No EU referendum for the brits!

[Mordack]

Perhaps I spoke too soon..

[Kit-Fox]

Removed

[Mordack]

I'm not sure we will either, no, but the ensuing rebellion (Maastricht anyone?) has the potential to be deeply damaging for the current government.

[MEZZANINE]

Online petition for referendum is here ( I signed it )

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=say+no ... =firefox-a

Some interesting facts on the site, and a great resource center that tells you ( if UK resident ) who your local MP is and how he/she has voted in parliament.

Also says there will be a protest march at Westminster next Monday ( 24/10/11 ) and all are invited


Mezz says 'Die evil empire, die'

[Legendary Apophis]

A BIG facepalm at some of these images!

Especially at that "evil economic empire". If someone could enlight me where are the extermination camps for Jews and homosexuals in EU, I would be curious to know! (because, as you should know, Nazi regime installed in conquered eastern countries these camps were they forced people to work, before exterminating them)
Oh yes, I forgot, there aren't any, it's just ignorant propaganda.

Yes, ignorant. That's what it is!
Or Godwin argument at its worst. Dunno. Probably both.

Anyway, as a history/economy student, my face palm is pretty big!

Ah. Here we go! Burning flags. That's what very civilized people do. Like those radicals who burn US or Israeli flag and scream their hate at them. Such an example to imitate. Oh yes, very democratic, civilized and respectable bunch these people are! Lovely people, aren't they?

http://www.jcm.org.uk/blog/2009/03/why- ... -nonsense/

[spoiler]

(...)

We’ve started having at it in the comments there, where he has again restated the classic anti-EU conspiracy theory:
“the basic plan [is] to unite Europe under one government… there is nothing else on the table and… each succeeding treaty follows that exact plan”
As such, a response to this, the classic EU superstate conspiracy theory, originally posted as a couple of comments there:

It all starts with Ken’s claim that “Monnet`s misquote ['Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose but which will irreversibly lead to federation'] …Epitomises the aims and the methods to be employed in order to bring about a united Europe”

Erm… Only it wasn’t a misquote. It was something made up by someone who believes the same things that Ken does about how the EEC/EU is progressing – things based on a misunderstanding of what “the United States of Europe” (Churchill’s phrase) was intended to mean (i.e. united in common purpose, not united as one country), an apparent inability to think of any federal system of government other than a heavily centralised one like that of the modern USA (take a look at Switzerland for an alternative model, for example), and an inclination to see the EEC/EU as a monolithic organisation characterised primarily by groupthink in which everyone thinks the same thing and wants the same thing. If the latter (in particular) were truly the case, do you really think it would have been stuck in a rut for the last two decades, unable to move forwards with this grand plan of continental political union?

As such, Ken’s initial claim about what the EU’s founding fathers were really after is, erm, nonsense. I can give you a brief run-down of what the various chaps usually considered the founding fathers (or at least, those listed by the EU itself) were after, if you like:

Schuman – merge those parts of the economy necessary for war to prevent future conflict
Monnet - take this further by encouraging cultural co-operation and cross-border friendship among the people (again to prevent war)
Spaak - use binding international treaties to prevent war
Hallstein - create common economic institutions
Adenauer - prevent war through ever-closer co-operation and friendship
Spinelli - introduce a loose federal model to aid economic co-operation
Gasperi - merge western European economies as closely as possible to prevent fascism and communism taking hold in weaker areas
Churchill (yes, THAT Churchill) – “We must build a kind of United States of Europe” (though please note the “kind of”…)

So when Ken (or another eurosceptic who believes the same stuff) claims that the founding fathers hoped “that Europe should become one nation state along the same lines as the United States of America with one overarching federal government”, what he really means is that one of the founding fathers (Winston Churchill) suggested something along the lines of one European state along the American model, and that another of them (Altiero Spinelli) pushed for some kind of federal structure.

Conflating the views of two people with a made-up quote from a third to arrive at a grand conspiracy. Nice.

Ken then asked another standard anti-EU question that usually crops up in superstate arguments: “Perhaps you could point to the [treaties] which returned power to the member states?”

Maastricht enshrined the principle of subsidiarity, as has every treaty since. The Commission has even started to act on this principle during the last five years by scrapping various silly laws and seeking greater deregulation at EU level to give powers back to the member states and regions – one of the few good things the Barroso Commission has achieved.

Ken’s belief in some kind of divine teleological providence guiding the EU to a predetermined destiny is charming, it really is. But the EU is a complex series of institutions with no single guiding hand, trying to reconcile the conflicting demands of 27 different countries. Its course is even less clear now than it has ever been.

Were it still just made up of the original six members then it’s possible that he (and his eurosceptic chums) might have a case. But as soon as Britain and Denmark joined back in ‘73 (not to mention Ireland with its specific constitutional requirements that have so hampered the progress of the Lisbon Treaty), the likelihood of the EEC/EU ending up as a single unified state became greatly diminished – not least because of the UK’s ongoing ties to the Commonwealth, something inadequately dealt with during the entry talks.

There are TWENTY-ONE more countries involved now than when Monnet, Schuman and co went about setting up the thing – which was OVER HALF A CENTURY AGO. Most – if not all – of the EU’s founders are dead and buried, along with the post-WWII, early Cold War ideals of the era in which they were working. And yet Ken and co think that somehow the founding fathers’ alleged grand plan for a superstate has been maintained all this time? Who by, for God’s sake? Seriously: I don’t get who it is they think has enough influence – let alone over the EU itself, but also over the governments of every single EU member state (and their opposition) to boot.

What Ken (and the rest) is suggesting IS a conspiracy – and a conspiracy mostly based on out of context quotes from 50+ years ago. Yes, it is possible to look at the current EU and see some of the things included in its various (failed) draft treaties of recent years as pointing towards a superstate. But to do that you have to ignore so much other evidence to the contrary as to make it laughable

(...)[/spoiler]
Finally some sense about these nonsensical conspiracies!

[[KMA]Avenger]

Jim, just because a prison has no bars on the windows does not mean it is not a prison. this is your mistake, you think that just because there is no army marching across Europe and taking over your country by force of arms that all is OK, you have been conquered by economic treaties and means, there is no need for an army. if they had tried to conquer Europe by force of arms you would have no problem identifying an invasion and conquest.

I'll ask you this and i want you to be honest here...first though, take off your pro-EU cap and put on your historians cap...as a student of history, what do you call it when you have the centralisation of power?

[Legendary Apophis]

Jim, just because a prison has no bars on the windows does not mean it is not a prison. this is your mistake, you think that just because there is no army marching across Europe and taking over your country by force of arms that all is OK, you have been conquered by economic treaties and means, there is no need for an army. if they had tried to conquer Europe by force of arms you would have no problem identifying an invasion and conquest.

There is no damned conquest! My country has faced conquest seventy years ago, that didn't have anything to do with what we have now! (limited amount of food and water available, squads of collaboration to Nazism who caught the opponents/resisting people to send them eventually to death camps, x% of nation's production being taken by Nazis for their effort of war against UK and Greece -in the early years-, ...) What you are talking about is the evolution of diplomacy, economy based on the past experiences and what-to-do-now stuff. You could have expected things remain static after WW2 that every country lives on its own in the west, while the USA and USSR would have kept growing up while Western Europe, diminished by WW2, wouldn't have been able to become something else than satellites of the USA (Marshall Plan and USA claiming "property" of the West to avoid its conquest by USSR).
Countries like Portugal and Spain benefit a lot from EU in the 1980s and 1990s. Sure they are in trouble now, but one shouldn't forget from where they started when they joined EU! They were really late compared to the rest of EU wagon after decades of dictatorship from Salazar and Franco. The gap was big, very big.

Normally a conquest is followed by pillaging of resources. That's what happened in France. GDP/industry was barely 50% of what it was before 1939. Now, I don't think countries who joined EU, like the two I mentioned or the new ones from East, were pillaged and lost their national production due to it being stolen by the "ruling nation". As far as I know, Poland for another example, doesn't have to give x% of its industrial and services production to some "higher authority" (the SO CALLED "conquerors") as a tribute of being conquered. As for the recession, there were recessions in Europe before WW2, it doesn't have to do with "conquerors" stealing stuff from the ones in troubles. As far as I know, countries have to lend money to Greece for the bailout. Normally a conqueror steals from its conquered territories, it doesn't give, right?

I'll ask you this and i want you to be honest here...first though, take off your pro-EU cap and put on your historians cap...as a student of history, what do you call it when you have the centralisation of power?

We don't have lockers with categories where we put everything +/- similar inside each of them. One of the basic laws of history is to TAKE THE CONTEXT INTO CONSIDERATION. That means, comparing EU to USSR and Nazi 3rd Reich is totally NONSENSE! It would be sort of anachronism to compare both. Like if you were to compare EU with Roman Empire, it is NOT accurate in the analysis of a historian.
As a consequence, we don't have a generic term to give to "centralisation of power", because that very thing differs usually throughout the different examples possibly linked to it. EU isn't an Empire either.

[[KMA]Avenger]

So you think giving bailout money="giving"?


Jim, when you "give" money to another nation, firstly that is NOT giving, it is theft because no money "given" is "given" it is borrowed at interest, and since Greece is bankrupt anyways, there is no way they can pay back the principal, let alone the interest, in short what we are witnessing is the wholesale looting of nations wealth (not just Greece, but other nations who are being bailed out). secondly, that money is being created out of thing air, so there is no giving, only stealing.

[Legendary Apophis]

](*,)


So you think giving bailout money="giving"?


Jim, when you "give" money to another nation, firstly that is NOT giving, it is theft because no money "given" is "given" it is borrowed at interest, and since Greece is bankrupt anyways, there is no way they can pay back the principal, let alone the interest, in short what we are witnessing is the wholesale looting of nations wealth (not just Greece, but other nations who are being bailed out). secondly, that money is being created out of thing air, so there is no giving, only stealing.

Compared to the example of France having its industry production stolen, yes, it is "giving". If you take closer attention to my post, I said countries LEND money. Which means a payback BUT compared to example I gave of occupation, it is still "giving" as the payback happens in return of the giving. While in occupation, you didn't have a damned thing in return to the stolen stuff for the nation itself. And there it was REAL stealing. Because there was no "stuff created out of thin air" before or after the steal of production. But I'm not going to go the road of "money created out of nothing", because it would be purely currency-based commonly used in the system of today, would get offtopic.

Question answered. Probably not what you expected, but that's how it is. Would be way too easy if it wasn't as I said it is.

[[KMA]Avenger]

I'll ask you this and i want you to be honest here...first though, take off your pro-EU cap and put on your historians cap...as a student of history, what do you call it when you have the centralisation of power?

We don't have lockers with categories where we put everything +/- similar inside each of them. One of the basic laws of history is to TAKE THE CONTEXT INTO CONSIDERATION. That means, comparing EU to USSR and Nazi 3rd Reich is totally NONSENSE! It would be sort of anachronism to compare both. Like if you were to compare EU with Roman Empire, it is NOT accurate in the analysis of a historian.
As a consequence, we don't have a generic term to give to "centralisation of power", because that very thing differs usually throughout the different examples possibly linked to it. EU isn't an Empire either.

You're not getting it...ok, i'll ask the same question again, what type of 2 fundamental systems lie at the heart of communism?

](*,)


So you think giving bailout money="giving"?


Jim, when you "give" money to another nation, firstly that is NOT giving, it is theft because no money "given" is "given" it is borrowed at interest, and since Greece is bankrupt anyways, there is no way they can pay back the principal, let alone the interest, in short what we are witnessing is the wholesale looting of nations wealth (not just Greece, but other nations who are being bailed out). secondly, that money is being created out of thing air, so there is no giving, only stealing.

Compared to the example of France having its industry production stolen, yes, it is "giving". If you take closer attention to my post, I said countries LEND money. Which means a payback BUT compared to example I gave of occupation, it is still "giving" as the payback happens in return of the giving. While in occupation, you didn't have a damned thing in return to the stolen stuff for the nation itself. And there it was REAL stealing. Because there was no "stuff created out of thin air" before or after the steal of production. But I'm not going to go the road of "money created out of nothing", because it would be purely currency-based commonly used in the system of today, would get offtopic.

Question answered. Probably not what you expected, but that's how it is. Would be way too easy if it wasn't as I said it is.

Do you even understand how money and debt are created??

[Legendary Apophis]

I'll ask you this and i want you to be honest here...first though, take off your pro-EU cap and put on your historians cap...as a student of history, what do you call it when you have the centralisation of power?

We don't have lockers with categories where we put everything +/- similar inside each of them. One of the basic laws of history is to TAKE THE CONTEXT INTO CONSIDERATION. That means, comparing EU to USSR and Nazi 3rd Reich is totally NONSENSE! It would be sort of anachronism to compare both. Like if you were to compare EU with Roman Empire, it is NOT accurate in the analysis of a historian.
As a consequence, we don't have a generic term to give to "centralisation of power", because that very thing differs usually throughout the different examples possibly linked to it. EU isn't an Empire either.

You're not getting it...ok, i'll ask the same question again, what type of 2 fundamental systems lie at the heart of communism?

Collectivism in production,
central state with nation-owned firms,
rejection of pluralism in politics, (exists in other dictatorships)
authoritarian state which manipulates nation's/union's medias and forbids access to foreign medias, (exists in other dictatorships)
expropriation of capitalists and land owners (leads to collectivism),
removal of private propriety,
"proletarian dictatorship", finally,
following Marx's ideology and taking it as the new Bible.

](*,)


So you think giving bailout money="giving"?


Jim, when you "give" money to another nation, firstly that is NOT giving, it is theft because no money "given" is "given" it is borrowed at interest, and since Greece is bankrupt anyways, there is no way they can pay back the principal, let alone the interest, in short what we are witnessing is the wholesale looting of nations wealth (not just Greece, but other nations who are being bailed out). secondly, that money is being created out of thing air, so there is no giving, only stealing.

Compared to the example of France having its industry production stolen, yes, it is "giving". If you take closer attention to my post, I said countries LEND money. Which means a payback BUT compared to example I gave of occupation, it is still "giving" as the payback happens in return of the giving. While in occupation, you didn't have a damned thing in return to the stolen stuff for the nation itself. And there it was REAL stealing. Because there was no "stuff created out of thin air" before or after the steal of production. But I'm not going to go the road of "money created out of nothing", because it would be purely currency-based commonly used in the system of today, would get offtopic.

Question answered. Probably not what you expected, but that's how it is. Would be way too easy if it wasn't as I said it is.

Do you even understand how money and debt are created??

Yes. But the point remains, expropriation of production by the Nazi during WW2 is NOT the same as when a country faces a bailout.

[MEZZANINE]

@ LA,

1) The pictures are for fun, the Nazi ref is only used because they were the last group to try and 'unite' Europe under centralised rule, I do NOT compare the 2 on humanitarian grounds.

2) Did you really say 'Evolution of Democracy' ? OMG if you believe that there really is no hope for you. The EU is destroying democracy, many member nations have had no say in joining, it's led by unelected bureaucrats and it vastly reduces the power of an individuals vote even in MEP elections as there are so many MEPs from pissy little countries who have difference needs/wants to us.

3) We in the UK do NOT want to be in the EU. Most of Europe dont even like the UK, the only reason the EU wants us in is for our money. Go trax someone else for your socialist superstate dream.

[[KMA]Avenger]

A comparison between the EU and the Nazi's can be made. Hitler and his Nazi party DID NOT seize power, they were granted power by the peoples mandate. by the same token, the EU has been mandated by people who have been deceived. it all started with economic treaties "which is good for jobs" they said, now it is a bureaucratic monster which is swallowing whole nations and has destroyed more jobs than it has created...unless people haven't noticed, nearly all of our production is outsourced to other country's where labour is exploited. all the while jobs have been lost here, the people who now have those jobs work for peanuts which has only helped to lower EVERYBODY'S living standards.
And now just as the Nazi's did, the EU is demanding more power which you are all to eager to grant.

I am not saying the EU will turn into an all conquering armed force, i submit they do not need to do it by force because they have done it with deception and the pen!


I also submit to you Jim that you have no understanding how money is created or how it works, therefore you will not be able to understand just how evil bailouts are, because if you did understand you would tell the EU to get lost and the so called PIGS nations to get out of the EU ASAP.


Edit:

Bombs have been replaced with banks. bullets have been replaced with financial instruments. tanks have been replaced with eurocrats. conquering armies have been replaced with economic treaties...what's the difference when the result is the same...loss of sovereignty!

[Kit-Fox]

Removed

[[KMA]Avenger]

My fave is the 2nd 1, instead of tanks they now use limos