Perhaps we Americanos should learn a lesson from our older relatives in Europe before it is too late. It’s not going well there, and the globalist Democratic Left here needs to read the writing on the wall. America should not go the way of Europe to a socialist centralized administrative globalist state. Take note: I said this on television in Europe and was made persona non grata, the only American with that accomplishment.
Everyone knows that the precursor to the EU was created with the so-called “ideal” of unifying the European people after two devastating and costly world wars.
It more or less worked as a mechanism for limited economic cooperation until it got greedy and took on zealous imperial political ambitions—after the Treaty of Rome in 1958.
Then mass migration, youth unemployment, job precariousness, globalist bureaucracy, and a rise in extreme poverty demonstrated that the project was a complete failure. Add to that the failure to meet the last financial crisis head on, and the inability to coordinate and stop COVID, and you see the recipe for demise through incompetence.
After the Brexit referendum in the UK in 2016 and the election of populist governments voicing increasing opposition to EU policies in Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Italy, as well as growing nationalist movements in Germany, France, and now Spain and elsewhere, it’s quite clear there is deep and widespread discontent all across the EU today.
The EU parliamentary election results in 2019 and their aftermath show nothing less. And it is getting worse with time.
Europe is fragmented and in utter turmoil. Its’ political leaders are outright frauds and/or brain dead has-beens.
The monetary portion of the union was created to coordinate the money supply and interest rates through a make-believe, pseudo central bank in Europe.
In other words, they put the cart before the horse.
It was sanctioned by the nonsensical Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and later established through the creation of the Euro currency adopted by 19 member-state countries.
The European Central Bank (ECB), in turn, was created to coordinate interest rates—a “one size fits all” approach to vastly differing economies and differing fiscal needs.
Italy, Greece, and Eastern Europe suffered most, failing to meet the unrealistic economic directives and demands imposed by the centralized authorities, more often than not at the behest of wealthier, northern member states. The spread between German Bunds and the lesser EU economies never failed to belie the difference in fundamentals.
Germany—whose economic strength became predicated on a mercantilist trade surplus with the United States and other EU members—dominates the EU. It got its way finally, after losing World War II.
By adding low-wage, low-productivity economies to the monetary union—and thereby moving further away from an optimal currency zone—the Euro became cheaper and thereby so did German exports. The Deutsche Mark would be much more expensive, more accurately reflecting the level of capital accumulation and balance of payments between Germany and its trading partners.
German banks, which invested heavily in southern European countries with interest rates they were unable to pay back, pulled off the usurer’s greatest trick: swindle all the wealth off your client’s back. Chancellor Merkel then demanded the countries implement austerity policies, with disastrous consequences for what was left of the savings of southern Europeans.
German government figures show the country made billions from Greece’s debt crisis alone. There is no love lost. Economic stagnation and worse—Greek women could famously be bought for the night for a pack of cigarettes—followed . . . but who really cares now?
A monetary union without a fiscal union meant that richer countries had already got theirs; and didn’t take one cent of a haircut on what was due.
And so, the rich became richer, and the poor became poorer.
Imagine if the U.S. government had provided loans to its poorer states, demanding a return with a high interest rate, all the while cutting spending and increasing taxes if they were unable to pay back on those loans.
In other words, imagine a central government practicing usury on its own citizens, profiting from them getting poorer.
This is what we now know as the Eurozone. An entire generation was lashed into debt slavery to the international capital markets.
But then Syrian and Iraqi refugees reached the coastal waters of Lesbos in Greece, after having crossed from Middle Eastern Turkey and they migrated, by well over a million, to the richer northern countries with generous welfare systems. These populations have had trouble integrating (as Britain was sadly reminded, yet again this past week), and social issues arise on a vast scale.
Asking distinct nations to give up part or all of their identity for a larger, common, fictitious “pan-European identity” might have worked if a European identity had been established during the advent of the Union itself. It was not, and speaking Esperanto never took off, either.
Fundamental questions, such as: “What does it mean to be European?” were left unanswered.
So much for describing the “multicultural liberal values of diversity.”
Instead of celebrating the diversity of the many sovereign nations and regions within Europe, the EU sought to create a new kind of diversity by celebrating identities from outside of Europe and demonizing those inside. In many ways it was essentially—anti-European. Well, it is often anti-American as well, especially when a Republican is in the White House.
National patriotism was made into hate speech.
In Europe, this genuine pluralism is manifested in the distinctive individuality of the states it comprises, resulting in an authentic collection of cultures. But the EU mitigates against this pluralism and against freedom of religion, culture, and expression. The goal is one woke socialist centralized authoritative body.
Italian culture cannot be reduced to a generic “European” culture, and nor can French, German, or Polish culture.
Attempts to homogenize European norms and regulations so that all member states look and act exactly alike do violence to the rich history and individuality of each people and culture—and deprive Europe and the world of the creativity that lies within these dynamic traditions.
It seems evident that the recent growth of populist movements throughout Europe is a direct result of an instinctive understanding that the fundamental principle of subsidiarity is no longer duly respected or appreciated.
A top-down approach to governance, where the smaller is subsumed into or supplanted by the greater, is in fact oppressive, and ultimately unsustainable.
With the migrant and refugee crisis, Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker allowed millions of people from outside of Europe to enter indiscriminately. The trend continues unabated by their self-appointed heirs.
No distinction was made between migrants and refugees at the border. (Does this sound vaguely familiar in American terms?)
The failure to establish vetting procedures hurt actual refugees the most, as their genuine claims for asylum were not prioritized over migrants without any justification to enter whatsoever.
Criminals and terrorists took full advantage. Rapists and gang members, single adult males, came by the droves.
This open-border policy resulted in a rise in Islamist terrorism in Europe, alongside ethnic and religious tensions between both the new arrivals and the people receiving them.
As a consequence, and not surprisingly, anti-mass immigration movements began to rise in Western Europe. Lega in Italy, the Rassemblement National in France, and Vox in Spain have all surged. This is hardly surprising after decades of incompetence from the center.
These parties, which previously barely received five percent of the national vote, are now an integral part of parliaments across the continent.
Their voting bases are constituted of working and middle-class people, many of whom previously voted for more left-wing, socialist parties.
While some ground has been given in places like the Czech Republic recently, the next big election in Europe is for the presidency of France—Macron, the incumbent, is tacking right as he knows that’s where the energy is. He would know, he defected from the Socialist Party!
Most of these people switched allegiance in large part because of immigration; when they saw their governments take care of foreign needs before their own, and when they were facing unfair competition with cheap labor from abroad.
The left-wing parties that previously represented working-class needs focused instead on advancing the interests of a new proletariat of foreigners and an abstract globalist ideology totally out of touch with reality. Listen up Bernie followers and backers of the Squad.
On the issue of immigration, the EU continues to actively neglect the needs of Europeans, its citizens.
It is now a supra-national body, which means it takes away the sovereignty of individual nations in order to make decisions for nations as a whole.
This overly complicated and convoluted system does not allow European citizens to choose or hold accountable the people drafting their laws, directives, and regulations.
They have little to no control over their money, borders, trade, or laws.
The European Commission is weak, and its legislative process is unresponsive to people’s needs.
Moreover, the EU president has little experience in and few qualifications for being the head of the legislature of 28 European countries and 513 million people. She, that is, Ursula von der Leyen, was dumped on the EU by the German government after failing as Defense Minister there.
She so far has distinguished herself with embarrassing moves on vaccine provisions (after insisting national governments let her handle it) and making a fuss over not having a seat at a meeting with Turkey’s Erdogan—who had clearly read the room and realized she’s a super lightweight and he didn’t really need to talk to her.
These EU leaders are not even democratically elected.
Instead, they evolve through insidious, insider, backroom bargaining.
So, is it surprising that the EU’s greatest proponents are polling at record lows, while nationalists are confounding their critics with high approval numbers—in Europe and everywhere?
The European Union and its globalist ideology are in tatters.
In a recent Economist poll most Europeans said the union wouldn’t even exist in 15years.
Why wait so long?