Wednesday, May 28, 2014

IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE…COULDN'T IT?

The more I read of the goings-on of the weekend, the less I was sure. The EU, it appears, is very much at a cross-roads and there is no clear answer as to the route to be taken.  What struck me in the result of these local and parliamentary elections across the continent was the sheer lack of conclusiveness in any result.  Nowhere was there a vote for anything; everywhere the results were cast as a vote against something and despite local variances, that something was certainly the Union.

I asked my pal Gordon about Farage and his response was that he probably represents the views of 75% of the people in the UK which is always the sort of number that Gordon comes up with when agreeing with a position but this time the truism in the statement lies in the fact that when push comes to shove, no sane man can stand and say the UK stands with Europe.  And if that cannot be said, then the Union is effectively finished with just the mopping up to be done and the face-saving to be continued.  I suppose the Brits would hand in there is Brussels were to, in effect, disappear, tariffs lifted, etc.  Amazingly, in the face all all that had just occurred the geniuses on the Commission just asked for another 3.5 billion Euros to run themselves with 500 million supposedly coming from the Brits.  Stupidity such as this should be savored like a memorable meal or a fine wine but alas, it is just another step in a pattern of governing stupidity that rises no higher than an undercooked trotter.  There is probably no room for another nail in that coffin an the left of the Channel.

And then there is France.  Mme. Le Pen won nary a thing except about 22% of the popular vote and a bunch of seats in Brussels where her mob will be a complete pest, but what she did do was to shatter the socialist psyche to the point that it may not recover.  Yes, Frankie will serve out, but he is an empty suit politically, leaving Germany and his gal Angie, in the position they so desperately wish to avoid; being out front with no different colored uniforms marching with them.  Germany, for reasons that can be well-understood and magnified by the undeniably dominant position, does not like the images it creates.  Worse yet, the first thing Mrs. Pen let drop was that if she were President, the Franc would be back!  Oops.  Now of course what everybody is babbling about over here is that her party is anti-Semitic and what an awful thing that it (it is), completely forgetting that France has probably been the most anti-Semitic country in the history of Europe and with an 8.5% Muslim population things probably aren't going to get much better, but it is not that that could sound the death knell for Europe.  She wants out of the monetary union and recognizes that is France AND England leave, Finis, as they used to say at the end of the "art" movies into which we used to sneak.

Within the strictures of the Euro, it is nearly impossible for any country to spend its way out of the depression which continues to linger over western Europe and while it pains me to say it, Little Paulie Krugman who's Over There as we write and babbling on about this  is correct.  Of course Paulie, mesmerized by Europe's soft socialism can't think of anything else nor can Mme. Le Pen who has lived under it for too long.  Not good.

With the exception of the Netherlands, it was a right to center right philosophy that swept across norther Europe but not so as we move south.  And yet, many of the complaints were the same, as were many of the shouted proposed solutions.  Curiously, there was no one wave of ideology but a concerted belief that what was in place didn't work.  I'd like to take tomorrow to explore the Southern Tier as to the ideologies seemingly in place in that region and then try to tie everything up in a nice bow atop a box of bold predictions.  Why not?  Everybody else is.

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