EU Spectacle
The word spectacle is carefully chosen, since this is what the current drama of which Greece is the symptom, not the cause, has become. It no longer bears any relationship to coherent democratic leadership or process of governance in a workable political and currency union. The cancellation at a moment’s notice of a summit of all EU leaders is extraordinary.
There is a problem with Greece, but it is not that difficult to solve. Indeed this blog working alone would be able to negotiate a workable solution. What is proving impossible is to find an acceptable solution, because the institutions normally established to process decision making at national and international levels are not there, or there in such abundance nobody can detect who is in charge. And to make matters worse the structure of the currency itself is unsustainable as it lacks a treasury and a finance minister answering to an elected government. A committee of finance ministers at loggerheads, elected by only one member state in each case, on conflicting mandates and to differing electoral timetables will work only in the good times and becomes dysfunctional under pressure.
So all we know at this moment is that Greece may or may not go bust tomorrow, the euro looks more like an impediment to growth than an engine of it, and the reputation of the EU as a coherent political union is severely damaged. Beneath that a big gap is developing between the north and the south of Europe, between the politicians and their electors everywhere and between those in the eurozone who want to stand firm to high principle even if it brings the whole thing down, led by the Germans, and by those who feel pragmatic reality demands compromise, led by France and Italy.
At the heart of of this crisis now engulfing the whole EU are three violated principles. You cannot have a democratic political union without an elected forum from which all authority flows. You cannot have a currency which cannot be printed. You cannot have capitalism which does not permit debtors to go bust. The first is violated because the whole EU is wrongly configured. The last two are rescinded because Germany says No.
message 1701:
by
Linda
(new)
Jul 10, 2016 10:57AM
You say men are just as bad in a different way. How so?
reply
|
flag
I am going to send you my latest reptile video. Have fun watching it.
What you attribute to men is just human nature. It could also apply to women to be untruthful, incompetent, and exploitative. They could also stab you in the back. They could squander things, too, and act stupid. But ONLY women would trade accusations about how many children you do or do not have. Only women would mix up politics and their personal lives because it is the way most women think. That is why I don't think most of them should be in national politics. Nor should they be in the army. Edward knew that when he was fighting a battle he had to put his personal life out of his head. A woman would not likely be able to do that.
You say that spies tell you that there was something "dodgy" (not an American expression but very quaint) in Leadsom's tax returns that she did not want to publish. Are you like Churchill? Do you have your own spies? Amazing!
https://youtu.be/vmsI8D27cq0Here is the link to the new lizard video I promised you. You will get the idea what it is like in my backyard which is still mostly in a wild state. We are adding walkways. We have hired men to get rid of the rustic wooden fences and to get rid of the cactus and brush. We also need to get rid of too many rocks.
I am sure that politics in Europe are more ruthless than in America. In America politics don't mean as much. And certainly all the really ruthless people are probably in industry and business. That is where the money is, not politics. However, if you study American history a few figures emerge who were more crafty or tricky than most American politicians. I don't know about ruthless, though. For instance, FDR comes to mind. He wanted to fight in WW2. But nobody else did. If you had anybody else as President, probably the US would not have entered the war. Also the way he maneuvered around Wendell Wilkie in 1940 shows what a master politician he was.
You say the British are the most ruthless and duplicitous tribe in Europe, but what about the Russians? They murder political rivals practically in broad daylight. The Russian expert tells us that Nemsov (liberal opposition politician) was recently murdered under the Kremlin Walls in February of last year. If that happened in Whitehall there would be more than a scandal. In DC it is inconceivable. No one gets murdered in US history because of politics unless some nut shoots you, and that has nothing to do with politics. Even during the Civil War in the Congress there were no murders, just one attack with a cane.Here you have to get directly elected if you are a politician, and the voters would not tolerate one congressman shooting another. If that happened, they would make congressional terms 6 months instead of two years. They are very suspicious of politicians anyway.
Gary just had a brilliant idea about this. He said that this ruthlessness in British politics comes from the fact that the PM is not directly elected and is chosen behind the scenes by members of his own party. That obviously leads to backstabbing and bad things. The President is directly elected here except when he becomes President because he is Vice President such as Ford. Usually the Vice President has been elected previously along with the President but in the case of Ford he was appointed by Nixon. So Ford is the only US President who was never elected.
What is your information network? Or do you mean the journalists?
Yes, one of the most unattractive things about backyards in Tucson is that you see vast expanses of nothing but dirt with cactuses and native shrubs growing here and there. Almost everybody covers their front yards with gravel because to maintain a lawn here is very difficult and costs a lot in terms of money to keep it watered all the time. But few people put gravel in the backyard. We are setting up gravel walkways in the backyard and hiring people to get rid of the junky rustic fences that we left here by the previous owner. Also we are getting rid of the dense growths of cactus, blocking any use of the land. Then I am going to cover the bare ground with mulch where there are no walkways until I decide what to plant where.But before I can plant anything I have to set up a means of affordable irrigation with rain barrels and drip. Right now we don't have enough outdoor sillcocks to stretch the hoses and sprinklers any farther out into the backyard. We have one row of Italian blue cypresses that we just planted along one fence in the backyard, but our present resources can't be stretched any farther to plant anything else until we get a giant $800.00 rain barrel and add gutters to the carport roof to feed into it.
Couldn't a lot of this have just happened by chance? It's hard to believe somebody had it all planned in advance. May becoming PM sounds like a chance event. After all, somebody had to become PM. Of course if you were writing a novel about it, it would have to be planned in advance.
If Gary is absolutely correct, then that is the solution. Reform the government. Change it. Make sure that the PM has to get directly elected by the populace. It's corrupt and leads to even more corruption to have him chosen by the party itself. That leads to horse trading and smoke filled back rooms with doors that are shut. This is why the US Congress refused to settle the 2000 election which was so close that it was going to get thrown into the House for the first time since the 19th century, the Hayes/Tilden Election of 1876. Congress figured that they would get walloped by the modern media and the people of the US if they engaged in horse trading and decided who would be President in some back room, setting aside all the votes in the 2000 election. So they threw the election into the Supreme Court for the first time in US history, figuring people wouldn't object to that.As I have said many times, you need a Constitution. Start a movement. Get something done.
Also, how could Cameron form a government with only only 23% of the electorate voting for it?
It sounds very quaint. It would be impossible to replicate here. Although even here you hear gossip occasionally about national figures that doesn't come directly through the news media. Some lawyer claims to have heard something. For instance Gary heard some rumor last winter about what was going on behind the scenes in the gay rights case. Two female justices had been told by Roberts, the Chief Justice, to recuse themselves. They refused. The reason was that they had previously ruled on similar cases and could not be impartial. There is a live legal issue whether they could be required to recuse themselves. That story has not been reported in the media anywhere.
It is chaotic just the way life is chaotic. Nobody knows what is going to happen. Opportunities open up that you don't expect. Opportunities that you do expect don't pan out. That is what I mean by chance. Nobody can have it all planned out in advance unless you are a character in a novel or a play like Shakespeare's Richard III, the consummate evil villain.
Obviously there could be no difference between the Tory Party and the Labour Party when it comes to tactics. They are both in the same country and are subject to the same traditions.
How could you have five parties? I thought you had a two party system. I thought that was two party system America originally used as a model. How did it get from a two party system to a five party system? Here there are actually some very minor parties such as the Libertarian Party which occasionally appear on the ballot, but that's mostly local and it doesn't mean anything much at all. They don't have any influence or any power. As soon as a third party gets a bright idea, either the Republican or Democratic Party or both snatch it up and voila the third party disappears.What do you mean by proportional representation? You mean everybody wins but only by a proportion?
So Boris is half American just like Churchill? Or is he all American with dual citizenship? Or is he all British and just happened to be born in America? All very interesting.
What kind of a word is "Brexiteers"? Is it supposed to be humorous? Is it supposed to rhyme with "Cavaliers" or something like that? But then I guess "Brexiteer" and "Cavalier" don't quite rhyme. But is it referring to "Cavaliers" way back in British history during the English Civil War?
So I suppose you will be at the Facebook Party tomorrow at 2PM Pacific which is I think 10PM your time? I think there is an eight hour time difference. 2200 hours?
All sounds way too complicated. But Turkey is at the heart of the Islamic terrorism you see around the world. It was the Ottoman Turkish Empire up until the end of WW1. It used to oppress the Arabs, the Syrians, etc. That was the empire the Lawrence of Arabia defeated in 1918. For the past hundred years the freed Arabs and Syrians have done nothing except get themselves into trouble. In 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference Lawrence himself had a plan for Syria that involved giving control to certain British-leaning monarchs and making the area part of the British Empire. The Balfour Declaration didn't help. In 1921 at the Cairo Conference where Churchill and Lawrence both appeared, they divided up the Middle East into zones of influence. That didn't work either. I know by the time you get to the 1930's soldiers like Edward were in Jerusalem doing street to street fighting. Essentially you had the beginnings of all this mess that has led to terrorism in recent decades.This is why I say that World War 1 is still going on. It started worldwide revolution, democratic movements, constitutions, declarations, etc. The Arab part of it has yet to settle out.
The reason you didn't see any of the others at the Facebook Party was because no one else seemed to show up besides you and me at least at the time allotted for the party. Seven people were supposed to come. Three never showed up at all and I never heard from them. Somebody named Lori Brockman showed up 12 hours ahead of time for some reason I can't determine and left all sorts of posts all over the Events Page. I tried to engage her at the party but she didn't respond at that time. She did win a prize, though. But if she doesn't write back to me I can't send it to her. Paul Crust, the guy from Britain who lives in Florida that you talked to last year on May 1 at the other Facebook Party for Key to Lawrence Special Edition, said he was going to attend. But at the time of the party I couldn't raise him. I wrote to him while the party was going on. He never wrote back. Virginia McCullough, the lady you met at the May 1 Party, never responded when I wrote her either.At any rate the only thing that seems to make a difference in sales is what I do on Amazon. Goodreads is now part of Amazon, and a lot of people seem to respond to the Goodreads giveways. I get some review attention from that, so I intend to continue to give books away when they are first published. But whether book reviews drive sales when they are just Amazon book reviews on the Amazon book page, I don't really know. Do you think they do any good? I can see where they could do harm. If you had a one star book review and your book was rated 1 star I can see where that might drive potential readers away. But I've been on lots of 5 star book pages that didn't seem to be selling many books. I don't suppose that middling to good book reviews can do much harm, so I guess they are worth pursuing.
What seems to do the best for me is changing the book cover, changing the product description from time to time, changing the key words, etc. Anything that makes the book look new seems to help. What do you think? Do you get sales when you change the book cover?
Why do you think Boris is so entertaining?
I finally hear from Lori Brockman. Typical. If this is what Facebook parties produce, it is for the birds. Somebody signs up to attend the party. They zoom in there before the party and answer the questions, and don't show up again until it is time to collect the prizes.
Again most Americans would not even be aware that the world doesn't like them. Nor would they pay any attention if they found out. It's not a popularity contest. It's a power contest. Besides what the media says doesn't count for much. It might not even be true. If America is so unpopular, why is everybody trying to come here?
You don't seem to talk about religion very often. But it is interesting to picture you at a polite barbecue perhaps hosted by those lawyer neighbors of yours from London. They are talking about the weather, horses, their dogs, or something very polite and you compare or contrast it to the Brexit vote. But they must know you are a blogger who writes about the subject. So they must like to listen to your opinions.
I am very certain that post cold war Washington does really stupid things. If you go back in history all sorts of countries at all sorts of time periods did equally stupid or even more stupid things. Military leaders did stupid things, too. One example from long ago that pops immediately into my mind because I just wrote about it is Augustus. He made the huge mistake of trusting Herman the German, renamed Arminius by the Romans. He was a favorite of Augustus who was usually very discriminating about who to trust. It was one of his few mistakes and it cost him dearly. He lost his legions in 9AD to the Germans under Arminius at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest outside Osnabruck.But I can't convince you enough that most political leaders have their hands tied by the opinion polls. They won't do anything that a large group of American people won't support. Very few are clever enough to manipulate public opinion a la FDR who managed to get an isolationist public into World War 2.
This is as true now as it was fifty years ago. This is why the US is still on top. It is more complicated than people think to construct a nuclear bomb and to maintain a nuclear arsenal along with all sorts of other weapons. Even a dirty nuclear bomb of the kind that the Russians are able to make, the kind that a terrorist could conceivably construct, can't do nearly as much damage as the planes on 9/11. Jet fuel is more lethal.
I didn't say that terrorism neutralizes military power. I just said that that is why you have terrorists --- states can't oppose the US and the English speaking powers. It is far trickier to go after stateless individuals who can be here, there, and everywhere. But it can be done. And it can be done with conventional military power. The precedent that I think of is Pompey and the Pirates who were attacking ancient Rome, which was already the leading power in the area and had already conquered Greece and was about to take Egypt, too. But the US would have a big problem acting like Pompey. In effect he killed off all the pirates and took their children and womenfolk as slaves. Nowadays you would have to occupy the countries, and that is a much bigger undertaking.If the US weren't the US but were somebody else they would make an underhanded deal with say the Russians and pay them to go into Syria, etc and raise, pillage, and plunder and bomb until everybody gave up. But this is not in accordance with American thinking.
There is no morality in international politics. There has never been any morality all the way back in history. You can't judge international players the way you would judge your neighbor.Also you say that the average American isn't well informed, and I agree with that. Then you say that Europeans are better informed, and that may well be true. Most of these events are occurring closer to your shores. But unfortunately the Europeans are no longer in charge. You just have to put up with Americans, silly as they are.
We couldn't stop laughing when we heard that you thought 80 degrees is a heat wave. Even in Virginia the temperatures in the summer are usually higher than that with humidity at least 90%. Right now the average daily temperatures here in Tucson always hover around 100 or 101 or 102. That's down from 110 or 112 last month in June during the "heat dome" right before the monsoon. We live in a world of high powered, state of the art air conditioning. We rarely step out of it. That's why it is the equivalent to a snowstorm where you are. It shuts you in. You can't even take a walk up or down the street.I've been looking at London temperatures, and lately they haven't been all that warm. Today it says high 91 for London. That's the highest I've seen in quite awhile. Usually it's been in the 60's, and I thought it didn't seem like summer.
By the way one year ago when I was in Virginia I recorded an audio/video on the front porch of the house we were renting. It records sounds at night in Virginia. I've been meaning to send it to you. This is the appropriate time of year.
How can you disagree with the fact that if Lord Elgin had not removed the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon they would have been destroyed by the Turks in the 1820s?
Contrary to popular opinion I don't think there is any nuclear threat. The reason is as follows: The US invented the bomb in 1945. Britain was part of this. It took a monstrous size industrial production and a country large enough to have secret cities like Los Alamos to accomplish this. Other countries may have acquired the bomb after the US such as Russia, but it doesn't really matter. The reason is as follows: Remember Chernobyl? Russia is more likely to blow itself up than to blow up the US. Other countries may have token bombs but they cannot use them very easily. This naked power issue is I think one of the big reasons the US is in charge right now. ONLY the US can really handle the bomb and all the bombs created after it. Certainly terrorists can't use it to any great effect.
Why would they boo Boris for supporting Brexit when they voted for Brexit?
I just thought of this for the first time. This may be why you have terrorism right now at this time in history. You can't fight the US any other way. The US has a lock on nuclear weapons/aircraft/jets/military planes, etc. States can't oppose the US --- only terrorists who have no states to attack.
Yes, it could have just been taken outside the walls of Ware Hall at this time of year. Of course this time of year in 1940 was right before the place was destroyed in a bombing raid on September 7. Dora could remember the picture when she went back there to look at the bombed out ruin.
What was the speech about? The Brexit? Was he boasting about it or something? Did he think the French were receptive to such a message?
A BBQ with leggs of lamb sounds different! I never thought of that. Here you usually grill hot dogs, hamburgers, and steaks. Then you serve it with popular American sides like potato salad (I think this was originally German), corn on the cob, baked beans, coleslaw, etc. For dessert on a hot day in July they would probably serve Klondikes. Maybe brownies. Not nearly as fancy as what you describe, except that right now steaks are very expensive.So you discussed politics at dinner? You should have taken a poll and then published it as part of your blog.
It is interesting but what I have observed in the US is that in many social situations people steer away from talking about politics. They act as if it is bad manners. Few people even discuss how they voted. Again bad manners.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. Gary hasn't even mentioned this one. I also don't see what it has to do with the US image overseas. But then the US doesn't really care much about its image overseas. People here don't think like that. They would not care if everybody from around the world was jumping up and down calling them names and cursing them out. If they saw it on TV they would dismiss it and think that foreigners were weird, corrupt, and probably up to something they shouldn't be up to. Think of an old Doris Day movie with Doris Day playing a suburban housewife. Think of her looking at a TV and seeing foreigners with signs crying out against the US. She would probably clap her hand to her mouth in great offense and turn off the TV, shaking her head. Then she would return to her ironing, wondering at the bad manners of the world.
I'm not for this business about making up for past history. This is a really bad concept and can lead to all sorts of problems. I don't think that Lord Elgin looted anything. There was an Act of Parliament that permitted it. He also got permission from the Ottomans to take the marbles. The Ottomans were then in charge. If he hadn't taken them at that exact moment, they would have been blown up by the Turks and they wouldn't even exist today.I propose a third alternative. Instead of keeping them at the British Museum and instead of returning them to Athens, you should let the Getty Museum in California buy them. The climate in California is ideal for preserving such objects, better than any place in Europe in fact. Don't you think science should prevail here? For that matter, Egyptian stuff should be sent to Phoenix in the American Southwest. It would be far better for all the objects concerned.
I am also for museums publishing photos online of all their collections. You should be able to take a virtual tour.
Goodreads post: Britain will not do this. That is my prediction. The US and Britain are supposed to have the same views about world events. They are supposed to have virtually the same foreign policies. This has to do with the current dominance of the English speaking peoples. I recall Tony Blair saying something like this during the Bush administration. Also Churchill used to talk about the English speaking peoples.
The rest of the world would think it was ridiculous if the US and Britain publicly disagreed. If the State Department or the Defense Department or the President or whatever acts like foreign wars are footballs games, that is exactly what I have always said. They thought of World War 2 the same way. Right now they think the Israelis are the good guys and ALL the Arabs are the bad guys. Arabs can't do anything right. They can't thin any other way because this is how the American people think. It is just like a Western drama with John Wayne. You can't change this no matter what you do.
I agree that the American people have never heard of the countries aboard that they have fights with. They could not find them on a map. They probably could not spell the words. But they are perfectly confident that they have an innate sense of right and wrong, good and bad.
A BBQ sounds like just the thing. Much better than blog posts if you ask me. Tasty, too. What did they have?
Were they booing him because he was speaking in French? Is that it? The rule here is that if you are Secretary of State you MUST (unwritten rule but a firm tradition) speak English in public and when making speeches that are broadcast by the media though you can speak a foreign language in a private conference. Condoleza Rice could speak fluent Russian (she was a professor from Stanford) but the public never heard a word of it.However a President here can speak a few words of a foreign language if he is addressing a crowd who speaks that language, but it is touch and go as far as the tradition goes.
You can't make the Americans choose between Israel or Britain. For one thing Britain started it all with the Balfour Declaration after WW1. Britain helped get the Zionist Movement underway. The US came aboard, then the US inherited everything after WW2. Britain has no choice but to go along with what it created. Also based on what you yourself told me the US and Britain at this point have a "joint army navy air force". That says a lot. It sounds like Britain and the US aren't totally independent. That raises real issues about Britain telling the US anything at all. The US takes Britain for granted. They don't even think about it.Israel as I told you before is a pet project of powerful, well-connected, wealthy US Jews. I've seen them. I've even met some of them. I went to college with some of their sons and daughters. There is no way to change the US attitude about Israel. The US thinks Israel and the Jews are the good guys and all the Arabs are the bad guys. It's that simple.
Goodreads post: Have you heard about a bill in Parliament about returning the Elgin Marbles to Athens? I know this isn't your cup of tea. But we heard about it and are really outraged. Gary is an American member of the British Museum and follows such things. It calls into question what the real purpose of a museum is. Is it only to display works of your particular country? Because if you return one thing, what is to stop you from returning everything that doesn't originate in Britain itself? You get to keep Turner, but what about the Rosetta Stone itself? That is the very symbol of the British Museum.
There are more Jews in the US than in Israel. That says a lot. There are also more Irish in the US than in Ireland. That says a lot, too. I wonder if either country could exist without the US. Ireland might only because it was once a real country. Israel could not. It isn't a real country.
I am certain that the world watches America and reports on it. In many cases they may know more about what goes on in America than Americans do. A lot of Americans (but not all) don't pay much attention to politics or current events. They are focused on their own lives, their own businesses (Hint: America focuses on BUSINESS AND MONEY), sports, or whatever interests them. As much as it may look irresponsible to you, it is the greatness of America. Politics doesn't matter. It is not like Europe or the Old World. Some dictator is not going to get elected while you are not watching. There is not going to be a Brexit. There is nothing to leave. Here the news has to compete with other forms of entertainment to get people's attention.
I will put it up on Edward Ware Thrillers today and send you a link to the Captive at the Berghof part 2 page which I am working on now anyway. You couldn't have sent the photograph in a more timely fashion. I just got done publishing Captive at the Berghof part 1 on July 15. Now I am working on publishing part 2 on October 15. I just got done choosing the book cover. I am writing the cover copy. This will be a good picture.
Have you ever been to Greece? Italy? I've been to both when I was a kid. Things there are not preserved or kept up very well. And in Greece there is political instability to add to the mix. Do you care about preserving the Elgin Marbles or do you care more about the politics of the thing. That is the primary question. I guess you care more about politics.By the way, have you ever been to the British Museum and actually seen the marbles? What did you think of them if you have? When I was in the British Museum as a kid we were on some sort of whirlwind tour and didn't have much time. I remember seeing the Rosetta Stone and objects directly in the same vicinity. then we went to a gift shop, and that was it. I never saw the Elgin Marbles.
I did however as a senior in high school go to the Parthenon and see the Acropolis Museum. It wasn't very big, and the objects weren't labelled very well. A tour group inside the museum tried to chase me out because I was by myself. They thought I was trying to tag along with them when I wasn't. It was just crowded. The British Museum was far more spacious despite all the crowds. (P.S. Salisbury Cathedral struck me the same way as an adult, very spacious and grand despite the crowds).
Besides, since the British Museum has had possession of the marbles since the early 19th century, isn't that part of history, too? They have their own history with the marbles.
Why has America become more racist than before? And why is it so divided?
I will tell you where I get "this rubbish from". My father. He was a metallurgical engineer who graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and worked at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin, PA for years. He was even on TV once when they were talking about one of the reactors. He specialized in cores of nuclear reactors in submarines, but he had background knowledge and talked to scientists about other aspects of nuclear power and nuclear energy. A team of scientists from Los Alamos came to Bettis to work after the war. The public has all sorts of misconceptions bred by the news media and Hollywood.
Right now I am surprised that there is even an international space station left. No one is focusing on it here. It is not being financed by the US government. Right now private industry is taking over. Space tourism is the next big thing, I guess. That is why astronauts are being shuttled along with Russians I would assume. Russians can't do much else, so they get publicity value out of anything that they can. Also maybe the liberal news media is making some sort of statement advertising the fact. I don't trust them either.Right now the future of space seems to be in the hands of the Brit from Virgin Airways who has a rocket station in New Mexico. We have driven past it. Also Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com had a rocket operation outside Van Horn, Texas. We also drove past that. Recently he has moved it somewhere else.
Do you support Trump? Or are you dubious? I haven't been paying attention to any of this. You blog asked if he can be stopped. But then you quote him and say only time will see.
