Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context.
3 November 2013
The elections to the European Parliament next May will be a “great battle between the Europe of the people and the Europe of populism”, according to Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta.
Letta was leading the charge for the anti-democratic Euro-elite in a special interview vouchsafed recently to six “reliable” pro-establishment newspapers. These are journals which the Euro puppet-masters in Brussels and Frankfurt know they can trust to ignore the welling anti-Brussels sentiment on Europe’s streets, while at the same time peddling uncritically the “line-to-take” dictated to them by Eurocrat spin-doctors.
The papers in question are – no surprises, here – the UK’s Guardian (for whose ruthless censorship of criticism of the European Union we can personally vouch), La Stampa (Italy), Le Monde (France), Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), El País (Spain) and Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland).
No surprise either that Letta – himself the inexperienced leader of a shaky “left-right” coalition government – should make a distinction between the “Europe of the people” and the “Europe of populism”.
By the “Europe of the people” he means the “Europe of those people who swallow hook, line and sinker the unending stream of pro-EU propaganda that is pumped out daily by Brussels and then foisted indiscriminately on an unsuspecting public by sycophantic and servile media.
By the “Europe of populism” Letta means the “Europe of those who have decided to reject the European Union’s false blandishments”. This is what the Euro elite cannot stomach – people who disagree with them. Democracy is not a strong suit among Euro fat cats nestled comfortably in their sinecures amid the ivory towers of Brussels.
Letta even goes so far as to tell his tame journalists of his fear that “the European elections will be lost”.
Lost?
How can an election be lost?
The voters will go to the polls and cast their votes.
The outcome will determine the allocation of parliamentary seats.
Having had their ears bombarded with election propaganda, voters will finally have their say and will make up their own minds.
How, in these circumstances, can an election be said to be lost?
What Letta means, of course, is that the people, exercising their democratic rights, may decide to reject the monolithic one-size-fits-all vision of Europe being force-fed to them by the media on behalf of a haughty “we know best” Euro-elite.
This is the spectre that keeps the Eurocrats awake at night.
For this much-vaunted European Union could do nothing to protect Europe’s citizens from the near-collapse of the global economy in the years 2007 to 2011. Growth is currently negligible and unemployment in the eurocurrency zone – to which 17 of the EU’s 28 states belong – is at a record 12.2 %. Living standards have plummeted as EU states impose never-ending austerity on their long-suffering citizens in order to pay down unsustainable public debt.
In these lamentable circumstances, what is this Eurovision that the Euro-elite is dangling so unappetizingly before the eyes of the citizens of Europe?
It is, of course, “more Europe”!
According to Letta, Europe has failed to stem the rising tide of populist anger because of the “fragmented nature of European institutions”.
The best way to prevent further crises, he maintains, is to strengthen the European institutions – that is to say, the euro-bureaucracy in Brussels and Frankfurt. In the euro-currency zone, in particular, the 17 member states should surrender their economic independence to a single economy minister who would administer the zone’s economies as a single entity. Homogenisation is the way to stamp out the entropic diversity of Europe’s nation states.
It is easy to see where Letta is heading. It is in the direction of that holy grail long longed for by the European movement “ A United States of Europe” . It is a goal of which Letta is reported to be a staunch advocate.
Thus, the silver bullet selected for the purpose of appeasing those citizens who think that the states of Europe have already gone too far in the direction of national harakiri is… to push ahead even more furiously with the European steamroller, to abolish the nation states altogether and, ultimately, to become a pale sickly imitation of the United States of America!
You could not make it up!
The citizens of all 28 EU member states will vote in elections to the European Parliament between 22 and 25 May 2014. At stake will be 751 seats (a total that may be modified in due course to take account of Croatia, which on 1 July 2013 became the 28th member state of the EU). The voting system is proportional representation and the parliamentary term is four years.
The so-called “populist” parties – that is, those parties which do not share the Panglossian vision of Europe put about by Brussels – include the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), the anti-immigrant National Front (FN – Front national) in France, and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S – Movimento 5 Stelle) in Italy.
Antigone1984:
The point of this post is to highlight the innate anti-democratic bias of the arrogant self-righteous elite that calls the shots in the European Union.
We do not support all the policies advocated by those parties which want to break out of the strait-jacket of the Brussels imperium. Of the three mentioned above, we have no time for the French FN. Our views are closest to those of the Italian M5S. The anti-EU stance of the British independence party, UKIP, we wholly endorse, but we are not enamoured of some of its domestic policies.
To conclude, we reproduce a passage we published on 3 March 2013 in our post The people have spoken, the bastards!
The idea that politicians are elected to represent the views of the voters who elect them is an alien concept in Brussels or Frankfurt. To the Eurocrats, democracy means that a tiny handful of senior establishment politicians fix policy among themselves behind closed doors and then rely on docile media and biddable party underlings to persuade a passive electorate that there is no alternative.
Writing in the London Guardian on 27 February 2013, contrarian commentator Simon Jenkins said that “wildcat populism always terrifies the existing order”, adding that “if there is one thing a politician dreads more than a central banker, it is an election”.
But what is this “populism” of which they are frit?
It is simply means that those aspiring to public office undertake to represent the views of those who put them there. Instead of imposing on people policies which they do not want, it means listening to what the voters say and giving them what they want. It is in fact nothing other than our old friend democracy, to which the powers-that-be pay lip-service in public but do everything they can to thwart in practice. In theory democracy means “rule by the people”. In practice, it means “rule over the people” by a tiny elite of political bosses who have manoeuvred themselves into public office via the springboard of political parties which they themselves control.
Readers may also like to check out the following post published on 20 July 2012: Partitocracy v. Democracy
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You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts. For instance:
1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)
2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)
3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)
4. Capitalism in practice (4 July 2012)
5.Ladder (21 June 2012)
6. A tale of two cities (1) (6 June 2012)
7. A tale of two cities (2) (7 June 2012)
8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)
Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.
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