching.

And if you are wondering, I too care about the sea and do my bit to keep it clean!

The "maddening" arrogance of the EU elite.

2009-09-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

In the Japan Times (08 September) an enlightening article by Domique Moisi on how my beloved country sees itself as the centre of Europe, and how it ought to lead the way to a bright new EU future with "the return of Franco-German leadership".

"PARIS — Regardless of who wins September's parliamentary election in Germany, the time has come once again for a major Franco-German initiative. Regardless of their economic conditions or their confidence — or lack of it — in each other, France and Germany are more than ever jointly responsible for the future, if not the very survival, of the European project.... More here.

My belated letter to the editor of the Japan Times (25 September) published on 01 October in the Reader in Council section (electronic here).

Dear Editor,

I could not disagree more with Dominique Moisi's conclusion from his Sept. 8 analysis that the European Union needs the return of Franco-German leadership". Europe, in fact, needs less leadership from its intellectual and political class. It needs to pause and take into account the will of its citizens who, when given a democratic chance — Netherlands, France and Ireland — have said "no" to the Constitution/Lisbon Treaty. But only a "yes" was acceptable! Is that democracy or hypocrisy?

Has the European project sunken so low that its nomenclature needs to invoke the magic wand of a good old post-World War II European construction dynamic — and a "spectacular security initiative" with Russia — to extricate itself from the troubled waters of the 21st century?
Frankly it is doubtful that incantations for more Franco-German leadership will do much to reassure Irish voters (on Friday).

My compatriot (Moisi) believes that, without France, the EU cannot survive the current institutional crisis, not to mention the economic one; in other words, that Europe needs more dirigisme from, well, its "center" — read Paris. Furthermore, like most members of our nomenclature of politicians and intellectuals, he discards legitimate concerns from British citizens as "provincial euro-skepticism." When disagreement is eloquently articulated by Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, it is "stubborn ill will."

Where do we go from here when the EU leadership — and its "enlightened" intellectual elite — go down the road of thinly disguised threats of "consequences," to quote French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whenever peoples or elected politicians happen to stray from the "true path"? So much arrogance is maddening and dangerous. So, consider me one of the growing number of voices no longer prepared to stay silent.

More EU appeasement in the Caucasus

2009-08-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

Last summer brought not only a heat wave to the region, but also a war in Georgia. The French-brokered peace agreement was hailed as a momentous success, but since then, the war of words between Moscow and Tbilisi has continued, and so has the tension......

Published in the Hürriyet Daily News

Freedom Square in Tbilisi

On the democratic erosion of democracy

2009-08-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

In this article "Le detournement democratique" published in UnMondeLibre, Emmanuel Martin and Carlo Lottieri highlight the main problems posed by the transplantation of western democracy as the model for development in "less developped" societies.

A lire absolument. In French only.

Re-setting Europe without “bonapartisme”

2009-07-14T02:19:00.000-07:00

Published in Hürriyet Daily News, Turkey.

It has to be handed to the Swedish Presidency; it’s putting up a brave fight against France’s pressure to set the law.

EU-Turkey relations are just one of those battlefields of influence. During a recent meeting between the presidents of both countries (July 3rd), President Sarkozy reiterated, presumably in case the Swedes “hadn’t got it”, that the opening of new chapters would be allowed so that “Turkey would become an associate member of Europe and not a fully-fledged one". From his outburst to the legitimate comments made by President Obama in support of Turkish EU membership, to boycotting a meeting in Stockholm with Foreign Minister Carl Bilt, or the barely disguised contempt for the “Turkish Season” now starting in France, there appears to be no let up.

Indeed it is plain for those who want to see that this is no longer about making the French government’s views “known” to other member states but rather about imposing its position on enlargement as the “only” way forward. France’s Right is now “united” by a common culture of “turcophobie” with the all-powerful administration “purged” of any pro-Turkey accession advocates. This “obsession” is now being deliberately exported on the European stage with chairmanships “bullied” into abiding to the limits set by Paris. This trend does not abode well for the future under the Lisbon treaty or barely revisited EU Constitution whose chief architect was former President Giscard d’Estaing, a proponent of the “non à la Turquie”, and guardian of the centralizing and “dirigiste” tradition.

It is worrying that this “bonapartisme” is not solely confined to enlargement. It is much in evidence in economics too. Sweden warns against the “over-zealous” regulation of hedge funds. Yet the French centralizing and regulating tradition appears to be winning this battle too against the weakened Labour government of PM Brown with the City standing to lose the most. French officials with the blessing of the “G8+?” - one loses count - have launched an all-out war on so-called tax heavens and low taxation jurisdictions, essentially seeking to end tax competition on French terms - Read higher taxes (Dan Mitchell on tax competition as a liberalising force in world economy). It’s ironic that it took the intervention of communist China at the London Summit to prevent Hong Kong from being blacklisted (ranking first in the Heritage Foundation economic freedom list, France 64th).

The economist Jacques Garello (Institut de Recherches Economiques et Fiscales) talks about the “fiscal tsunami” triggered by the “green” political wave now sweeping across Europe in the aftermaths of the elections. Europe-Ecologie led by “Danny-le-Rouge” Kohn Bendit came third (16%) just behind the socialists. 400€ billion are needed for the “croissance verte” (green growth or révolution) promised by the political class during the campaign. With public finances in the red, money will have to be found somewhere. That means more borrowing (grand emprunt national), a fossil fuel tax (taxe carbone) to be borne by enterprises, and if “zealots” have their way, a European “cap-and-trade” regulation. In other words, less economic freedom and more protectionism in the guise of “virtuous” green goals. Beware the “bonapartisme écologique”!

Decisions taken on the basis of these kinds of political antics make a mockery of the idea that the EU abides to principles of law, that it stands for universal values as opposed to the rules of a “Christians only” club, and finally that it defends free trade. Reasoned discussions and consensual decision-making on sensitive issues have being replaced by the rule of the “stronger”, more dedicated member state. The “weaker” or less interested ones simply fall in, too busy with their own priorities. Unfortunately, Sweden’s voice has no echo. The silence of other member states is deafening, and perhaps a sign of surrender. It’s high time for dissenting views to be heard, or “bonapartisme” will have its way after all, and in its 21st century political expression, will dominate Europe…

In the offing lies the final battle of the Lisbon treaty ratification (German constitutional debate, second Irish referendum on October 2, pending signature into law by the Czech President). It is widely acknowledged that given a democratic chance, Euro-voters would have rejected the construction of a French-inspired highly centralized super-state. In fact they did with 3 no-votes in referenda in France, Holland and Ireland. In the end, the Irish government has obtained its opt-out “deal” (taxation and neutrality notably) so this time round, the balance may just tilt to a yes-vote. That is not good news because Europe needs resetting. Far from being the “doomsday scenario” voters are led to believe, it is a very necessary and healthy step.

For now, finding solace in history will have to do. In October 1805, Napoleon’s military power-grabbing was ended by a British hero at the Battle of Trafalgar off the Spanish city of Cadiz. Admiral Nelson’s victory thus prevented the planned invasion of the British Isles and French rule over most of Europe. French and Spanish sailors fought valiantly but they were not on the side of freedom. In the current economic storm and battle for influence, the EU leadership under French “command” has the weather gauge (advantage) to impose its vision of Europe. Czech President Klaus may be up against a vastly superior fleet of politicians and bureaucrats but he could well turn the tide. And become the European peoples’gallant hero.

********************************

In the olden days, French Embassies used to invite all residing “citoyens” for the traditional celebration of the “fête nationale”. No more. Must be politicians fullfilling their promises to bring public finance under control, or an extraordinary measure in times of deep recession.... Right.

- 2009 budget for the Elysée (présidence de la République): increase of 11.45% from 2008 (more here).
- Cost of the speech in Versailles Palace of the Président before the Parlement (Sénat-Assemblée Nationale) further to the constitutional amendment: 450,000€ (more here)

Last February, Russian President Medvedev announced that in the light of the crisis, state expenditures at all levels should be reviewed, adding that this exercise “should start with oneself ". So if the Kremlin can cut costs, why not the Elysée?

Allez, champagne quand même! A la santé de notre Liberté chérie....

EU parliamentary elections: democracy or hypocrisy?

2009-07-07T22:40:00.000-07:00

Publié en français sur Un Monde Libre.org

In the wake of Europe-wide parliamentary elections, the Iranian presidential poll with its massive turnout and the eagerness of the voters to cast their ballots was uplifting. Candidates had spoken passionately, and their supporters mobilized in great numbers. The contrast with the lackluster and undisputed elections campaign in the European Union (EU) could not have been more striking. In Iran, the violent post-election crackdown is evidence - if anybody needed reminding - that elections do not necessarily yield more freedom. In Europe, the process was free and fair, peaceful but the question remains if the highly centralized Union is the democratic model it professes to be.

Indeed since the first direct elections (1979), fewer European citizens have bothered to exercise their right to vote. In the 2009, the overall turnout has hit the predicted record-low: 43% in 2009 v 62% in 1979. Slovakia with 19.64% lies at the bottom of the table. In France, one of the founding states, 60% of the electorate abstained. Yet this abyssal result did not damper the festive mood of the political parties that fared better (UMP 27.8%, Europe Ecologie 16.28%). Champagne corks popped with little regard to the fact that the newly elected MEPs (72, total of 736) will represent le peuple with the thinnest of democratic legitimacy. But truth be told, EU institutions and national governments have already moved on with a sigh of relief. It’s back to politics as usual.

By and large politicians have skirted the issue of the ever-deepening democratic deficit. The reason for this is simple. The EU show must go on. Many leaders have regularly and openly stated that “democracy and the complex EU polity are not really compatible”. The ratification of the Lisbon Treaty has revealed a deep-rooted mindset of mistrust towards voters amongst the élite. Hence a growing sense that democratic consultations are only meant as a “rubberstamping exercise” whilst the “real” EU business carries on in the secretive conclaves of supra-national consensual politics. Disenchanted electorates were left with only two options to express their frustration and disagreement: abstention or a vote for the more extreme parties (right or left). Yet defining this rising tide of negative sentiment as “anti-European” is simplistic, albeit convenient for a political class intent on preserving the status quo. Results can also be interpreted as anti-EU as currently run, and pro-freedom.

EU institutions seized on these elections to promote the notion that the Lisbon Treaty will usher a new dawn: “a more democratic and transparent Europe”. But as Oxford academic Christopher Bickerton points out, attempts to remedy the lack of transparency have been tried before and failed because “the EU is not about transparency. Its function is to provide space for policymaking that substitutes political conflicts of principle for a culture of bureaucratic compromise”. (The Manifesto Club study, “No” to the Politics of fait accompli”). The EU polity has become a “public-free zone”, namely the preserve of unaccountable bureaucrats, politicians and diplomats as Daily Telegraph correspondent Bruno Waterfield puts it. Even with more powers granted to the Parliament, reversing decades of culture of insulated and undemocratic decision and lawmaking could prove mission impossible.

The European project is supposed to enhance our freedom. The essence of liberty is choice. Yet if citizens’ choices – a “no” to the Lisbon Treaty, abstention to express discontent – are dismissed, if the “eur-oligarchy” can think of nothing better to resolve the crisis of legitimacy than to scaremonger voters to push ahead their “enlightened” agenda (“vote Yes or face the consequences of extremism or recession”), then arguably there is little democracy left worth talking about. Rather, what is emerging is a new form of supra-national authoritarianism imposed by a nomemklature who, in ways not dissimilar to the Soviet one, always “knows best”.

The EU is in legitimacy crisis territory. The low participation rate (and no-votes in the referenda) should be interpreted as an electoral equivalent of the 1965 “empty chair crisis” (“Luxembourg compromise”) when French civil servants were withdrawn by Charles de Gaulle due to serious disagreement with the Commission. The responsibility lies squarely on politicians (mainstream or not) who have sadly failed to articulate a vision for the future that a majority of citizens “can believe in” and support.

For results, see here.

L'Hermione, the Liberty Frigate

2009-07-04T02:22:00.000-07:00

In June 2012, a replica of the 1780 French frigate Hermione will anchor off the Statue of Liberty, New York after having crossed the Atlantic Ocean (Rochefort, Boston, New-York). The original frigate had sailed to l'Amérique to support and help the American people in their quest for freedom and independence.

.
Aboard the Hermione ("Frégate de la Liberté") when she set sails from Rochefort in March 1780, was le Marquis de La Fayette. After a 38 day sail, the 65 metres long man-of-war reached Boston where the French officer landed to re-join George Washington's forces. In 1777, having disobeyed Louis XVI's orders and avoided capture by British spies, young La Fayette had eventually reached American shores to serve in the Continental Army. He had returned to France a hero and played a key role in strengthening the French Monarchy's commitment to the American struggle.

The idea for an absolute king to support another people's struggle for freedom was daring. Of course, the monarch backed the project for the blow it would deal to His Britannic Majesty King GeorgeIII, and not to "defend freedom". For La Fayette the latter was the point for he had been truly inspired by the ideal of individual liberty (right with G. Washington at Mt. Vernon in 1784). During the French Revolution - despite persecution by the Jacobin revolutionaries - and throughout his life, he remained true to this ideal.

Crossing an ocean in the 18th century was adventurous but so is the 20th century project to build a replica and sail her across the Atlantic. If all goes well, the image of the "Frégate de la Liberté" anchored in front of the "Statue de la Liberté" will bear testimony to the will and achievements of a few who inspired so many. It will also honour the spirit of a free man who made a difference, Monsieur de La Fayette.

This project was initiated by a group of citoyens (Association Hermione-La Fayette founded in 1997), and after difficult beginnings (technical and financial), construction is well under way in 2009 (hull completed and caulked, big capstan installed). Of course, the French Republic keenly backs it (with taxpayers' money). The political objective behind may be to commemorate our common history, the friendship between our two nations and the ideal of liberty but one thing is certain, it is not in support of economic freedom! C'est un peu l'histoire qui se répète....

Happy 4th of July. Et vive la liberté!

La vague verte qui nous fera couler à pic!

2009-06-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

Caring about protecting the environment does not mean accepting the fiscal onslaught being prepared by "enlightened-greened politicians" guided by "repainted-green ideologues" (Leader of Europe Ecologie, "Danny-le-Rouge" Cohn-Bendit....).

Dr. Garello comments on what he calls the "fiscal tsunami" being triggered by the green political wave. A wave sweeping now across Europe and certainly across France where the Europe Ecologie party came third (16.28%) in the European elections just behind the Socialist Party (16.48%). 400€ billion are needed to launch what the French government has labelled "the green growth" (croissance verte). With the rise of the "green political wave", it's time for reckoning.... And that means new taxation!

La vague verte et tsunami fiscal : 400 milliards pour la croissance verte (Publié le 17 juin 2009, article extrait du site irefeurope.org)
The most immediate and tangible consequence of the green wave will be to trigger a fiscal tsunami. The fosil energies tax and the overtaxation of polluting foreign products are coming. A good deal for the taxman and a disaster for enterprises and consumers. Below a commentary by Jacques Garello, administrator of the Institut de Recherches Economiques et Fiscales.

Dès la conclusion du Grenelle de l’environnement on savait qu’il faudrait trouver quelque part le financement des 400 milliards d’euros que Jean Louis Borloo a promis pour organiser la « croissance verte » (une promesse renouvelée au soir des élections). Les choses se précipitent, et grâce au succès électoral des thèses écologistes, on en vient maintenant à l’heure de vérité avec deux initiatives majeures : la taxe sur les énergies fossiles et la taxe européenne anti-pollution.

Taxe sur les énergies fossiles: Son principe doit être voté par le Parlement au cours de la session actuelle. Elle ne supprimera pas la taxe carbone qui concerne déjà les « grandes sociétés » qui utilisent des énergies fossiles. Elle frappera toutes les entreprises qui utilisent des énergies traditionnelles, non renouvelables : charbon, pétrole, gaz, essence. Le cas de l’électricité est en suspens, car il faudrait savoir si elle est d’origine nucléaire, thermique, ou hydraulique – en attendant l’électricité des éoliennes dont on sait en haut lieu qu’elle se substituera bien vite (au cours du 22ème siècle) à toutes les autres.

Premier avantage de cette innovation : les produits de cet impôt viendront à point nommé combler les pertes subies par le Trésor public du fait de la suppression annoncée de la taxe proportionnelle. Bercy respire : on a trouvé un impôt de substitution. Deuxième avantage : comme les entreprises seront tentées de répercuter la facture énergétique grossie par l’impôt sur la masse des consommateurs, ceux-ci vont voir leur pouvoir d’achat diminuer. Les coûts du transport et du chauffage, mais aussi de tout ce que les diverses entreprises produisent vont en effet augmenter et grever le budget des ménages. Qu’à cela ne tienne : le gouvernement versera une allocation aux ménages à faible revenu, et seuls les riches paieront, ce qui est d’une part très social, d’autre part très logique et très simple : après avoir pris de l’argent aux Français on le leur rend.
.
Taxe anti-pollution: Les produits en provenance des pays étrangers qui font du dumping écologique seront taxés pour rétablir une concurrence équitable avec les produits français qui, eux, sont non polluants ou moins polluants, grâce aux efforts incessants menés par notre administration et notre fiscalité. A la différence de la précédente, l’idée n’est pas nouvelle puisqu’elle avait été lancée aux Etats-Unis, pour freiner les importations en provenance du Mexique, pays échappant à la rigoureuse réglementation américaine en matière d’environnement. C’est cependant une taxe que les Français auront du mal à faire passer au niveau européen, surtout avec la nouvelle majorité au Parlement.

Va-t-on s’arrêter en si bon chemin ? Le Grenelle de la Mer peut sans doute apporter quelque nouvelle innovation fiscale. D’autre part, Michel Rocard est nommé à la tête d’un groupe « d’experts » pour étudier les principes et les effets d’une fiscalité verte. Un mauvais présage : l’inventeur de la CSG l’avait à l’époque présentée comme une très faible et très passagère « contribution ». En France on a de moins en moins d’impôts et de plus en plus de contributions. L’impôt est haïssable, mais quel honneur et quel plaisir de contribuer volontairement !

.
***************

For an incisive analysis of "the new offensive of the ideologues", read Ivan Rioufol's Bloc-notes in Le Figaro.

On the "inconvenient truth" that a politically driven green economy will do more harm to employment than good, read this article by George F. Will (Washington Post) and the report by Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada Alvarez.

Branle-bas de combat!

Divine intervention to save the Lisbon Treaty?

2009-06-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

Who needs votes when the gods are on your side? Well, as if EU policy and decision-making mechanisms weren't already complex and confusing enough, it looks like religious leaders have joined in the EU political debate. Indeed the Lisbon Treaty introduces a "stronger consultative role for European religions in EU policy making" (statement made by the President of the EU Parliament at the inter-faith meeting he chaired in Brussels on 11 May). Co-chair European Commission President Jose Barroso added that this treaty provision would positively advance the freedom of religion or non-religion. Really?

In the Daily Telegraph, Bruno Waterfield questions this latest move by the EU leadership.

Why European institutions should be concerned with the divine when reviewing the fishing policy, discussing safety standards for toys or preparing legislation on the regulation of hedge funds is indeed difficult to fathom. Be it as it may, politics and faith are again being mixed and this time round, backed up by a legally enforceable right under the Lisbon Treaty. The introduction of religion into the EU public sphere is worrying. Historically, conflicts have been fueled on this explosive cocktail. So what is the political elite thinking? Are eurocrats and religious leaders ganging up to try and impose on us, the misguided flock, their revealed wisdoms? After more earthly fear mongering of economic and political doomsday, the message going out to the faithful (Irish in particular) is equally sinistre: "do not question (just ratify) the Lisbon Treaty. Or face eternal damnation".

Let us for a moment venture in the realm of legal fantasy. What if this yet-to-be-ratified-treaty opened a legal loophole for the introduction of a "common spiritual welfare policy" of sort? It is all too easy to imagine what would come next. Bureaucratisation with the establishment of a new Directorat Général (DG-DIVINE), the anointment of euro-priest-ocrats (naturally not answerable to the EU flock but their own gods), blessed subsidies and, of course, enlightened lobbies. Non-compliance with sacred rules would see you sentenced to hell...

On planet earth-EU now, punishment takes the form of ever-expanding EU exclusive competences. And more legislation. What this means at the end of the day, is more intrusion into the "private" sphere, i.e. less liberty for all.

To conclude on a point of public finance, the 2009 campaign has revealed that no expenses would be spared to guide from above. Quite literally. From the International Space Station, the Belgium astronaut propelled into orbit for the European Space Agency on a Russian rocket sent his "personal" - DG-COMM would like us to believe - election message to the EU flock below. Arguably the most expensive 2009 campaign spot... For free here.

Looking at the elections turnout (record low of 43%), the EU flock remained unimpressed (or just not interested) and chose not to flock to the polling stations. It is time for a rethink. Until then (...) and while analysts dissect the results of this electoral fiasco, some comic relief...

Mr. Beans' take on ze EU hell....

EU elections: there is always time to scream!

2009-05-13T07:26:00.001-07:00

Letter to the editor of the Japan Times sent on 12 May 2009:

Explaining the European Union to its citizens: a way forward.

The article « EU looks outward to create a better world” (May 11, 2009) was informative. I was pleased to read that diplomats from Member States’ embassies spare some time to explain the Union to Japanese school kids ("the EU comes to your school" project). Delightful.

How about starting a similar project targetting European citizens living in Japan? There is certainly a lot of explaining to do in the run-up to the parliamentary elections if turnout rates are to improve on the poor results of 2004 (45.47%). The latest opinion polls are hardly cause for optimism.

In 2009, the EU is unquestionably an economic giant but its standing as a showcase for democracy is more questionable. As more powers are being transferred to the Parliament (EP), less citizens appear to care about voting. A lower turnout would be disastrous for the EP's legitimacy.

The European construction has always been an elite-driven project. A lot of "top down-ocracy" rather than democracy... The referenda for its Constitution/Lisbon Treaty are quite revealing in this regard. Consultation with the citizenry was only meant to yield one result: the yes-vote needed by a leadership “who knows best”. The peoples said “no” (Ireland, Holland and France). Yet politicians didn’t listen.

There is something increasingly unbearable about the “top down-ness” of democracy à la EU. And frankly speaking, the glitzy €18 million elections campaign with one the silliest commercials ever produced (There is always time to vote. And scream!), can’t do much to motivate a generally disillusioned electorate. It did nothing for me.

Actually, I am a euro-enthusiast. But with no enthusiasm for the Europe now being dictated from above. Down here in Japan, will I have time to vote come June? “Niet!”. I say it in Russian because a French "non" will get little attention....

Poking fun at euroskeptics in the 2009 campaign...

Ok. Granted. The integration of European economies in the wake of WWII has brought peace, and it's fair to say that in itself, 50 years of peaceful coexistence is a tremendous achievement. The history of Europe is one of never ending feuds between nations. The question is whether the kind of centralised, bureaucratic Europe being built now is not undermining the ideal of a freer European space where citzens can shape their future, rather than it being shaped from above by "know-best-ocrats"!

On 04th June, other eurocitizens will choose too.

Free trade therapy in Hong Kong

2009-04-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Bailouts, regulations, stimulus package, plan de relance économique, subsidies, protectionism, boss snatching, green revolution prophecy, recession, new deals, état sauveur... Feeling depressed? In need a break perhaps? Come to Hong Kong for therapy.

From barren rock to international trade hub, from British colony to PRC's Special Administrative Region.... Hong Kong's history in a nutshell with a skyline bearing testimony to the extraordinary transformative power of free trade.

Walk its bustling avenues. From the heights of Peak, enjoy the view of the city and its busy waters.. The nautical ballet of mighty container ships and splashing sampans. The forest of soaring skyscrapers clad in bamboo scaffolding. Let yourself be swept by the frisson of capitalism....

Selling noodles, buying shares... Up in the International Financial Centre tower, the stock market. Down on the streets, the food and stuff markets. For Western tourists, antics markets well stocked in Chairman Mao memorabilia. On the other side of the border, the motherland joining the market and catching up fast.

Everywhere The Free Market at work doing its magic of wealth creation.

Exalting, therapeutic. And soothing! So visit. Let the extraordinary energy of the city fill you with optimism about the future.... Free trade therapy. Not cheap but effective! Doing something to protect the freedom to trade helps too. Sign up!

According to the Heritage Foundation economic freedom index, Hong Kong ranks first. Let us hope it stay there.

For more on tax competion as a liberalising force in the world economy, a brief lesson on taxation and why tax havens should be celebrated (more in the WSJ Europe) Cato Scholar Daniel J. Mitchell explains...

Let them eat cake. Or dump tea...

2009-04-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

I remember very well learning about the 1773 Boston Tea Party in my American history class in high school. It captured my imagination. Freedom fighters boarding a ship disguised as indians to dump tea in Boston harbour. Gripping! What it was too was a protest against unfair taxation by the British Crown. The Tea Act which granted tax free priviledges to the royal chartered British East India Company was the last straw. To show that measures against free trade would no longer be tolerated, 10,000 £ worth of tea ended up floating in the water. Symbolic and momentous... Then came the American revolution. And change.

The 2009 Tea Parties refer to the gathering of thousands of American citizens across the country to protest against the expansion of government under the current administration (on the tea party in Kansas). Symbolically tea bags were dumped in water (buckets, garbage cans.... ). According to journalist Andrew Klavan, US mainstream media has mostly chosen to ridicule the whole affair. But he thinks this could be more than a "joke". In fact the start of something big. In this article, he puts the Tea Parties in their rightful historical and constitutional context:
.
"James Madison, in the famous Federalist #10, said it was the “first object of government” to protect those “diverse faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate,” and from which also originate “the possession of different degrees and kinds of property.” He warned that these faculties and these rights were in danger when what the Founders called “a majority faction” took over government. The Constitution, Madison said, was intended to help prevent such majority factions from working for “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project.”.....

Commenting on the media and Democrat Party's attitude towards this grassroots movement Klavan says that "It is that voice—Madison’s voice, and the Constitution’s—with which the protestors spoke on Tax Day, and which the Democrats and the mainstream press have dismissed with such contempt." This "let them dump tea" attitude reminded me of the "let them eat cake" attitude exhibited by the royal court in Versailles. An entirely different context but a similar thread... Contempt, something big. And then change.

.
"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (eat cake in English) said Marie Antoinette, Louis XIV's consort. I do whenever I can find this délice de la boulangerie française.

"Ich bin ein Overland Park (Kansas) tea party-goer" says Ze Ronin. On the left ze brioche achetée et mangée à Tokyo with a cup of hot water in which a tea bag was dumped...

Beware the cult of Bo

2009-04-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

Yes he can (I mean President Obama) express an opinion on EU foreign policy. Can anyone seriously suggest that America does not have an interest in the "geopolitical health" of the EU? The French President seems to (for more on the Turkey-EU remark and political storm). The American President's reply hit the nail though. Hadn't European leaders not liberally been commenting on US policy? Right on Monsieur le Président! How Europe treats Turkey will impact the USA and what goes on in Wall Street or in DC matters to Europe. US politics impact our lives in more ways than we care to think. Recently, I have been impacted by Obamania.
.
Reading Gene Healy's excellent book The Cult of the Presidency, America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power has been most enlightening. He argues that the Bush years had created a resurgence of "Imperial Presidency". Well, something a French citizen can perfectly relate to. France has a presidential system granting extensive executive powers to the president. Caricaturists often portray our presidents - not surprisingly - as kings or emperors (see February post "Yo c'est qui le roi?).

The US president wrote American history and seems like a nice person. American voters will be the judge of his policies. We can only hope for the best.... But when the cult of the presidency combines with a personality cult of unprecedented scope (read "Beware the cult of Obama"), no matter how cool President Obama may be, we in the old "ringardisée" (rendered uncool) Europe have reasons to be concerned too. And with all due respect, to express an opinion.

Indeed after President Obama's town hall meeting in Strasbourg, a 17 year old French lycéen confided to the magazine La Croix that "Son charisme est impressionnant, il rayonne. On a la chair de poule quand on l’entend, on est vraiment hypnotisé" - His charisma is impressive, he radiates light. It makes you shiver when you listen. You are like hypnotised.... The Obama cult only an American problem?

.
There are no statistics on whether his visit has given rise to lurid sexual fantasies amongst European women as is apparently the case in the USA (ref. "Beware" article) but the press frenzy surounding his visit (and the first lady's dresses) is certainly testimony to the Obamania and cultishness currently gripping Europe.

In Tokyo the face of the American brother is visible. Not conspicuously so but it pops up on a T-shirt in a line, a badge on a backpack, shelves in bookstores... Cults have shrines. The fishing village of Obama is hoping for pilgrimage status. Its souvenirs shop is already well stocked in Obama featured chopsticks.... I found an altar of sort in a Shinjuku bookstore. A new English teaching method was launched late last year. Essentially a "yes you can" teach yourself English by learning Obama's speeches (Obama speak?)

Notre première dame Carla Bruni no longer makes fontpage world news (no statistics on fantasies either but plenty of comments from French males). Madame Obama does. Yet just when the "Obamas go to Europe" buzz had abated a little, that it looked like we were going to get a break.... entered a new character in the thickening politico-pop culture plot: Bo le premier chiot (the first puppy)! Cute I thought for a moment. Then I come across this picture and decide it's time to speak out.

.Beware the cult of Bo!

PS: French singer Bo Frenchy (oui "Bo" comme le premier chiot et "Frenchy" as in French) got inspired by it all. So he wrote a song: "I wanna be your dog Barack". Funny. Or maybe just barking mad....

The unbearable top down-ness of European democracy. And the Irish Robin Hood.

2009-03-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

To vote or not to vote in the upcoming European Parliament’s elections….

Voters’ interest is once again very low (e.g.: in France source LH2) so the EU Parliament launches a glitzy €18 million elections campaign :"European elections, it's your choice". It may be so but the real question is: does it matter if we vote?

Truth be told, “le machin européen" to paraphrase Charles de Gaulle, is running "itself” just fine without people having a real say (voters turnout in 2004 dropped to 45.47%). As ever more powers are being transferred to the EU Parliament (even more under the European Constitution/Lisbon Treaty), the issue of legitimacy is getting hotter. Or it is just hot air? Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president and architect of the constitution on which the treaty is based, said “public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly”. Enters the Irish-voters-who-dare-say NO (53.4%) in the referendum of June 2008 (yes-vote 46.6%) ...

"We are not sheep"

Our political elites are no longer amused and many view this expression of sovereign will as an "inconvenience”, an "obstacle" that must be overcome. The post-ballot message from the EU top sounded like "thou shall vote YES for we know best." Essentially a rethink is out of the question even though the message from the EU bottom is quite clear: citizens are apprehensive, disillusioned and also fed up of being patronized by politicians. Given a chance, the populace rebels by exercising its democratic right to say NO. But even after the translation into the EU official languages (the other 22), the leadership “didn’t get it”. A Russian NIET might have got more attention…

To my mind, the Irish no-voters have become the Robin Hoods of the EU forest. The rebellion had the merit of bringing to light the real nature of the EU democratic process, i.e. consultation of the citizenry is only meant to yield a YES-result. Referenda or elections shouldn’t question let alone stop the momentum engineered from above. Hence begging the question of whether the ideal of a free Europe where citizens can shape their own future isn't slowly being replaced by an ideology tolerating no dissent. If there is no doubt that the Parliament has a few good men and women fighting to do the right thing - while shuttling between their country, Brussels and Strasbourg -, the sad fact that national parties tend not to pick the best (not to mention the recycling of the old like Libertas is doing for its pan-European campaign), does not abode well for the future (for more see Européennes, le PS fait le choix de la médiocrité).

While citizens - rebellious or not - are cutting on their spending to weather the global economic storm, Members of the European Parliament are discussing plans for a new multi-million euro aqua gym/sport centre (according to the Daily Telegraph €8.1m - the EU Parliament hits back and says only €4.1m). Should this rather unclear proposal turn into reality - in whatever shape or cost, it most certainly will -, the thought of healthier, more relaxed parlementarians would hardly be comforting to the struggling EU citizen-taxpayers. A referendum on the issue is unlikely but somehow it is easy to imagine our elected representatives in grand aquatic isolation pondering about the most bearable wellness "top-down" democracy can bring them. See the Times on how MEPs make millions...

Thank you Ireland for being the voice of reason, for keeping alive the hope of a freer, more accountable and democratic Europe ! And on the occasion of your National Day, Happy St. Patrick!

Kadin günü: women on top of their world.

2009-03-07T22:01:00.000-08:00

Sabiha Gökçen (1913-2001)
An Air-force officer , she was one of the world's first female fighter pilots and a symbol for Turkey of the emancipation of women. Jetting solo over Turkey and the Balkans in small biplanes, she became the nation's own Amelia Earhart, a celebrity in hat and goggles.

Arzuhan Dogan Yalçindag
First chairwomen of the Board of Directors of the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association - TÜSIAD.

Civil liberties threatened in Europe. Well everywhere...

2009-03-02T18:24:00.000-08:00

"Why then do the European states claim for themselves the right to spread civilisation and manners to different continents? Why not to Europe itself?". Joseph Roth, 1937

If our liberty were safe in the EU (surpranational or national levels), there would be no need for citizens to raise the alarm. Yet alarm bells are ringing throughout Europe. In view of the economic crisis, we should not forget the lessons of history (post-1930s...), i.e., not take freedom (democracy) for a European granted.
The Convention on Modern Liberty is one of those ringing bells. Bringing together people from all walks of life and political affiliations, it focused on the situation in the UK. Yet its message is truly universal. We are lead to believe that in the name of so-called "justice", "security", "truth" we should sacrifice our freedom. A little here, a little there.... but in the end, it all adds up. And what the facts are demonstrating is a trend of erosion of civil liberties throughout Europe with increased state intervention and intrusion in our lives.

Most fall for the rhetoric of fear used to justify the curtailment of individual freedoms. The answer is to keep questioning, to challenge the claims, to test the facts, to debate the issues and hopefully reverse the trend.

History tells us too that fighting for liberty makes a difference. During his exile in England young Voltaire (1694 –1778) was impressed by the British Monarchy's support to freedom of speech. Back in France he fought for civil rights at a time when the French Monarchy was absolute. His words in defense of freedom of speech continue to inspire "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it". Looking at the dangerous course taken by today's European leaders, there are reasons to be concerned. Voltaire must be turning in his grave. And we need to take action.

That said about Europe, don't expect to find guidance and/or solace with the United Nations and its human rights "Alice of Wonderland world" where freedom of opinion is increasingly viewed as a problem. In her speech Jo Glanville (Index of Censorship) argues that the UN is actually retreating from defending free expression. "The prevailing view at the UN Human Rights Council is that potentially offensive speech is so dangerous that our liberty is better served by deploying censorship rather than protecting the right of free speech"....

The Council passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religions" (non-binding Resolution 62/145, 2007) and calls on governments to take action. Freedom House (FH) reports that the U.N. General Assembly is considering an "Anti blasphemy Resolution" which would make it binding on member states to make it a crime to criticize all religions (A resolution pushed by the group of 57 Islamic nations). In the CNN interview, Paula Schriefer (FH) says that the effect of the non-binding resolution on freedom of speech is already being felt around the world (arrests of journalists). So what next? A Euro goulag, global inquisition?.... Food for free thought. For now.

Yo c'est qui le Roi?

2009-02-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

Ze Président and ze peuple
In a recent poll (Ifop) it transpired that 58% of ze peuple was disastified with ze Président's handling of the economic crisis. To boost the economy, public sector employees go on strike. Plus de grève.... Ze peuple (a majority) clamours for more government intervention. Plus d'Etat sauveur... To boost his public image, ze President flies to the Middle East to save the world. Plus de Superman.....

"L'Etat c'est moi" (I am the State) Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre (1638-1718) and Nicolas Sarkozy, Président de la République française (now). Plus de Roi aussi.....

"Sarkozy resign!" "...And it shall be forbidden to whistle, shout and demonstrate in the King's presence....". "Inform all the prefectures"

Reforming the state in the Kingdom of "Fonctionnarie"...
More than 50% of deputies and senators have a civil service background. Contribuables Associés (Taxpayers Associated Org) launches a petition for more independent representatives in our Parliament: "Fonctionnaire ou parlementaire. Il faut choisir". One can live in hope they will chose to do the right thing. "Impossible is nothing"... the Adidas-David Bekham philosophy.

France and Nato (and where the King should sit...)

Flash news from the EU Observer: French president Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to boycott the April NATO summit celebrating the 60th anniversary of the organisation, unless he is allowed to choose where he sits at the conference table.....
.

Yo, ze Sarko video: King of Bling-bling

Touching on issues like the cult of presidency, popular culture, relationship between power and business, elections, independence of the media, policing, accountability... Also featuring creative usage of la langue de Shakespeare like "I am ze Boss man".... Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi....

ze french umour

On Armenian lobbies fighting free speech and politicians not standing for liberty.

2009-02-12T03:48:00.000-08:00

Post published as an Op-Ed in the Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey) on Feb. 12th 2009.
.
In Washington the “mischief of factions” is in full swing in the corridors of power to paraphrase James Madison, the father of the American Constitution. Lobbies are hard at work and not just for bailout money. Electoral promises were made, campaign money raised by the well organized Armenian interest-group. It’s time for reckoning.

American lawmakers would be well-advised to look at recent developments in France for a reality check. The 2001 Law[1] recognizing the event of 1915 as “Genocide” was passed. But the Armenian lobby asked for more, namely the criminalization of the denial of “genocide” [2]. When the bill reached the Senate in 2007, it finally dawned on a wise few that the logical legal consequence was that France would need to arrest and prosecute the entire Turkish nation. Our political establishment backpedaled.

The National Assembly issued a 480-page-Information Report (No 1262 of 18 Nov. 2008). Sobering reading! Contrary to what some intellectuals keep trumpeting, it is not the Armenian community (3) who requires further protection. The Report states the risks posed by the introduction of so-called memory laws: unconstitutionality, abridgement of fundamental freedoms, disguised censorship through the threat of legal action, creation of a precedent for a “thought” crime, restriction of the fundamental principle of freedom of scholarship. Last but not least, these laws due to their communitarian logic could weaken the fabric of our society. It concludes that it is not the role of the Parliament to write history. Eminent law professors have appealed for their annulment[4].

With a growing sense that a Rubicon against individual liberties has been crossed, the silent French majority is now speaking out. In growing numbers citizens are saying that “Liberty for history is Liberty for all” (2008 European historians “Appel de Blois”[5] see “Liberté pour l’Histoire” http://www.lph-asso.fr/). The practice of state edicted truth is not consistent with our democratic values. As Hayek’s famously commented in The Road to Serfdom, in totalitarian régimes “the disinterested search for truth cannot be allowed… Opinion must be controlled”. With these laws the “end of truth” in the field of history is staring us in the face. The Armenian lobby is increasingly looking like an Orwellian “thought” police intent on misusing the Ministère de la Justice as a Ministry of “their Truth”.

The story of socialist politician and Member of Parliament Dr. Jack Lang is enlightening. During a debate with historians, he admitted candidly that MPs had mostly voted for the 2001 Law “out of electoral concerns”. Hence a senior political figure essentially admits the obvious, namely that a small dedicated minority had imposed its “diktat”[6] on the majority under the guise of the “common will” (28 votes in a National Assembly of 577). His eloquent defense of freedom of expression resulted in him being targeted with a deluge of aggressive and unjustified attacks (letters, blog comments, etc…) which forced him to retract behind a wall of political correctness.

He is only the latest victim of the situation precisely highlighted as a “risk” in the Report. A letter[7] addressed to the former Minister by Alexis Govcivan, a leading figure of the pro-Armenian lobby, is a thinly disguised threat to sue. The free exchange of ideas and dissent within its own ranks cannot be allowed. The very notion that Armenians would apologize for the murders committed by the nationalist terrorist organization Asala (1970s and 80s) is abhorrent. Dr. Armen Gavakian from the Macquarie University, Sydney had to cancel the launch of a campaign inspired by a similar Turkish initiative apologizing to Armenians (http://www.ozurdiliyoruz.com/). The Turkish intellectuals’ campaign continues to gather signatures despite the pressure.

Almost a century after a dark period for all the peoples of Anatolia, it is time to leave history to the historians, time to look to the future. Turkey and Armenia have engaged in a dialogue started by the brave steps of the two leaders and the visit to Yerevan of President Abdulah Gül last September. History is being written where it matters.

Diplomatic efforts to normalize relations if conclusive may open a new era of trade and prosperity, cultural exchanges between the two nations, free debate between historians. The diaspora’s aggressive law-making and bullying strategy may satisfy the nationalists in their ranks but it is not helping to resolve present problems. Obstructing progress from the prosperous and free United States and Europe is easy…

Exercising judgment and leadership takes courage. When called upon to vote on the resolution, American law-makers should seriously ask themselves whether the founders of their democracy had given them powers to write Armenian and Turkish history. I hope they won’t chose to appease yet another lobby under pretence of justice and remember George Washington’s wise words: "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."
.

[1] 29 Janvier 2001, Loi relative à la reconnaissance du génocide arménien. Resolution stating that « France publicly recognizes the 1915 Armenian genocide ». 28 voted in favour, 549 deputies abstained.
[2] Proposition de loi (bill) No 1643.
(3) Estimated at 350,000 individuals. Total population 64 millions.
[4] “Appel des Juristes” against memory laws (signed by 56 eminent law professors).
[5] “Appel de Blois”, October 2008. Appeal adopted by European historians during the Conference “Rendez-vous de l’histoire de Blois”, France.
[6] The expression is used in reference to a similar reasoning about the “common will” by Bruno Leoni in Freedom and the Law
[7] Letter dated 28 January 2009, The CCAF (Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France)

Spirit of capitalism on water

2009-02-04T00:06:00.000-08:00

From the exploration of the 7 seas to the pursuit of sailing bliss.... Discover a 100 footer by Spirit Yachts, monument to the human spirit. Tradition, modernité, grace. Plaisir des sens sur l'eau en image

"When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness of man's magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer all that senseless space".

Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead.

Mariners and charts

"So what remains? The oceans that lies dark
Around, blessed islands. Come, embark".
Horace, Epode 16.41-2

"Explorers were the engineers of history's infrastructure, the builders of causeways of culture, forgers of links, spinners of webs".
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto in Pathfinders. A global History of Exploration.

Surviving fragment of the first world map of Ottoman Admiral Piri Reis (1513)

At the helm
"My body sways, drunk with the shock of a discovery, and the yacht heels with my body, and it is the sea under the hull that reels with the heeling of my yacht - the discovery that my life is now in my own hands, that there is no necessity to argue, to explain, to teach, to plead, to fight – nothing but to see and think and act.....".

Paraphrasing Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged) because she tells it better. Lire sur Rand en français www.unmondelibre.org/node/304?q=node/554

Protectionism, cheese and the pursuit of happiness.

2009-02-01T00:44:00.000-08:00

Governing a nation boasting 246 varieties of cheese is hard work as statesman Charles de Gaulle once famously said. The controversial Czech Presidency sponsored art work ‘Entropa’ and its portrayal of France as “en grève” (on strike) hits the nail. Taking to the barricades is a kind of national sport and most French people thought it funny. Maybe only until last Thursday if they had to go anywhere with public transport.....

These days the French government is certainly no longer laughing. With the latest wave of mostly public sector workers hits the streets for more demonstrations. When so many in the private sector are struggling to find jobs or keep them, job-for-lifers and privileged union leaders are asking for more protection – read "privileges". The Left disagrees with the government stimulus plan which they argue is favouring capitalist bankers. Unions demand that the pre-crisis plan to cut jobs in the bloated administration is scrapped. So they go on strike and cripple the economy a little more.... Of course the organizers see the use of taxpayers’ money to support them – read "legalised plunder" - as an eternal social given (acquis social). Not that these unions really need any subsidies. With workers understandably worried about their future, collectivist utopians are doing well. For them, business is growing.

Not so for Roquefort cheese producers whose exports to the USA have been dealt a final blow (the first was in 1999 was a 100% customs duty). Indeed one of the last decisions taken by the Bush Administration was to triple customs’ duties on the Aveyron cheese. One has to wonder what can possibly warrant such a harsh and unjust measure. A regular feature of the French diet, it poses no health threat. Lest you forget it in the boot of your car, it has no adverse effect on the environment. Producers have no other agenda than to earn an honest living in trying times…. The answer is the return of politics on our plates with the opening of a new chapter in the life of a cheese inextricably caught in a transatlantic trade war. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it isn’t good news for consumers on both side of the ocean. The G20 leaders had pledged to protect free trade but what we are being served is “appellation contrôlée” protectionism.

It is not known if President Obama is fond of Roquefort but he spoke eloquently of hope and free trade. So at the start of his presidency, here is an opportunity to demonstrate that he means change by revoking a ludicrous obstacle to free enterprise. Hence perhaps inspiring European leaders to do the same for US products. Fancy that! A variety of cheese influencing global governance...

The pursuit of happiness is as diverse as there are individuals. In a globalised economy, some see its attainment in the freedom to eat unpasteurized fromage accompanied with Californian red. But at a price determined by the “invisible hand” of the market, not by politicians.

Conflict in the Caucasus: EU shows lack of backbone in handling of Russia.

2009-01-30T19:53:00.000-08:00

Post first published as a Letter to Editor in The Daily Yomiuri, Japan on 04 Nov. 2008.
.
European citizens could be forgiven if they are confused by the recent shift in European Union foreign policy towards Russia and what looks like rapprochement. This summer things seemed simpler. There was Georgia, a new democracy threatened by menacing Russian tanks with civilians caught in the firing line. The EU brokered cease-fire and its six-point-plan was acclaimed by all. For a moment it was as if the EU was going to put a show of unity and resolve against the aggressor or, in other words, to stand for freedom and democracy.

The illusion was short lived.

The resolve has gone with the global economic crisis. In Georgia, the status quo has clearly been accepted by most EU leaders and relations with Russia have resumed in earnest. After Nov. 14's Russia-EU Summit in Nice, France, one thing is clear. The French leader Nicolas Sarkozy, nicknamed "the American" ought now to be called "Sarkozy le russe"! Having put aside the Georgia issue, the energetic tandem flew to the Washington G20 summit united in the fight against the free market. Mission accomplished so to speak. President Chavez must have approved.

When Cato scholar Andrei Illarionov warns that Europeans by resuming contact with the Russian leadership have chosen a course of appeasement similar to what happened in Munich in the 1930s, he may have a point.

It strikes me as ironic that during most of the recent so-called coloured revolutions, the pro-democracy movements should fly the EU flag as a symbol of their aspiration for freedom. For freedom fighters, support will take the form of humanitarian assistance, reconstruction financial packages and elections and border monitoring teams. But security guarantees will not be forthcoming. No EU cavalry on liberty stand-by to fight the Russian bear outside the fortress. Sorry, just a lot of hyper leadership….

More on Georgia, Russia and liberty http://www.cato.org/people/andrei-illarionov

Capitalism, the global crisis and the guillotine.

2009-01-30T07:06:00.000-08:00

Post published as a Letter to the Editor in The Daily Yomiuri on Nov 04, 2008.
.
Back at home the guillotine is out again, working full time and enthusiastically operated by our nomenklatura of politicians, civil servants and union leaders who know best how to govern us, the sovereign people of France. “Liberalism is dead” says Nicolas Hulot, our ecology guru. “Laissez-faire capitalism is finished” says President Sarkozy. Capitalising on people’s fear the culprit is paraded. And beheaded. Down goes the blade of the ideological socialist consensus on the neck of the free market. And of course our supreme leaders do it again. They back down on promised reforms and promise us more “saviour” state. Equally troubling is our President’s push for his €20 billion European crisis fund and less independence for the European Central Bank. Could this be 21st Century bonapartisme?

When our youth schooled in the mistrust of all things liberal is capable of making a right wing government back down on a labour law adjustment (a small measure of contractual flexibility) after the bill was passed by both the Assemblée Nationale and the Sénat, the message is clear. Street power works better than votes. A minority can hold a majority hostage. Naturally one starts to wonder if the guillotine’s blade has not also fallen on democracy’s neck. With the global crisis hitting the real economy, the “social dialogue ” à la française is likely to be hot this winter. But “Worry not” say our born-again revolutionaries “Tis the dawn of a new era. Social democracy will save us!” And who, might one ask, will pay the bill for more socialism? Well, who else but the unsung hero fighting on the frontline of the private sector. The entrepreneur, the innovator, the jobs and ultimately wealth creator, the Gallic “Joe the Plumber” prepared to take risks and be rewarded by profit. Overtaxed fraternité does the “spreading of the wealth” bit of égalité. “All animals are equal” says Napoleon the pig in Animal Farm….

When I read Orwell’s fable in the 1980s it was the Cold War. The collectivist threat was out there with the soviets behind the Iron Curtain. In 2008 the fiercest attacks come from within! Socialism is the biggest failure of the 20th century both economically and morally. Its inherent doom was then foreseen by wise economists like F.A. Hayek. The truth is that there is no such thing as a perfect world and capitalism albeit not a perfect economic system has proven to be able to guarantee individual freedoms and deliver prosperity. For a free world we need more democratic capitalism. Time to save liberté’s head from its determined executioner!

Che Guevara : looking behind the official myth.

2009-01-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

To some Ernesto Guevara is the ultimate humanistic hero, defender of the poor and the oppressed. To others, he is a Stalinist fundamentalist who sentenced thousands to death by revolutionary tribunals and firing squads. The latest film Che the Argentine is hitting the world’s big screens and now showing in Japan. Given that it was premiered in Havana, it is essentially just another festive event on the official agenda of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution.

It is about the state sponsored myth and the cult followed by socialists worldwide. In 1960 when French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was glorifying Che’s superior intellect, hundreds of ordinary citizens were being sentenced to death by his revolutionary tribunals and executed by the firing squads he helped indoctrinate and train. Back then, Big Brother Che was watching.... In fact, he still is from the giant mural of the police force HQ in Havana. Nowadays the icon is only watching foreign tourists ushered by party faithful guides. In other words, he is doing his bit to bring into the ailing economy the much needed cash and no longer “executing out of revolutionary conviction”. In 1967 history had caught up with the island’s Robespierre in the Bolivian mountains where he died by the same method he had bragged about in his "certainly we execute" speech at the UN General Assembly (1964).

In 1959 the Marxist revolution ousted an undemocratic regime only to replace it with a dictatorship of the proletariat. Nowadays unlike the Che idolizers of the free world, Cubans know better. The egalitarian utopia promised by the Soviet-backed revolutionaries turned into a totalitarian regime whose centrally directed collectivist economy has failed to deliver prosperity. Many have left the desperately poor island in search of freedom and a better life. Many died at sea trying to escape.

Maybe one day a Hollywood blockbuster will tell their stories of bravery and desperation.

In 2009 expect a resurgence of Che mania with film merchandising, the usual celebrities parading with T-shirts, western youths brandishing his stylized image in their fight against globalization. But here is another fact. Be it on snowboards, underwear or cigars, the “Che” brand name sells well. His face recently appeared on the façade of a bar in my Tokyo neighbourhood (photo right). It looks "cool" the owner says, clearly hoping to attract more clients and maximise his profit....

The "comandante" turned capitalist icon? Maybe not. But certainly evidence that the Marxist ideology the revolutionary so fervently tried to impose, has been ultimately defeated by capitalism.

Che mania? Non merci!