The European Union, A Prison of Nations
Various multiethnic states (imperial Russia, the Habsburg Monarchy, pre-World War II Kingdom of Yugoslavia) have been labeled—often unfairly—as “prisons of nations.” That designation will apply more aptly to the European Union when the Lisbon Treaty, signed by all 27 EU heads of states or governments last December, takes effect next year. Under the “European Arrest Warrant,” which is to be implemented under the terms of the Treaty, every citizen or visitor of a member country the European Union will be liable to arrest and extradition at the behest of a judge in any other EU member-country, under one of 32 vaguely defined categories of “crime.”
This is a momentous development, and not one in a hundred EU citizens, let alone non-EU visitors to Europe, are fully aware of its implications.
Those 32 offenses, according to the drafters of the Treaty, “if they are punishable in the issuing Member State by a custodial sentence or a detention order for a maximum period of at least three years and as they are defined by the law of the issuing Member State, shall, under the terms of this Framework Decision and without verification of the double criminality of the act, give rise to surrender pursuant to a European arrest warrant.”
The list of 32 offenses includes criminal conspiracy, terrorism, human trafficking, child pornography, smuggling of drugs, weapons and explosives, fraud and money laundering, murder, kidnapping, forgery, etc. It also includes “racism and xenophobia,” as well as “computer crime” and “crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.” The local police will be obliged to arrest the indicted person and have him transferred to the issuing judge’s court for trial—and they will have to act regardless of their country’s judicial system or penal code.
Once the person is at the local court, he will be at the mercy of the local laws. The involvement of the ICC implies possible further extradition to non-EU countries. The Warrant is already in force in eight EU countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). An initial hearing takes place before a judge within 48 hours merely to establish the identity of the arrested (habeus corpus) and whether the arrest warrant has been filled in correctly. Additional information from the state that issued the arrest warrant may be requested. The major difference between extradition and EAW procedures is that the “hearing” in the latter process does not consider the allegations against the defendant or examine evidence. Instead, the hearing is merely meant to satisfy the court that no “legal bars to surrender” apply.
The European Arrest Warrant was one of the main topics at the recent Counter-Jihad Summit in Vienna, where the former Austrian Ambassador Edgar K. Selzer gave a detailed talk on the implications of this new weapon against freedom of speech in the EU. Dr. Selzer pointed out that the inclusion of “racism and xenophobia” brings “an emotion, a sentiment” into the category of major crimes, such as murder, arson etc, which is a legal and logical absurdity.
The European Arrest Warrant does not define “racism and xenophobia” as such, but its drafters have relied on the European Commission’s “Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia” which criminalizes “belief in race colour, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin as a factor determining aversion to individuals.” The Decision mandates that “racist and xenophobic behaviour must constitute an offence in all Member States and be punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties.” This framework decision will apply to all “offences” committed within the territory of the European Union, or “for the benefit of a legal person established in a Member State.”
The implications of all this are significant, for the future of civil liberties in the Western world no less than for me personally.
On May 11, I gave a speech at the Counter-Jihad Summit in Vienna. As our readers are well aware, “racism and xenophobia” in the EU-speak have long included the nebulous thought-crime of “Islamophobia”—and my speech could be construed as paradigmatically “Islamophobic” by the drafters of the EU Framework Decision, and accordingly acted upon by the future users of the European Arrest Warrant.
I am not an EU citizen, but that is immaterial if the “offence” was committed in an EU member-country. Once the European Arrest Warrant is in force, a Muslim-friendly judge in, say, Leicester or Birmingham could issue a warrant for my arrest in Greece—where I often go during the summer— for the “offence” committed by giving that speech in Austria last May, and the authorities in Thessaloniki or Athens would have to comply, no questions asked.
Furthermore, the speech was given at a gathering of 60 like-minded persons, most of them EU citizens. This constitutes a criminal conspiracy, a separate offense among those 32 crimes covered by the Warrant, since the Framework Decision defines a “racist or xenophobic group” as “a structured organisation consisting of at least two persons established for a specific period.” The speech was given to the Karl Martell Society, i.e. “for the benefit of a legal person established in a Member State.”
Last but not least, the said speech is widely available on the Internet, in both German and English, which potentially falls under the separate and as yet undefined offence of “computer crime.” Such EAWs have been issued already by British judges to Dutch authorities demanding the surrender of a Danish citizen in a case involving pornography.
Interestingly, under the Framework Decision, anything that is said at a John Randolph Club conference here in the United States may be deemed illegal and actionable under the European Arrest Warrant, if the offending speech or statement is posted on a website (such as www.chroniclesmagazine.org) that is downloadable within the EU, or if some supposedly “racist and xenophobic” material written by one of our editors or contributors is distributed by mailing Chronicles to a subscriber or an institution in the EU. This would be actionable under the Framework Decision as “public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material containing expressions of racism and xenophobia,” potentially subjecting the author to arrest in any EU country on a warrant issued by a judge in any other EU country.
Orwell was prescient but his date was wrong, a quarter-century premature.
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Interesting and chilling. In other words, any comment posted on this and many other American websites which can be accessed from Europe could make the poster liable for criminal prosecution under some European version of hate speech law if he ventures anywhere in the EU. Obviously, in most cases like that, you would have to be at least somewhat prominent or they would have to be after you for some other reason. But in some exemplary cases, they would probably pick some poor, unsuspecting guy to be prosecuted just to enforce the real purpose of the law, which is to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Oh well, with the dollar continuing its nose dive with respect to the euro, the odds of my ever visiting Europe again in my lifetime are pretty slim.
Daring.
Various multiethnic states (imperial Russia, the Habsburg Monarchy, pre-World War II Kingdom of Yugoslavia) have been labeled—often unfairly—as “prisons of nations.”
****
YES!
Plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose).
And I keep posting the Interpol's web site only as a source of Albanian criminals in EU, who are mostly listed as Yugoslavs (not Serbians, not Montenegrins). I can only imagine the Sharia Law in Bosnia which warrants an arrest of some Claude Lelouch (fictitious French sounding name coinciding with a cinematographer) who will be held in Belgium and tried in Sarajevo since his wife failed to wear a burka while they visited a shiny new mosque in Sarajevo? Can there be anything more absurd?
A good few decades ago I used to travel every year without fail to (U.K. Summer, France in the Fall, Switzerland Winter, Italy and Spain in Summer - but the whole EU idea sounded a little "fishy", and I remember distnictly that the Dutch and the Swedes were a little suspicious of the notion that the U.K. or the Germans might actually pull it off and colonize the remainder of Europe in a new fashion. OK, I admit - this is not colonizing, but whatever happened to the United Nations Charter? Sovereignity? Each country's constitution? Would I ever accept the Laws of Mexico over the U.S. Constution? Hell no.
Is this another form of totalitarian government? - I think yes. As it is his frequent custom, Dr. Trifkovic's sword doesn't rest - he sees well ahead of us (mortals). It feels good to be alive and for once let the Europeans dig their own grave without blaiming America for their own ills.
It might be too arrogant to pitty them but I am close to both being arrogant and having pitty on them.
Thank God that Serbia is still trying to find its path and is not a member of the modern Frankenstein. Along with Mr. Higdon, I too shall go again to the Grand Canyon (for the 30th time), but South America is (so far) immune to this rubbish (I hope).
Mr. Averko,
It's possible that you may have not heard it but from about 1947 to about 1952 Stalin has called Yugoslavia (FNRJ) Federal People's republic of Yugoslavia - a prison of nationalities and minorities under the thumb of Serbian desptism.
Kingdom of Yugosavia has been called "a prison of nations" only by the Croat separatists (Ustase), a handful of Slovene dissidents, and an even smaller handful of Bosnian "counter-revolutionaries".
There seems to be an important difference if you're called a prison of nations from the outside or from within.
All this EU hype, amazing and very difficult to understand for the knowledgeable and educated.
If you go to the archives and look what they had developed 1939/1940 in the Reichswirtschaftsministerium and what they discussed and had agreed at the BIS - Bank for International Settlement in Basel/Switzerland - at the same time, you would see that the EU and NATO is nothing but the continuation and implementation of very old and very detailed plans.
Interesting to note that all major nations had agreed to those plans at the time. They don't like to hear it, but they all where at the same table at the same time in great harmony and total agreement.
Do you history research and you will be stunned what is in the archives.
As one blogger so eloquently stated, the Europeans might very well be digging their own grave, they have great experience in doing that, but it is US-America that is already dead in its tracks without having had the time to dig its grave. The vultures are already feasting on the dead corps without the corps knowing that he is dead.
The decline and demise of the West as we knew it is a tragedy. If we don't come to our senses, realign and get our ducks into the row we shall be patronized by Kosovo like structures and the people having been installed there.
Only people who don't see will be the ones who will be constantly taken by surprise.
Good bless the free world, if there is one.
Hmm.
Offhand, I thought the Stalin-Tito rift to have first become noticeable in 1948. If I'm not mistaken, it carried on thru Stalin's death in 1953; only to be mended a few years later at the initiation of Khrushchev.
I'm of the impression that the "prison of nations" term is generally credited to having been coined by Lenin, as per his characterization of Imperial Russia.
If possible, please provide more on the reference to Stalin calling the post-WW II Yugo government "a prison of nationalities and minorities under the thumb of Serbian despotism."
By 1948, Stalin was at odds with the half-Croat/half-Slovene Tito.
Will the Irish vote "NO" to "Lisbon Treaty" ? This is an attempt to sneak in, against the electorates' NO in France and Denmark, the EU Constitution again. (It's "habeas", not "habeus".)
Watch for the headlines after June 12. See
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87730
Google IRELAND + LISBON TREATY...
Mr. Averko,
To my communists are most recognizable by their demagoguery. Even before the rift with Stalin, Tito himself called Yugoslavia a prizon of people around 1936 or so accorind to
"Godine 1936, kada sam postao clan KPJ u New Yorku, citao sam Proleter kojeg je uredjivao Josip Broz Tito, da je Jugoslavija "tamnica naroda" sto je od nje Aleksandrova vlada nacinila, te je 1941. propala pod prvim udarom fasisticke vojske"
Sourced from: http://www.yurope.com/zines/republika/arhiva/2002/299/299_13.html
Serbian library: http://www.mermod.com/milorad/serblib2.html
Naturaly, Tito's wording was handed down from Stalin so there is nothing unusual in Stalin using his own words a few years later when Tito refused to bend 1947, so he was expelled in 1948.
To my ears the first signs of communism are always found in public speaches. If you see an ounce of demagoguery there is bound to be a ton of communism.
At age 52, born in the USA , living and working just about equally on both continents and holder of dual citizenship (US/EU), my experiences of "prison" and the implied issues of rights,freedom,crime, ( violent/political/civil) are quite different. Americans are far more "imprisoned" by rampant criminality on all levels of society ranging from local communities, corporate conduct and a government managed and corrupted by lobbyists. Only when the oligarchy of the two ruling political parties is broken, will Americans gain parole from their "prison".
As you're choice of summering in Greece indicates,a top EU vacation destination, the sense of freedom experienced there is vastly contrasted by say a US favorite, Hawaii, a colonial "prison" which startles the astute observer.
I believe the Greeks and the rest EUers are far more removed from a "prison" than average Americans.
Equally in keeping with my claims that the germ of communism keeps growing on the Balkan grounds I also note that Stipe Mesic, Dimitrij Rupel were early communist members, while Mesic equally relied on "Yugoslavia as people prison" - he learned from his red comrades, Tadic used the same sentence as well. Mr. Averko focus on the very last paragraph: "Stoga se nameće potreba objektivizacije i deideologizacije povijesnih prikaza. I dok se hrvatska politička ljevica ne oslobodi ovog difuznog kriptokomunizma, dok se ne odrekne komunističkog nasljeđa i ne prihvati autentičnu socijaldemokraciju, dok ne prizna, da su komunisti u Jugoslaviji još za vrijeme NOB-a radi „klasne borbe“ ubijali sve one za koje su mislili da bi im mogli biti protivnici, da je Tito u doba Bleiburga i Križnoga puta htio stvoriti sovjetsku a ne demokratsku Jugoslaviju, da je nakon rata uveo sovjetski teror u državi, da su Tito i komunisti odgovorni za rušenje hrvatske države i obnavljanje Jugoslavije kao „tamnice naroda“, sada ne monarhofašističke, nego komunističke, dok sve ovo vrlo utjecajni ljudi na današnjoj političkoj ljevici u Hrvatskoj ne priznaju, ne će ozdraviti hrvatska politička scena. Jer ni fašizma, ni nacizma, ni komunizma u pravom ideološkom obliku danas nema. Prva dva su srušena oružjem, dok je onaj treći, komunizam, istrunuo kao žrtva vlastite entropije. Stoga je posthumni antifašizam i sam zastario. Zato ispravno tvrdi Alain de Benoist kad kaže, da je u vrijeme stvarnih fašizama, antifašizam mogao nekoga odvesti u logor ili pred streljački vod, dok je moderni antifašizam samo sredstvo kojim se otvaraju vrata medija i televizijskih kuća. Suvremeni antifašizam otkriva intelektualnu lijenost, jer je lakše prepoznati zlo iz prošlosti, nego zamijetiti zlo u sadašnjosti. A u sadašnjosti je možda na pomolu jedan globalni totalitarizam, koji će financijski i bioinženjerski manipulirati čovječanstvom, i koji bi mogao biti stravičniji od fašističkog, nacističkog i komunističkog totalitarizma. (Vidi Alain de Benoist, Komunizam i nacizam, Zagreb 2005.,str. 153- 156)."
Author: Alain de Benoist: Communism and Nazism, issued in Zagreb 2005, pages 153 to 156.
Mr. Averko,
Sources are endless: May 1946 Tito visited Stalin in Moscow wearing a uniform of a "marshal" a step above a five star general translated to USA military terms - while Stalin's uniform was more modest. At that meeting Tito demanded that the limitted Russian forces were allowed only to help liberate Belgrade (20th October 1944), and should gradually be withdrawn. Stalin neither enjoyed Tito's uniform, nor his demand that the Russian Army be expelled from Yugoslavia - that's were the open clashes started. Some years later Communist parties of other Warsaw Pact countries sent "letters of protest" in regards to Tito's "not following the line of the Comintern". Tito life was under threat which was evidenced by his refusal to go to Buchurest one year later. The first Informbureau meeting was held in Poland September of 1947 where first accusation were laid against KPJ (Communist Party of Yugoslavia).
Thank you Dr. Pavlovich.
I'm still interested to know more about the stated reference to Stalin calling the post-WW II Yugo government “a prison of nationalities and minorities under the thumb of Serbian despotism.”
Someone referrred to Tito as a Red Hapsburg (if it wasn't AJP Taylor, it was some other non-Slav Western source). That characterization isn't in sync with the view of Tito showing a bias for the Serbs. As you know, like Hitler, he was a corporal on the side of the Central Powers during WW I.
When Mesic succeeded Markovic as Yugo president, I recall The NYT referring to the former as a Croat nationalist. The "N" word has long since been dropped when characterizing Mesic.
Raven's comment strikes me as very true. As someone who visits family and friends in the Milan area regularly and speaks fluently, I would add that freedom of speech is formally - legally - more circumscribed in Europe but yet there is more de facto freedom than the USA. Here, a la Tocqueville's warning, the majoritarian impulse keeps speech in check and highly limited. I regularly have conversations in Italy among the polite set on race, immigration, heritage, biology, history...that are unimaginable in America. In private, Europeans, at least Italians and Frenchmen, are much more candid about what is happening than Americans, who seem to have internalized PC as a genuine belief. When all is said and done, this remains a more democratic society with a more limited horizon than Europe. I would warn against equating the directives that emenate from Brussels with European public opinion. When things change in Europe, action is quicker - as seen recently in Italy, whereas here the decay is organic and internal, thus slower but also more lethal.
#12 Raven - I have to disagree with you on the Europe/US comparison with regard to freedom of speech. Brigitte Bardot was recently convicted and fined for (I believe) the 4th time for criticizing Moslems. Orianna Falacci fled to the US to escape prosecution for the same thing. David Irving and others have been fined or imprisoned in Europe for saying things with respect to the killing of Jews during WWII that would have caused no legal action in the US. I haven't noticed any tendency of Americans to self-censor in private conversation. Internalization of political correctness as of enlightment and post-enlightenment values in general is probably a considerable problem on both continents.
With respect to crime, I don't think people consider themselves to be "imprisoned" by corporate crime or governmental corruption so much as just victimized by it. And again I think it is common on both sides of the Atlantic. Violent crime does make people prisoners in their own homes and here I think it propbably depends on the specific city and even the specific neighborhood. I have heard there are large areas of Paris and other French cities which are virtual no-go areas for the police unless they go in very large numbers and that there are areas of British cities where Christian women risk assault if they do not dress as Moslems.
Some of my perfectly sane, non-PC British friends are much more circumspect about what they say, and to whom and where and in what tone of voice, than a decade ago. The atmosphere in post-Blairite Britain is eerily reminiscent of ex-Yu's late Titoism, cca three decades ago: no longer full-bloodied Stlinism but stiflingly oppressive nevertheless, with the authorities applying thought crime laws selectively and judiciously, but having them available always.
What we are witnessing in Britain today is classic ANARCHO-TYRANNY on steroids: A White police officer cannot venture on his own, on foot, into Brixton on a Saturday night, but he will gladly eavesdrop (in mufti) on his fellow White diners in ethnic restaurants and arrest them for "hate crimes" if they dare mock the accent of the waiter once he departs their table. This is re. "Operation Napkin" (sic!) in 2000 -- and Britain has progressed a lot over the past 8 years:
An undercover operation to stamp out racism among diners at Indian and Chinese restaurants has been hailed a success. Pairs of plain-clothes officers joined other diners in Gloucestershire to observe their behaviour. .. Chief Inspector Dean Walker from Gloucestershire police said the results proved the scheme had been a success ... "This has been going on for years. That is what restaurateurs have told us, but now the police are doing something about it. Officers are not there to eavesdrop but to deal with racist behaviour if it happens." Police plan to keep the operation going in different venues across the city. Undercover surveillance will be mounted at weekends to coincide with pub closing. Chief Insp Walker added: "We have no shortage of volunteers who are keen for a free meal."
I read a book decades ago called "The Japan That Can Say No". Powerful Japanese industrialists were making the point that America was now part of the Pacific Realm, and our caucasian bonding with Europe had run it's course.
Perhaps they were right?
Re: 18
Dr. Trifkovic & Co.
Whether in the UK or US, there's an existing culture which selectively chooses what is and isn't "hate" speech.
In practice, this manner constitutes a PC bigotry.
Mr. Trifkovic:
I did not mean to make light of what is occuring in Europe. I am an attorney in NY well-versed in EU law, the Arrest Warrant that replaces extradition and the Lisbon Treaty. What you describe sent shivers down my spine - cops hanging out at a curry dinner looking for "racism and xenophobia." And no want for volunteers, like Darkness at Noon, or, as you say, I assume from first-hand experience, Tito. I was simply suggesting that these measures, as your example makes clear, have been imposed from the top down, whereas the general PC vibe in America is more the product of the citizen's will - or at least that's my experience. As Chronicles readers know, many American conservatives are quite smug about the freedom in America compared to the tyranny in Europe. I think this makes us complacent and is off base, for when a genuine cultural leftist regime is implemented here, it will have broader support from below, for it is more in keeping with the post-War American obsession with vulgarity and cutting people down to size. There is no Lega Nord or Forza Nova here, no BNP, nothing to speak for the interests of the nation itself. Instead, we have the WSJ and NRO.
Only recently have I come to understand the sinister meaning of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, like an Egyptian sphynx of the deified executive. With McCain-Obama on the way, that monument now scares me.
Hey, that was good, Sebastian. Thanks for the clarity!
Point taken. It is to be feared, however, that two specifically European traditions will conspire against the articulation of a politically meaningful vox populi in opposition to the imposers-from-the-top:
1. The habit of deferring to one's betters (École normale supérieure and RP-accented Oxbridge graduates, Dr. und Dr. Staatsrats and Beamters in general, not to mention the titled and endowed professoriat), without realizing that they have morphed, collectively, into the Enemy Within;
2. The dependence of all too many potential resisters on the all-pervasive State, and a myriad of existential difficulties and dilemmas involved therein -- a lever of control far more powerful than its equivalents over here.
In the end it seems we have the choice of ostensibly free, smiling brainwashed idiots on the left bank of the Pond, and darkly muttering yet pretty effectively cowed serfs on the right bank.
I do look forward to a brutal, global, rapid and unstoppable economic/financial meltdown. It is our only hope.
Thank God that Huey Long's prophecies did not materialize (yet, in America), as much as I seem to detect them in the above article:
* "If fascism ever comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag."
* "Of course we will have fascism in America but we will call it democracy!"
Odd how a person can find quotes of Cato, Ceasar, Nero, Plato, Socrates, Plutarch, Newton, Shakespeare and deem them just as insightful as Huey Long's (Kingfish was not nearly as popular as he was loud and self-aggrandizing) - but he did have a knack of describing a few things in a simple way - as in the above.
Of course fascism in the U.S. -- as embodied in the neocon pantheon of Benevolent Global Hegemonists -- comes wrapped in the local flag. It is likewise wrapped everywhere else (e.g. Croatia today and in 1941-45). An essential plank of the Fascist experiment everywhere is the assertion of a heroc, metaphysically ordained mission of one's own nation.
# 23 .."I do look forward to a brutal, global, rapid and unstoppable economic/financial meltdown. It is our only hope."
I agree. Providentially the EU is economically and morally corrupt and unsustainable with its end in sight. This is one more reason why Serbia should not become a member of that cartel.
Please find time and watch: END OF NATIONS - EU Takeover & the Lisbon Treaty (MOVIE)
http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=173
.."Most shocking of all was how our elected representatives are willingly handing us over to this emerging Totalitarian Superstate by deception , propaganda and outright lies.
This video details how the structures of the EU really operate, what the full significance of the Lisbon Treaty is and how it is the end of Nations within in the EU. MEPs describe their experience in Brussels and how they are undermined by the real power of the unelected and unaccountable Eurocrats who run the organization. How the politicians are working together for their own selfish needs while being used for a bigger agenda."
Sebastian @ 21
In reference to the last paragraph of your post supra, the day will likely come and may well be upon us when to utter, even in a whisper, "Sic semper tyrannis!" will be a "hate crime."
So much for the open exchange of different political views:
http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/node/1832
"Fascist" Serbia with its B92.
Mr. Peters, Latin may be the only language we'll be able to get away with speaking since the government won't understand it. Seriously though, I have been thinking the same thing you mention, all day in fact. Will it get that bad? When? Will anyone just become so fed up with having to cover his mouth with duct tape that a backlash occurs? My brother in California tells me that people are getting so sick of having the homosexual platform rammed down their throats that they are taking their kids out of public schools. A sign that good results can come from bad situations. I'd say the backlash is pretty well overdue by now.
DR. Trifkovic @ 23: I do look forward to a brutal, global, rapid and unstoppable economic/financial meltdown. It is our only hope.
I wholly agree! As you wrote at another time, the sudden return to reality would cause people to look heavenward. This can't occur too early from my perspective.
Laws.
Rules and regulations.
Holly books and other "testaments".
On one hand many forests perished in vain for printing these
stupidities. On the other, we need rules.
Ten Commandments are OK with me but many others needed amendments so, presently we don't really know who drinks and who pays, as Serbs would say.
Lisbon thing comes naturally.
For ages we witnessed criminals crossing borders and getting away with crimes on "technicalities" of various laws.
We also had to endure idiotic opinions which led any intelligent being to complete distrust in motives of lawmakers.
Procedures of future conduct of the law described by Dr. Trifkovic are nothing new to anyone who tasted Communism, especially in early stages, anyone who is familiar with Holly Inquisition and similar witch-hunts Joe McCarthy style or anyone who faced Judge in North America in last, let's say 30 years.
Tragedy lies in our obvious distrust towards these "lawmakers", their motives, reasons and agendas.
Mr. Milosevic, it is precisely that road that the humanity does NOT need to take.
We’ve seen the results of the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition, the 3rd Reich, the Stalinsit purges, the UDBA in Yugoslavia, the death of Allende, the Somosa case, the Noriega case, the Hussein case, why would anybody in his right mind go back to any of that? The world has taken a turn for the surreal with this Lisbon document. Nobody is against prosecuting criminals – but Dr. Trifkovic is addressing issues of speech, thinking, expression, press. What will happen if Don Rickles continue to make his ethnic jokes while his entire career is built on “I hate Jews….don’t mind me, I’m a Jew too, but did you ever hear about …..etc. etc. But you in the first row you all look related are you the inbred British Royalty or are you from West Virginia?” – I like those sick jokes. I want the freedom to say and think what I feel is right.
That, lopsided sticky, gooey taste of totalitarianism is at the core of our collective future and I see no way out of it for now. In my mind’s eye I see uninterrupted progress in the shortest form following Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Hegel, Thomas Hobbes, I chose to ignore much of Nietsche, and skip straight into modern thinkers with American founding fathers and a good few Russians who were deluded by communism but Dostoyefsky was as much a philosopher as he was a novelist, just as Shakespeare was. Two millennia of civilization out the window, and one foot into the bone-fide Neo-Fascism, hurts.
I am both a US and an EU (in my case Greek) citizen, and I respectfully must disagree with Dr. Trifkovic's assessment of the EU. I know well that the EU has given much to Greece, and slowly the civic level of Greeks (heretofore more Ottoman than European) has risen considerably, as has the standard of living. I will welcome the day that our Serbian brethren take their rightful place in Europe (as does my Serbian wife), as have our Orthodox Bulgarian and Romanian neighbors. The EU is far from perfect, and indeed certain aspects of sovereignty have been lost by each state. However, I would submit that certain countries, such as Greece, Italy, and certainly Bulgaria or Serbia could use a little less sovereignty if it is in the form of corrupt politicians. The only thing we need to preserve is our Orthodox Byzantine identity in the face of a homogenizing Europe. That is as much up to each of us as to the independence of our states.
Greece, a bona fide member of the EU, is demographically morbund and on the fast track to extinction. Fertility rates per 1,000 inhabitants were a healthy 18.9 in 1960 and 16.5 in 1970. They have collapsed after the country joined the European Community (as it was then), to 9.5 in 1998 and to just above 8 now -- one-third of the simple replacement figure!
Greece had no immigrants, legal or otherwise, when she joined the EC. Today there are at last one million Albanians in the country -- nobody knows the exact figure -- and some half-million assorted non-European illegals. All of them are eminently unassmilable and overwhelmingly contemptuous of or else hostile to the Christian (well, just) host-society: Kurds, Somalis, Arab Muslims, etc. Altogether, aliens (legal and illegal, mostly Muslim) account for 15% of the population (more than one in seven), and a fifth of newborns.
Greece used to be one of the safest countries in the world before joining the EU. Today you need security cameras, bloodthirsty dogs and loaded guns to save your life in a lonely villa on a lonely island.
Curing corruption with the EU membership is like curing alcoholism -- part-disease, part-moral failing -- with the ingestion of richly sugared, HIV-laden bodily fluids.
The EU? Nein, danke!
........and still no Greek misses Gen. Patakos.
"One should be careful what one wishes, it might come true" never had stronger meaning in all the perverse ways than ever before in History............or we just payed too little attention.
Sorry guys, I am trying to be as brief as possible. Any thought I write here would take a page or two to clarify opinion. I find that indecent on such a forum.
Let me repeat though:
Lisbon thing is not a surprise. It was brewing for a very long time and many proudly helped it spread the roots.
Those who laughed at me all my life whenever I tried to discuss dangers of false progress laced with badly hidden agendas, pulling humanity away from traditions, morality, truth, justice..........well, I shall let them find the remedy for all this.
Second half of twentieth century I saw as Age of Mediocrity where one idiot recognized the other, followed by Age of Superficiality with shorter and yet shorter attention span. Presently we live Age of Restrictions which is, logically becoming the Age of Oppression. Please add a lot of sex and violence to all this.
Puzzled?
Angry?
I overcame these sentiments long, long time ago.
It was tragedy while it was in its making. It is a great comedy as it arrived.
Pity for the forests................
Regarding Greece, Dr. Trifkovic is correct concerning the dropping natality, typical of all of Europe minus the trash statelet called Kosovo (which Greece hopefully will never recognize). This is not due to the EU, so much as urbanization and the exploding cost of living anywhere. My wife and I are typical, we are 39 and 38 and have one child, but would like more. I can tell you this much, though, we did not want to have a child in a country so child-unfriendly as Greece. Given the complete lack of organization in anything built until recently, there are no sidewalks, no pedestrian zones, no state healthcare system, in spite of a considerable rise in income, such that Greece's per capita income now approaches Germany's. That, dear readers, is the legacy of corruption only now being addressed. The EU has only helped in this, and other regards. I am pleased Dr. Trifkovic holidays in my country, and either in Athens or the Salonika so beloved of Serbs, you step into modern airports, and drive on autobahns every bit as good as those of Germany, because Brusssels financed them. This is real.
Further, I take exception to the notion that Greece is only nominally Christian. When we served in the army, we said the Lord's Prayer before every meal, attended Church constantly, and (in utter defiance of European law), my Chicago-born son to receive Greek nationality required an Orthodox baptismal certificate. As for Albanians in Greece, a good proportion are being baptised as Orthodox Christians, and will be Hellenized quickly.
Speaking of Generals, Patakos can burn in Hell.
Irish reject Lisbon Treaty
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7452171.stm