On the other side we have people like Stephen Schwartz and Ralph Peters, who insist that the socio-economic factors that have been cited as reasons for the rioting are not just a bunch of bleeding heart baloney. Schwartz writes about his personal experiences:

Observing the gap between the French and their neighbors of North African origin, I learned another disturbing truth: that the latter had a deep fear of the Parisian police. I had more ready cash than my comrades, and one Friday night invited them all to go with me to the wonderful urban district of Saint-Michel, with its glamorous cafés, bookshops, and lots of cute girls. Saleh and Cherif refused. They said they were not safe in Saint-Michel on weekend nights, even though both possessed legal status and were quite respectable in their dress and manners, notwithstanding their radical politics. They told me that even with their papers in order North Africans living in Paris could be picked up by the police without any pretext, beaten, and even killed.

Ralph Peters is very outspoken about the French “apartheid system”:

Utterly devoid of self-awareness, the French cherish their image of America as racist. (…) In France, the non-white poor never have a chance of any kind.

France has no Colin Powell or Condi Rice, no minority heading the equivalent of a Fortune 500 company, no vibrant minority political culture. When Americans who adore la vie en France go to Paris (the intelligentsia’s Orlando), they don’t visit the drug-and-crime-plagued slums. If tourists encounter a Moroccan or a Senegalese “Frenchman,” he’s cleaning up the sidewalks after the dogs of the bourgeoisie.

Peters ends with this: “Meanwhile, every American who believes in racial equality and human dignity should sympathize with the rioters, not with the effete bigots on the Seine.”

I’m not going to pretend to have any kind of insight into French society, so I have no idea who’s right and who’s wrong in this argument. The only thing that matters to me is the most important point of all, a point which many commentators on “our” side of the blogosphere — commentators on both sides of the Islamist-or-Socioeconomic argument — have stressed. The point is this: irrespective of whether Islamicism is the chicken or the egg in this situation, one thing is for darn sure, and that’s that the Islamists will make every effort they can to take advantage of this situation. The people in the western world who are on the “other side” — the side that despises the current administration and America in general — won’t admit it (or can’t see it), but Islamists are at war with the West. Allow me to repeat that word: war. W-A-R. Though we in the west often fail to take this seriously, the Islamists have no such problem. They know they are at war, they do not hesitate to admit it, and their seriousness about it means that they will make use of every battleground they can reach. If the French battleground is open to them thanks to chaos and insecurity, then they will use it. Period.

Now for more random thoughts — thinking out loud — about the situation in France:

• As someone who lives in a European city with a large Muslim minority, it’s interesting to compare Vienna with Paris.  Paris has this phenomenon of ghetto-suburbs, which, if I’m not mistaken (and I could well be), is utterly absent here in Austria.  Turkish people make up the largest segment of the Muslim minority and I think of them as living much more directly in the city than in any kind of suburbs around the city.  I’m definitely no expert, by the way, since I never go to the suburbs here (I just have no reason to.)
• In thinking more about Peters and Schwartz (see above), I have to wonder this: if the allegations that the French are so chauvinistic are true, why are there so many Muslims living in France? Nidra Poller, in another article which, like Schwartz’s, appears at Tech Central Station, poses the question this way:
• Of course the French have been known for shabby treatment of the people they colonized, including Africans, Arab-Muslim immigrants, and Black citizens of the overseas territories and departments. But this is only half the story. The colonies have been independent for fifty years. What have they done with their independence? If the French are so nasty, why are millions of Muslims pouring in from all sides, by all means, legal and illegal, forthright and stealthy, justified and unjustified? Why are some of those “immigrant” children and grandchildren sacking and burning schools instead of taking advantage of the education that is offered to them? [my emphasis]
• No matter who is right about the chicken-and-egg question of Islamicism versus Socio-economic factors at play in France, the questions about Islamicism, or even Islam in general and what role it plays or does not play among the rioting youths, is certainly a valid one that should be brought up.  Yet, two nights ago, I saw the TV news on Germany’s SAT.1 and noticed that they made it through a full report on the French situation without ever once mentioning the dreaded M or I words.
• In a few different places today I’ve seen mention of the popularity of rap music among the rioting French youths.  One of those places was an article at the website of the Austrian daily, Der Standard.  That article mentions, among others, rappers IAM and NTM (these links point to english-language biographies at RFIMusique.)  Time Magazine’s website includes an commentary by French (and muslim) rapper, Medine.
• My favorite quote amongst all of the blogosphere articles I perused today was this: “Instead of creating tomorrow’s jobs, Europe protects yesterday’s.” (Ralph Peters).

Related posts:

1. Who won the Cold War? Thoughts on the German election.

I took a few photos. Here’s one of what I think is a Blackhawk flying over the parade route, though somebody please correct me if I’m wrong.

Blackhawksmall

I took only seven photos. You can see them all at Flickr. Someone else took way more photos than I did, viewable also at Flickr. And the ORF (public broadcasting) has, of course, some fantastic photos, because they had a big remote camera way up high zooming along cables. The daily newspaper, Die Presse, also has a nice slideshow.

As always, I enjoyed the flyers the most. Among the helicopters were Blackhawks and Hueys. Among the fighter jets were Drakens (being retired this year), some model of Saab that I cannot remember, F-5 Tigers which Austria is leasing from Switzerland as they wait for their first batch of Eurofighter Typhoons in 2007, and then the Eurofighter Typhoons themselves (obviously from another country since Austria doesn’t have them yet.)

The Eurofighter has gotten a ton of bad press over the years. All the criticism may or may not be justified (or partially so), but I’ll tell you one thing from my little perspective on the ground today: they were awesome!

I was happy to see the Stars and Stripes (with a few Marines) taking part. I took a few videos (crappy ones using the digital camera), including one of the American flag marching past. You can see the Brits and the Russian Federation next to it: nfeirtag1.wmv (2.69 MB).

If you want to see a few different Austrian military uniforms, I slammed some short clips together into one movie: nfeirtag2.wmv (6.10 MB).

Of course the whole time I was thinking more about our own troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq. My heroes.

The crowd at the parade in Vienna was enormous. The exhibits on the Rathausplatz and Heldenplatz were interesting and enjoyable. I must hand it to the Bundesheer, they put on a really great show.

One thing was very noticeable, so much so that even my wife — an Austrian — commented on it several times: almost nobody waved their Austrian flags or cheered, despite flags being handed out to everybody along the parade route. That’s quite different from the United States. And though I would like to see the Austrians be a bit more outwardly proud of their Austrian-ness, I recognize and respect the historical reasons why people might tone down their enthusiasm during military parades.

Related posts:

1. Other Austrian reviews of the Blackout

Present at the Monday ceremony was retired Colonel Gail Halvorsen, who became famous as the “Candy Bomber” during one of Rhein-Main’s most memorable missions, the Berlin Airlift of 1948–49. I poked around on the web and found this CNN interview with Halvorsen. It’s worth reading. Here’s a little gem:

Kids came up on the other side of the barbed wire [and] looked at me in [my] uniform. … They came up and started talk to me: “How many sacks of flour have you got?”, you know, “How’s it going to be tomorrow? More airplanes?”

They’d tell me they kept a list, how many airplanes would come in every day, and week-to-week. But they got off the subject of flour very quickly [and onto] the subject of freedom. “Look,” [one of them] said. “Some day we’ll have enough to eat. Just give us a little. Just don’t give up on us when the weather gets bad. But we can get along without enough to eat. Some day we’ll have enough. But if we lose our freedom we may never get it back.”

And these kids were 8 to 14 years old and blew my mind with their maturity [and] understanding of what was important. They’d seen enough of Hitler; they saw what Stalin was doing across the border; their aunts and uncles were coming into West Berlin to use the library to find out what’s going on in the world; they couldn’t travel; they didn’t have their church opportunities. So these kids had a real understanding of what was important in their life and they wanted freedom like Americans.

[My emphasis]

31 Americans died during the airlift.

Related posts:

1. Look who is all grown up!

And don’t try to convince me that the FDP’s nice 2.6% gain is a sign of that — ok, maybe it is a bit, but let’s look instead at today’s real winners: the communists. Ok, I’ll call the combo of the PDS and Lafontainists “hard-lefties” instead of communists, just to play fair. They garnered 8.7% of the vote today, surpassing the Green party in the number of seats in Parliament. That’s a 4.7% jump for the hard-lefties.

And the Green party — which you might think would be punished a bit for being part of the coalition that has governed for seven years — lost almost nothing, with a measly 0.4% turning away from them. This means that the 4.3% who gave up on Schroeder’s SPD, plus the 0.4% that left the Greens, went in one and only one direction: left. According to the projections I am looking at right now (ZDF circa 22:15, 18. September 2005), the governing coalition parties’ losses (-4.3 + -0.4 = -4.7%) are exactly the far left’s gain (+4.7%).

Think of what this really means: it’s not just the case that nobody — after years of recession — has been convinced of a need to move towards a freer marketplace. It’s much worse: 4.7% of the voting populace fled towards even more socialism.

Still not convinced that The Left owns political and economic Germany? Think, then, about the tenor of the campaign. With such a miserable economy, you would think that the governing parties would be the ones on the defensive. But that was not at all the case. They had absolutely no reason to be on the defensive, because, fundamentally, most people think the same way they do: socialism and americo-skepticism (or blatant anti-americanism).

Speaking of being on the defensive, who the heck won the Cold War? The party that is more likely to let a positive utterance about the United States slip out — the CDU/CSU — had to be on the defensive and make sure they didn’t come across as pro-American. Rephrase: the greatest democratic ally that Germany has ever had was a liability in this campaign. But I also sense that Merkel was on the defensive economically. Instead of Gerhard Schroeder — or those more Socialist than he — being on the defensive and needing to explain what happened over the last several years, the CDU needed to be careful not to offend those people who live off of the state.

Needless to say, I am unhappy with the election results. I’m sorry to say this, because I wish the Germans well, but to me this seems like Germany is even less “dynamic” — and more stagnant — than I previously thought. I might even say it seems like a “fearful” country, where the people shy away from change and are hiding under a thin and shabby security blanket that they are terrified will be yanked off of them.

Related posts:

1. How left can a German Social Dem get?
2. A good essay by a German (in English)
3. Thoughts on the rioting in France

You will recall that on August 14, 2003, an enormous power failure occurred across a huge chunk of the United States and parts of Canada. On September 5, 2003, I made the following blog entry here:

Third World?

After the blackout that hit the US and Canada, the next issue of Austria’s profil magazine contained a two-page story titled “A Bit of the Third World” and with the following eye-catching pull-quote

Why would George W. Bush want to fix up Baghdad’s infrastructure, when there is so much to repair at home?

Clever! Whoa, that’s like really puttin’ things in perspective for me!

This “article” is not labeled as an opinion piece or guest column; it’s just an “article” in the International section of this weekly news magazine. But I’ll translate the first paragraph and you tell me if you think this “article” is actually an opinion piece written by someone who is obsessed with … you guessed it:

One thing you can always say about George W. Bush: he makes himself scarce in frightening situations. On [9/11] … he found himself in Florida and last week, as large parts of the northeast fell into darkness, he was fortunate enough to be in San Diego collecting dough for his reelection campaign, though things were looking gloomy on the other side of the american continent.

This is an opinion piece, whether or not they label it as such. It is written by Martin Kilian. I assume this is Martin Kilian, professional America-hater, who writes for Weltwoche (Switzerland).

The blackout occurred 14. August, and this Kilian “article” appeared in the 18. August issue of profil. I tell you that just to give you a bit of an idea of when one might expect an article about a major event to first appear on the newsstands.

On 11. August, Le Figaro first reported that “the heat wave is killing people” in France.

On 14. August, according to the Washington Post, French government officials reported that at least 3,000 people had died from the heat wave.

By the 21st, the Post reported that the French government had acknowledged that up to 10,000 people may have died.

On 29. August, this CNN report indicated that the toll was actually over 11,000.

Wouldn’t you say that 11,000 deaths from heat in a modern and industrialized country such as France could also be compared to the “Third World”? Okay, maybe that’s unfair — we don’t want to be like Kilian, after all. But at least it’s some pretty big news! Or is it?

The 18. August, 25. August and 1. September issues of profil, as far as I can tell, make absolutely no mention whatsoever of the heat deaths in France..

I later followed-up with a few other postings, including:

* Anecdotal evidence of the Austrian public’s complete lack of awareness that anything tragic had occurred in France in August 2003;
* An update from Sept 11, 2003, to remark that profil had still not written a word on the subject.
* A Sept 20, 2003, posting quoting an Austrian journalist’s own disgust at the treatment in his media of the two incidents (the American power failure and the French heatwave.)

You know where I’m going with all of this… In light of the press’s treatment of the Katrina situation, it is worth revisiting their absolute silence over a nearby catastrophe — totally preventable in ways that the Katrina catastrophe was not — of almost unbelievable proportions.

When I sat down to write about this today, I realized I had not “checked the facts” since September of 2003. In much the same way that projections about Katrina’s death toll could turn out to have been wildly off, perhaps the original reports about the deaths during France’s 2003 heatwave also ended up being exaggerations.

They were not exaggerations. Eurosurveillance (“Peer-reviewed European information on communicable disease surveillance and control”), an organization that is funded by the European Commission and which, in 2005, “embarked on the process of becoming the regular scientific communication of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)”, recently published a report entitled “Summary of the mortality impact assessment of the 2003 heat wave in France.”

The analysis of death certificates given by the departmental health offices allowed InVS to produce a first estimate on 28 August of 11 435 excess deaths (excess of 55%) between 1 and 15 August 2003 [2]. On 25 September, INSERM estimated the cumulative excess deaths between 1 and 20 August at 14 800 (excess of 60%) [1].The impact was greater for women (70% increase in excess total mortality) than for men (40% increase in excess mortality)(1). This was the case even for same age groups. Excess mortality reached 20% in the 45-74 year age group, 70% in the 75-94 year age group and 20% in people aged 94 years and over [1].
INSERM also showed that during the last third of the month of August and the month of September the mortality had reached the usual level [3]. October and November 2003 showed the usual death rates in every region.

(…)

The impact was greater for women (70% increase in excess total mortality) than for men (40% increase in excess mortality)(1). This was the case even for same age groups. Excess mortality reached 20% in the 45-74 year age group, 70% in the 75-94 year age group and 20% in people aged 94 years and over [1]

[see the original for footnote references]

Paris itself experienced a disastrous 142% excess in the mortality rate, meaning more than twice the usual number of people died there between August 1 and August 19, 2003. This occurred even though the temperature delta in Paris (+6.7) was no higher than, say, Toulouse (+6.6), where the mortality rate suffered an excess of “just” 36%.

To put Paris’s numbers in a Katrina perspective: according to today’s New York Times online, the death toll in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida — which, I know, will rise — stands at 812. The excess death count in Paris alone between August 1 and August 19, 2003, was more than double the current Katrina figure: 1,854. And these were deaths from heat. I don’t mean to underestimate heat, which I know can be a terrible killer of human beings. But I just don’t believe that the heat wave of 2003 can be compared to a Category 4–5 hurricane putting an entire major city under water.

These numbers from France were and are extremely tragic and sad. Yet let me tell you the following with great certainty:

Athough France is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from Austria…

* These staggering figures are basically unknown to the general Austrian public.
* While a massive and preventable human catastrophe occurred within 800 miles of Vienna, Austria’s most significant political and news weekly magazine, profil, remained absolutely silent about it. (Note: I did not track other magazines, such as the usual German suspects Stern and Der Spiegel.)
* Every Austrian Tom, Dick and Harry (Tomas, Richard und Harald) knows with certainty that a) the American South (thousands and thousands of miles away) just experienced a massive hurricane; b) it was George W. Bush’s fault that assistance was not as timely as it should have been; c) a major American city descended into third-world chaos; d) surely nothing similar could ever happen in Austria.

I want to close by noting something that I think is important. I realize the gruesome and somewhat catty nature of a tit-for-tat blog entry that compares and contrasts natural disasters in order to make a political point. It’s embarrassing even to discuss the French tragedy in these terms. But the overwhelming bias and arrogance displayed by the European media towards the United States should not go unanswered. The seering heat in the fever swamps of the European press offices blinds its occupants to nearby tragedies that cannot be blamed on the United States. For the sake of a hopeful, future return to sense and balance, the double-standards and hypocrisies must be exposed whenever they are as glaringly obvious as they are in the case of these two natural disasters.

Related posts:

1. How left can a German Social Dem get?
2. The next German government
3. Panning Hillary

So rather than trying to twist the truth to get the public to believe in a gleichgeschaltet American media, why doesn’t Der Spiegel turn their eyes to their neighbor and co-Big-Guy in the EU, France? Kosmoblog points out a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung piece wherein the author wonders what’s going on with the French press in the EU Constitution debate:

The author has at least one very specific case in mind:

Wow, Spiegel, take this and run with it! It’s even got defense industry overtones — a kind of French Halliburton thing.

Related posts:

1. Susan Sontag in Germany’s Der Spiegel
2. UK and Bush

• 58 percent of Russian experts, who have taken part in the latest poll, believe that the country may soon face a regime change similar to the recent ‘velvet revolutions’ in former Soviet states, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Less than a year ago only 28 percent of analysts shared this view, Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily reported.

Related posts:

1. A Chernobyl a day keeps the doctor away
2. Discussion with a Hungarian
3. Austrian National Holiday 2005

Key Points:

• A French No vote on 29 May 2005 would be a serious setback for the ratification process. However, the European Constitution would not be dead, neither legally nor politically.
• In case of a No vote in the constitutional referendum:
  • the EU governments, the Commission, and the EP should declare as soon as possible that the ratification process will continue. The negative outcome of the referendum should be taken as an opportunity to intensify the constitutional debate on both the national and the transnational level.
  • the referendum should be repeated within a year, as this will be the only way to eventually attain the entry into force of the Constitutional Treaty.
  • certain provisions of the Constitutional Treaty should be introduced into EU practice even without prior ratification. However, only the entry into force of the new primary law can guarantee that the progress made in the Constitution will be implemented in full.
• If the ratification of the Constitutional Treaty should ultimately fail, it cannot be assumed that the non-ratifiers will voluntarily leave the EU. Since the extent of the ensuing “constitutional crisis” will not be particularly high, it also seems unlikely that the ratifiers will establish a new Union with institutions of its own.
• In case the ratification fails, the member states will intensify their efforts to implement as many of the innovations of Constitution I” into political practice by other means (Inter-Institutional Agreements, Rules of Procedure, “small” intergovernmental conferences, in the framework of future accession treaties). However, as a result of the legal and political constraints of the “Nice Plus” option, one can assume that the Treaty of Nice will be reformed in the shape of a “Constitution II” in a few years time.
• Until a new primary law is adopted, full use should be made of the potentials of differentiated integration within or outside the EU framework. The public discourse about the borders of Europe and the extent of European politics should be intensified.

Now I want to look at a few parts of the main document. First the authors review what they perceive to be some of the reasons for the Non movement in France. They list the following:

• An opportunity to “punish” the French government for other policies;
• The belief (on the Left) that the constitution “fosters the establishment of a neo-liberal Europe” (note to American readers: “neo-liberal” here in Europe means pro-business policies and a cutting back of the social state.);
• A perceived loss of French influence in the expanded EU;
• A negative attitude toward Turkey joining the EU.

After this summary, the authors state:

Although these issues have little or nothing to do with the actual contents of the Constitutional Treaty, they may have an adverse effect on the outcome of the French referendum. The numerous advantages of the new primary law have receded into the background. Yet even in the event of a No vote, it is hardly possible to call into question the fundamental desire of the French elites and the population for further integration. Since the majority of the French are pro-European, a rejection of the Constitutional Treaty will not be the result of “too much Europe”, but of “too little”. The French population is not fundamentally against a constitution, but it would rather like to have a different constitution. [my emphasis]

The argument that the peoples’ complaints have little or nothing to do with the constitution itself has been repeated over and over again. Those who use this argument are trying to make the point that the naysayers are tricking the general public, which by and large does not understand the issues. And I say: no, you — you “elites”, you who brush aside the public as being misled by evil “Euro-skeptics” — do not understand the issues.

Let’s take the Turkey issue first. Though it may be true that nothing in the consitutional document specifically touches on this issue, it is perfectly rational for a citizen who is concerned about Turkey-in-the-EU to conclude, “Whether or not the constitution is relevant to the Turkey issue, the issue itself is an indication that the EU is moving into territories that I am not comfortable with and, given that, the last thing I want to do is provide this institution with more legitimacy than has already been granted it with existing treaties.”

Now let’s look at the “neo-liberal” issue. First let me say, as an aside, that I think the French Left is dead wrong about this issue and that, if I were a socialist, I would oh-so-vote for this Constitution. The important thing for a Socialist vision of Europe is centralization. If I were a socialist, though I might fear short-term neo-liberal influence, I would swallow the pill, put as much centralization into effect as possible, then work to grab the reigns later if need be. But that’s beside the point. For though I do find the Left’s fears to be generally unfounded (or at least worth the risk), it is supremely arrogant for an organization of “elites” such as the CAP to suggest that this position has “little or nothing to do with the the actual contents of” the constitution. If we piece together a few of the paragraphs of the constitution itself, I think you will agree that any fears of centralized, extra-domestic decision-making in the realm of economic policy — be it too liberal or too socialistic — are fully justified:

Article I-12 – Categories of Competence

1. When the Constitution confers on the Union exclusive competence in a specific area, only the Union may legislate and adopt legally binding acts, the Member States being able to do so themselves only if so empowered by the Union or for the implementation of Union acts.
2. …
3. The Member States shall coordinate their economic and employment policies within arrangements as determined by Part III, which the Union shall have competence to provide.

…

Article I-13 Areas of exclusive competence

1. The Union shall have exclusive competence in the following areas:
   1. customs union;
   2. the establishing of the competition rules necessary for the functioning of the internal market;
   3. monetary policy for the Member States whose currency is the euro;
   4. the conservation of marine biological resources under the common fisheries policy;
   5. common commercial policy.

…

Article III-177

For the purposes set out in Article I-3, the activities of the Member States and the Union shall include, as provided in the Constitution, the adoption of an economic policy which is based on the close coordination of Member States’ economic policies, on the internal market and on the definition of common objectives, and conducted in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition.

Concurrently with the foregoing, and as provided in the Constitution and in accordance with the procedures set out therein, these activities shall include a single currency, the euro, and the definition and conduct of a single monetary policy and exchange-rate policy, the primary objective of both of which shall be to maintain price stability and, without prejudice to this objective, to support general economic policies in the Union, in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition.

These activities of the Member States and the Union shall entail compliance with the following guiding principles: stable prices, sound public finances and monetary conditions and a stable balance of payments.

Article III-178

Member States shall conduct their economic policies in order to contribute to the achievement of the Union’s objectives, as defined in Article I-3, and in the context of the broad guidelines referred to in Article III-179(2). The Member States and the Union shall act in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition, favouring an efficient allocation of resources, and in compliance with the principles set out in Article III-177.

…

[and so on, particularly throughout Article III]

Besides being a bunch of legal gibberish, somewhere in there is at least a heavy suggestion that the Union has a pretty big say — if not “exclusive competence” — in some pretty big economic areas.

But apparently those who think this are just being tricked by “Euro-skeptics”.

Back to the CAP release, which goes on to list the “Consequences of a French No Vote”. Note here that the very first “consequence” they list is framed as a non-consequence:

There will be a number of consequences if there is a French No vote on 29 May 2005:

No end of the Constitution: Even in the event of a No vote on 29 May 2005, the new European primary law would not be dead, neither legally nor politically — even though many eurosceptics hope that this will be the case. A negative outcome of the referendum would merely mean that the Constitution cannot (yet) be ratified in France. However, this does not mean that the ratification process has failed and that the entry into force of the Constitution has become impossible. [my emphases are underlined; italics and parentheses are theirs]

Later, the CAP paper gets to their recommendations:

Recommendations in Case of a Negative Outcome of the French Referendum:

…

• A second French referendum
  In the event of a negative outcome, the May referendum should be repeated within one year, in case (and this seems probable) the Constitutional Treaty has been rejected by only a small majority of voters. As in Denmark after the initial No vote in the referendum on the Treaty of Maastricht, or as in Ireland after the initial rejection of the Treaty of Nice, a second referendum is the only way to attain the entry into force of the Constitutional Treaty.
• …
• number of measures should be adopted in order to increase the chances of achieving a positive result at a second referendum:
• Intensive political marketing: One should design a more effective information campaign about the advantages and the limits of the Constitutional Treaty. Its primary task will be to counter the numerous “naysayers” who argue that the Constitution cements a neo-liberal Europe. It must be made quite clear that the Constitutional Treaty is not based on one specific economic policy concept. By including numerous social aims, values, and basic rights, the EU’s social dimension has been strengthened. However, in practice the Constitutional Treaty does not inevitably lead to a neo-liberal or a social Europe. The EU’s basic economic orientation is not determined by the new primary law, but on the grounds of concrete political decisions taken by the actors involved, in particular the member states and the Commission.

…

In addition to the measures outlined above, a second referendum could be linked to the question of France’s membership in the EU. Spelling out such harsh consequences of a No vote would limit the effects of superficial populism. However, the option of a French withdrawal from the EU does not seem realistic… Thus, a threat of this kind would not only fail to make its point, but might even have a negative effect on the outcome of a second referendum.

Let’s just be clear of the strategy here: shove it down the electorate’s throats. “Intensive political marketing” means nothing less than the government re-doubling their efforts — and their expenditures — to put every advantage they already have to work. And their sentence about the “EU’s basic economic orientation” not being determined by the new primary law shows me again that it’s they who do not get it, not the electorate. Even if the fear that acceptance of the constitution means immediate neo-liberal economics is irrational, what’s not irrational is the belief that once an economic course — socially-oriented, market-oriented, or whatever — is decided upon, the member countries’ abilities to continue with their customary or traditional or preferred economic principles could be seriously impacted.

And, by the way, if I am totally wrong about that, then it’s the wording of this monstrous document that is to blame, not I!

How do you like that last bit in the excerpt above about threatening the French people with exclusion from the Union? I like how the authors put the option out on the table — “Spelling out such harsh consequences … would limit the effects of superficial populism” — then kinda take it back as they responsibly point out that such a threat would be an outright lie! But, hey, it was worth mentioning, in case anybody wants to go down that road!

I won’t quote anymore, but just tell you that the last part of the document winds up with some suggestions of what could be done if ratification of the constitution completely fails. You should go read it to see if my description is justified, but here is what I think the several final paragraphs “sound like”: If ratification totally fails, we could implement most of the stuff in the Constitution anyway — but don’t tell anybody that, because then they might think “oh, so it’s not so important to ratify it after all”, which of course isn’t true … though, again, we probably could pass most of the stuff later using different laws…

Every reporter, every political hack, every columnist should be ringing up their favorite “elite” person in government and refusing to hang up until the basic questions are answered:

Is it important or not?! Will it be a “disaster” if it’s not passed, as so many pro-constitution scaremongers have been telling us? Can you explain why it would be a disaster? What would actually happen — concretely — if it did not pass?

Along those lines, here is an excerpt from an article at the EUObserver web site today:

If the French and the Dutch reject the EU Constitution on Sunday and Wednesday, they should re-run the referendums, the current president of the EU, Jean-Claude Juncker, has said.

“If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again”, Mr Juncker said in an interview with Belgian daily Le Soir.

• …
• Mr Juncker stressed that a French No would be a “disaster” and excluded the possibility of imminent re-negotiations.
• “The idea circulating in France that there could be an immediate re-negotiation (of the treaty) is absolutely unimaginable”, he said.
• According to Jean-Claude Juncker, it would take “10 to 15 years” for another treaty to be established. [my emphasis]

There’s that “disaster” word again. How, why and for whom?!? Do we mean like a September 11th kind of disaster? Or a new Great Depression? Or something similar to Pompeii or the recent Tsunami? Or because the great goal of total unification will not have been reached, does it mean that European states will immediately go to war with each other?

So where are we at with the truth about the importance of this document? We have Juncker calling its rejection a disaster, we have the CAP — who clearly want ratification — suggesting that it’s not the end of the world if it fails, we have not-so-subtle threats from chancellors and presidents eager to remind us mysteriously that there is no “Plan B”, we have an Austrian MEP who wants to assure us that it’s not really a constitution, after all, but it nevertheless should be passed by the French because otherwise it would be a “problem for Europe”… Regarding that Austrian MEP and my blog entry about her, recall that these were the reasons she offered for voting for the Constitution:

• It strengthens us because of its codification of fundamental rights;
• It simplifies the “quorum” system — the voting structure within the EU;
• It strengthens the European Parliament;
• It provides a common foreign minister and thus a more unified stance in international policy.

Someone needs to take her aside and say, “Lady, that document contains six major ‘Parts’ (counting the ‘Final Act’), twenty-three ‘Titles’ and the main part of the document appears to end at ‘Article III-436′ [the numbering system absolutely confuses me]. Charles Moore’s printed copy is 511 pages long. You must be kidding me. 511 pages for those four little principles that you suggest are so important to us?”

[UPDATE: Mark Steyn has several other prima examples of ridiculous fear-mongering (shall we just call it lying?) by European "elites". Example: "At the Theresienstadt (or Terezin) concentration camp in the Czech Republic, Sweden's European Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, declared: 'There are those who want to scrap the supranational idea. They want the European Union to go back to the old purely inter-governmental way of doing things. I say those people should come to Terezin and see where that old road leads.'"]

No related posts.

• It is worth mentioning that radiation has had a stimulating effect on a lot of children living in the areas that suffered from the Chernobyl disaster. Doctor of medical sciences, a professor of the Bryansk State University, Vladimir Mikhalev, shares such an opinion: the doctor has been studying children’s development in both the Chernobyl area and in non-polluted regions for years.
• According to Dr. Mikhalev, a lot of children living in Chernobyl-affected areas started growing faster in comparison with other children. They have better reactions; their brain activity is more active as well. Such children have a more powerful immune system in comparison with their equals residing in other territories. The professor also said that he could apply such a conclusion to the settlements, where increased radiation was registered and where people were consuming pesticide-free food and water.

Source: Kiev Ukraine News Blog.

Related posts:

1. Stolen directly from AndrewSullivan.com
2. Panning Hillary
3. Thoughts on the rioting in France

Hat tip to German-language blog Brushfires of Freedom. The posting at Brushfires is titled Besorgniserregend, or “Alarming”. Indeed.

Related posts:

1. Who won the Cold War? Thoughts on the German election.
2. A good essay by a German (in English)
3. Susan Sontag in Germany’s Der Spiegel