"President Barack Obama faced a furious backlash overseas this morning over his 'downright hypocritical' decision to urge Britain to stay in the European Union.
In a highly controversial intervention in the EU referendum campaign, Obama pleaded with British voters not to cut ties with Brussels – saying it 'magnified' the UK's influence in the world.
He also invoked the spirit of the Second World War by claiming the sacrifice of GIs meant America has a stake in the EU debate and said the decision in June's referendum 'will echo in the prospects of today's generation of Americans as well'.
London Mayor Boris Johnson accused him of making an 'incoherent' and 'inconsistent' argument.
A furious Johnson said this morning: 'The Americans would never contemplate anything like the EU, for themselves or for their neighbors in their own hemisphere. Why should they think it right for us?'" The Daily Mail
———-
Obama! What the hell is the matter with this man? When he went to Havana he let the Cuban communists upbraid him without any particular reaction. When he arrived in Riyadh, the Saudis sent the mayor of Riyadh (ra'is al baladiya) out to the airport to receive him. He accepted that. Now he has arrived in England where the queen was gracious enough to go out on the lawn at Windsor to greet him. His purpose for visiting the UK? Well, pilgrims, he is there to "guide" the British in their approaching referendum about withdrawal from the EU!
Obama seems to believe that the US is a country that needs to do penance through submission to humiliation. At the same time he thinks that he, like all Borgists, needs to take charge of the re-organization of the New World Order.
Obama likes to apologize to one and all.
I hereby apologize to the UK for Obama's arrogance and presumption. pl
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3553788/Obama-flies-Brexit-storm-President-faces-furious-backlash-downright-hypocritical-decision-tell-British-voters-stay-EU.html#ixzz46ZXcI94e
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No apology required but I wish he kept his mouth shut. Brits don’t take kindly to unsolicited advice from foreigners.
His comments make a brexit more likely. Strange that he can’t see that.
1. When Obama visited Riyadh in March 2014 he was greeted at the airport of Riyadh by (tata!) the mayor of Riyadh who is always a high member of the royal house. Then no one cared about it.
http://susris.com/2014/03/28/special-report-president-obama-arrives-in-riyadh-meets-king-abdullah/
2. The U.S. needs Britain in the EU because that its main way to influence the EU. The other members it (ab)uses for influence do hardly count (Poland, Baltics).
One good reason for the other EU countries to let Britain go. The other is the terrible influence the city of London and its banks have in the EU through the British government.
b
I think you meant Prince Talal. I care about it now because the level of the reception is something Arabs care about very much and the Saudis are having a good time dragging Obama around. I have told you many times that from my isolationist point of view I don’t want any responsibility for the US towards NATO or the EU. pl
I hope he didn’t call the English “Europeans.”
Col,
Being intelligent doesn’t preclude one from being a fool. My take from the Atlantic interview was that he has already left the White House. With still having 10 months of being the President of the USA, his comments in the interview about other foreign leaders that he needs to work with in the remaining time, such as “Putin isn’t completely stupid” pretty much told me he is the bad combination of arrogance and ignorance. This past week’s performance seems to confirm it.
Colonel,
In the light of Boris Johnson’s remarks that Obama has a residual hatred for the English because of his Kenyan background your readers might (or might NOT!) appreciate a joke my Iraqi friends told me about the “birther birth certificate” controversy at the time it was raging:
“People claim that Obama was born in Kenya and there’s a birth certificate to prove it. It must be true because if he was a real American he’d have nuked all of Kenya to ashes to get rid of the birth certificate”.
Du
If he did I’m going to buy shares in every company I can find that sells popcorn 🙂
Obama’s intervention has not been well received. Here’s a site of political gossip where many pungent criticisms have been leveled at him.
http://order-order.com/2016/04/22/obama-nope/
Leading comment:
graemeirvine • 10 hours ago
Today, one day after Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth turned 90, becoming the UK’s longest reigning monarch, and one day before St George’s Day, England’s patron Saint’s day, Yankee Doodle came to London, in the shape of Barry Kenya, on his way to a trade fair in Germany, to order UK’s voters to put America first, and vote for Dodgy Dave’s EUSSR deal. Shamelessly invoking America’s military heroes from two world wars, a military in which he never sought to serve, Barry urged on free born Brits, a course of immersion in
a wealth and jobs destroying, failing International Union, of a kind that no right thinking, non-communist American would ever think of joining. It shows just how out of touch the modern political class has become from the voter hoi polloi class. With friends like Dodgy Dave and Barry, we poor Brits don’t need any enemies.
He also stuck his oar in over the Scottish independence referendum.
Like Captain Renault in Casablanca I am shocked. Seriously? After all of the unappreciated meddling by Benji in the election of 2012 and his unappreciated address to congress. What was he thinking? There was no way he could jump into the middle of that election and not kick over the hornet’s nest. While he is at it he could suggest that they get rid of the monarchy.
The Great Johovah and the Borg have spoken. While the Mayor of London may have been as surprised as the Commander of Fort Ticoderoga was when Ethan Allan and the boys showed up back in the day he damn well knows that the only ones behind Barack are international bankers and the Borg.
“In his op-ed Obama also invoked the spirit of the Second World War by claiming the sacrifice of Gis…”
One of those GI’s was my uncle, who has a plaque on the wall in a memorial in Coventry (his remains being scattered across Europe when that B17 he was in was shot down). He sure didn’t fight for the values of Barack, the Borg or the rest of the left of 2016. I don’t think any of these other men fought for Barack and the Borg’s values either:
https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials#.VxpnFfkrLIV
Here’s another blog where some of the comments on Obama and our dim dhimmi ‘Dave’ are even more salty.
http://www.going-postal.net/2016/04/barry-trolls-britain.html
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson’s full letter can be read here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-22/london-mayor-slams-part-kenyan-obamas-hypocritical-brexit-diatribe
“Brits don’t take kindly to unsolicited advice from foreigners.”
Well, from my no doubt heavily limited perspective it seems they took US advise concerning the war against Iraq. Didn’t they?
I cannot see any type of developments in the publication of the ‘Chilcot report’. Couldn’t they by now not have released at least the part of the report concerning the run-up phrase of matters?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Inquiry
Should we reduce such important matters to the level of elite or party politics? Is this appropriate?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Inquiry#Criticism
Personally, I somewhat doubt it would have heavily changed the context at the time if the party was democrat or conservative. I may no doubt be wrong in this context.
I think for personal as well as cultural reasons Obama believes in American Exceptionalism.
After all, would one expect a Franco-African or an Anglo-African to ever be elected to such an analogously high position of power in France or in UK?
Likewise in Italy or in Spain.
Furthermore, EU states themselves have suborned their own interests to those of US in many instances – just look at the English Poodle.
Why should he treat EU member states or EU as a whole any better than what they are – Dukedoms and Counties that are dependent on US for playing a role – assigned to them by US – in the global politics.
He is also cool as a cucumber and is not letting the fits of jilted US lovers – such as Saudis – ruffle his feathers since he knows it in his bones that US, and with it, the Western Civilization, will assimilate the rest of the world in the ripeness of time.
Why should he care one whit about the barks of little dogs and meows of stray cats?
Is it true, as here alleged, that Obama intends to round out his Presidency by going to Japan to apologize for those two atomic bombs?
http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2016/04/dont-say-sorry-mr-president-it-makes-you-look-even-soppier.html
“Being intelligent doesn’t preclude one from being a fool.”
In fact, it is very often the reason for many problems, if, of course, by intelligence you mean IQ metric. Look at the neocon cabal–I am pretty damn sure that majority of them has a very impressive IQ. But not being a fool is very often a combination of a whole complex of factors among which being cultured or, plain simple, being a decent human being who has self-irony is more important than whatever in this day and age passes as intelligence. I met very many extremely high IQ people and by far not all of them were pleasant or good professionals. So much for IQ-intelligence. But then again, we live in the society which sees no distinction between information and knowledge.
You point your finger Col, once again, on a key point. b is on, or at least in his comment, on thee default setting the past 70 or so years. This automatic assumption of American leadership. This is not meant to be critical of b. That’s what everyone thought. And they can’t (won’t?) stop thinking that way. As we get knee deep into the swamp. I hope the default setting is jettisoned once and forever.
The man is nuts. What a loose cannon and his band of sycophants are likewise crazies.
“London Mayor Boris Johnson accused him of making an ‘incoherent’ and ‘inconsistent’ argument.
“A furious Johnson said this morning: ‘The Americans would never contemplate anything like the EU, for themselves or for their neighbors in their own hemisphere. Why should they think it right for us?'”
The U.S. has managed to keep its EU together threw think and thin, including the Civil War. Even today there are various members who would like to cast off on their own.
Has Mayor Johnson ever looked at a map of the U.S., or read a history. The caliber of mayors is going down worldwide!
I only wish he would visit Jerusalem and bumble into some meaningful disregard for diplomatic protocol.
Here is a piece from The Telegraph. The tone is somewhat less agitated than the Mail. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/22/barack-obama-arrives-in-britain-to-tell-voters-to-remain-in-the/
b, the arguments in favor of the status quo are getting thin. Consider this example of offering a set of false alternatives. See https://twitter.com/FareedZakaria/status/723498256479752192
If a “worse” alternative arose, i.e., a Taliban-type government in the KSA, the USA and EU would not protect them. We would isolate Saudi Arabia. Like Iran, the new KSA government would have its assets frozen, it’s ability to buy weapons cut down. And Saudi’s victims would rush to courthouses worldwide to file claims for compensation for Saudi mischief.
Western support for Riyadh amplifies the regime’s toxicity.
James: You mean Germany post-Brexit and post-Merkel would return to Ostpolitik?
Britain in E.U is essential to keep up sufficient levels of Russophobia for the Borg agenda and keep the EU dysfunctional.
How should the Scots vote and what will be the SNP strategy? Does Brexit accelerate an independent Scotland which is part of EU? Surely popcorn time.
From the link Tigermoth posted above, to the Boris Johnson’s complete statements in the Sun:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/7095695/UK-and-America-can-better-friends-than-ever-Mr-Obama-if-we-LEAVE-the-EU-says-Boris-Johnson.html
“Can we stand on our own two feet? Yes we can.
Can we build a new and prosperous relationship with the rest of the EU, based on free trade and intergovernmental cooperation? Yes we can.
Can we speak up for the hundreds of millions around the continent who also feel estranged from the Brussels project?
Can we once again be the champions of democracy? Yes we can.
And by doing all those we can thrive as never before – and therefore be even better and more valuable allies of the United States.”
If Obama and the rest of the US government feels strongly about Britain staying in the EU, I don’t see what the big deal is about him telling them. It’s a major decision and I think the people over there should hear about the full range of likely effects before they vote, especially from a major ally. As I recall, France recommended against invading Iraq, that turned out to be good advice that we should have listened to.
Colonel Lang , if I may, and not get you upset with me again, I think I understand Mr. Obama’ attitude / arrogance with the Europeans, some times even I hear this from my own relatives living in Europe or some closer European friends, they say you in America think you own Europe because you protect us, and rebuilt our economy fifty years ago. Nevertheless, correctly so, America has rescued, safeguarded, rebuilt and defended Europe and Europeans from their own mess at least since WW2, so it comes natural, specially with the Borgistas to have a sense of ownership or a protectorate over them and tell them what to or not to do for their own benefit. So IMO it’s not far out for president Obama to tell the Brits what they should do. But is also correct that US’ sense of ownership arrogance with Europe is much milder and more in level, then with defeated far easterners and third world countries. An old French collage roommate, few years ago during the freedom fries episode told me, “This bossy feeling often is not realized / recognized with you in America ”
Col. Lang –
I think we’d have to pull out of NATO (effectively killing it) to avoid our treaty responsibilities, right? As long as the treaty is in place I don’t think we can avoid responsibility, treaties have the force of law.
Here’s something from someone who may be a bit cracked in thinking that the German intelligence service manipulates the world, but he has an interesting view of Obama.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/04/22/push-off-obama/
‘Obama was born in or near Mombasa in what was then the Coastal Protectorate of Kenya. Neither of his parents was a US Citizen. His claimed mother, Ann Dunham, came from a disloyal family – her mother was under FBI surveillance in 1944 as a suspected saboteur at the Boeing B-29 plant in Wichita Kansas, and has been implicated in the theft by the Abwehr of a set of B-29 blueprints. It’s a fair bet that the Dunhams didn’t join in the celebrations on VJ-Day with any enthusiasm. Ann Dunham by the way wasn’t pregnant in the July of 1961, although she is supposed to have given birth to the future president a few weeks later (a shorter gestation than the Chilcot Report!).
Obama was actually born a subject of His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar, the suzerain of the Protectorate, which was British Protected territory, not a British colony. He became a Citizen of the Republic of Kenya on Kenyan independence in 1963. It is probable that he acquired Indonesian nationality on the marriage of Ann Dunham to an Indonesian citizen named Lolo Soetoro. He never acquired US citizenship by naturalization, preferring to rest on the fraudulent claim to citizenship by birth.
I am of course ignoring the forged birth certificate posted on the White House website, as is the Intelligence Community. It wasn’t even a skilful forgery, indeed it appears to have been photo-shopped. It was good enough to fool the New York Times, CBS and the Washington Post, not that you have to get up too early in the morning to fool that lot, no offense intended.’
Can there have been such a thing as an in-valid President? Is there an American equivalent of lese majeste? As a Muslim he can’t even have taken a valid oath to uphold the US constitution, since he must be committed to the triumph of Islam throughout the world.
What comes next? Can Hillary simply claim to have bought the office?
Babak –
Funny, one of the common conservative complaints is that Obama doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism.
Don’t worry guys. Emperor Trump will make foreign relations great again.
hankP
I have stated repeatedly that I am in favor of withdrawing from the NATO Treaty and all similar treaties. Let the Europeans deal with their own problems. The Cold War ended some time back. pl
kooshy
You are an imperialist. I am not. Khalilzad once said to me at the top of his voice in public that native sons of the US do not understand the uses of power. Good!! pl
This article makes it sound like the Mail was making things sound worse than they were. I gather the president of the US and British P.M. were of a like mind and what he said was not out of line. You may or may not agree with him, but it doesn’t sound like he went off half cocked. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-22/obama-supports-camerons-call-for-uk-to-remain-in-eu
As ar as the Saudis…. release the 28 pages and let the chips fall where they may.
Stonevendor
we are happy to accept your allegiance. pl
Col. Lang –
Sorry, I missed seeing that. It certainly does seem to be an alliance in search of a purpose after the fall of the USSR.
Matthew,
A worse Jihadi Arabia government, especially if it included some of the bitter aging ex-Baathists from Iraq, might decide that if it can’t sell the oil anywhere because of cordon sanitaire boycott; that it will simply set fire to all the oil wells for pure Earth Heating spite. The precedent already exists as per their retreat from Kuwait.
If KSA were to become Islamic Emirate of Arabia, let us hope that Iran and Shia Iraq could conquer, hold and secure all the oilfields first . . . to keep the IEA from setting all the wells on fire.
Margaret Steinfels,
The DC FedRegime and the Borg are even now pushing for fast and hard passage and signing of TTP and TTIP, which are designed to achieve the same loss of sovereignty and destruction of democratic self government through seemingly-different means.
asx,
Oh? Poland and the Baltics can’t do that all by themselves?
You can read the whole thing and it isn’t very long here. Or you can read the meet of it which is article 5 which you can interpret to mean any thing you choose it to.
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm
In fact, the historical constraint on the exercise of power after the demise of Roman Empire must have been a contributing factor to the “Rise of the West”.
In the East, Far, Middle, and Ear, the unconstrained exercise of political and executive power created human misery and death – century after century.
East sank, West Rose – that just about sums it up.
DOCUMENTAIRE
A voir si vous avez le temps…
Les Français estiment qu’ils ont peut-être un problème d’image. A qui la faute?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU3IUhZsOGs
—-
But also consider the Greeks; they sold themselves to Germany rather than walk out, print drachmas and tough it out – all for a few trinkets from Europe.
Herr Hitler should not have invaded Greece; he should have just bought them out right.
Babak,
‘would one expect a Franco-African or an Anglo-African to ever be elected to such an analogously high position of power in France or in UK”
The quality of political opponents in 2008 had a great deal to do with his getting elected.
I think those Americans who do not subscribe to US Exceptionalism are rare and in-between valiant souls that keep that belief well hidden.
Please specify which of the multitude of politicians to whom your comment could apply you are referring. I’m starting to feel dizzy.
In reply to turcopolier 22 April 2016 at 09:04 PM
Be careful what you wish for ! 🙂
Having a high IQ only proves that you are good at IQ tests, and nothing else.
Then again, England’s patron Saint was actually Palestinian.
such “conservatives” are political trannies using the media loo marked “conservative” to take the piss.
Neocons have achieved exactly what they set out to achieve, indeed I would say they have been wildly successful. Fractured Iraq, civil war in Syria, Sunnia-Shia rivalry, Gaddafi gone etc.
To be fair to Obama I expect Cameron asked for him to intervene. That said he should have refused and said we will support whatever your decision is, although I am sure Obama is a big believer in the transnational trend anyway. Interestingly the poster boy neocons, Michael Gove and Liam Fox, are big supporters of Brexit, alongside their traditional sparring partners on the old right. So not sure analysis along those lines works here.
Johnson knows better. He studied classics – I think he was using the ancient rhetorical device, σκατάταύρησις (sp?).
BM wrote, “He is also cool as a cucumber and is not letting the fits of jilted US lovers – such as Saudis – ruffle his feathers since he knows it in his bones that US, and with it, the Western Civilization, will assimilate the rest of the world in the ripeness of time.” Not without sending their own kids into the military they won’t. As the Col notes in the Bacevich post, this small, and rather segmented pool for the military can’t last forever if their plans/dreams to “assimilate” the world are carried out to their logical ends.
I think you are referring to our idiot leaders. If this matter was in the hands of our idiot leaders then President Obama would feel no need to opine as I’m sure the government could find the majority it needs one way or another.
But this is a referendum.
Right now, if you held a referendum on whether Blair should be tried for warcrimes I’m not sure what the result would be. If it were just the Labour party voting, I suspect he would be hung.
That quality being considerably higher in 2016 then?
I’m sure Barack would like to run again but that pesky Constitution got in the way.
The whole world has a problem IMO! How to play the U.S.A. or better yet how to try to play the U.S.A. FP [foreign policy] wise!
And the problem for the U.S.A. is how to play those trying to play it for one reason or another.
You know the advice of “stop playing” not going to happen. BTW Donald Trump IMO for good or bad a “player”!
correction: skatatauroiesis – of the bull, not shitty bull.
If he has no need to care, why does he visit them? Just to display his crassness? Is he perhaps sent forth by his masters to demonstrate how they have managed to pervert civilization?
The other way to look at it, is that generally the world developed and knowledge moved in the direction that sunsets, which is westward till it finally reached the new world/Americas with plenty of untapped unclaimed wealth and resources. and since the world is round it sounds like it’s keep doing the same, meaning moving westward across the pacific, which is the good old far east. if this trend continues, who knows maybe in few centuries will reach the middle east agin. IMO you can’t just point on one issue or reason for The “Rise of the west”
was this posted above?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/why-should-we-take-advice-from-a-president-who-has-surrendered-t/
I have the same questions.
what’s the brit take on it?
As someone said on brit media recently, the people in office are not politicians, they are PR people. I like Boris Johnson. He is [seems to be] a politician: canny, sharp, slick, calculating, quick — with too much of the right stuff [for these times – i.e., not a golden age] to be a borg toyboy. Am probably wrong – againe.
kooshy
So, the reason people came to America was to make money. That is why you came, right? I am sure you had a good ride on the California real estate market. Did you have a nice “stake” from your kin to get started? Did you ever think of serving for a while in the military of the country that took you in? pl
but the founders did understand the uses of power, e.g., the warning “if you can keep it.”
Not understanding the uses of power means you can’t prevent the abuses of power. As with not understanding “necessity” or “from hunger” – it gets you shortlisted for a Darwin Award.
rjj
Khalilzad was very specific. He said that America should use its power to dominate. pl
cynic
Who are his “masters?” I think he is trying to walk a line between the moneyed liberals who created him and his own easily offended ego. pl
In reply to LeaNder 22 April 2016 02:37 PM
“it seems they took US advise concerning the war against Iraq. Didn’t they? ”
No they didn’t, British public opinion was MASSIVELY against the Blair government joining in the Bush Administration’s illegal war, invasion, and occupation of Iraq.
Like Colin Powell waving a test tube at the UN while spouting a pack of lies Blair’s government needed to produce “evidence” such as the ludicrous “45 minute” claim and the “sexed up” dossier before being able to ram their collaboration with the Bush administration through a very sceptical parliament. Public fury at the deceptions has severely hampered Labour ever since and is a major reason why Blair is almost as toxic as Thatcher amongst Labour supporters.
Colonel the reason Los Angeles real-estate market is hot is because of the people to the west of us meaning the Asians, the money is being made there now days. Whoever bought real-estate in LA area in 80’s and 90’s and was able to hold on to it in this past several market ups and downs, has accumulated a lot of gain. At least unrealized gain till is sold. No one in my family ever served in any military anywhere including myself, my father was an academic scholars. IMO people came to America for all kind of reasons, some for freedom , others for better living and some for both. Iranians migration of late 70s 80s was no different.
That’s the conventional Christian story. Others see that as an overlay on older legends and myths such as the Green Man or the Summer King.He was very popular in the middle ages as a warrior saint.
Besides the things that others have mentioned above, I think Obama is frankly afraid of the consequences if the UK stops propping up Europe and the EU.
The UK plays a huge role in Europe that cannot and will not be replaced by any new EU member; it both takes in workers from other countries and sends much more to the EU in subsidies than it receives. My view of the EU changed forever when I read last year that Poland has received something like a quarter of a trillion euros from the EU. EU expansion continues to be discussed and encouraged even as the number and ability of the few “have” nations to absorb additional workers and make additional financial contributions decreases.
This article has a good summary of the situation including a charge that shows each EU member’s contributions and subsidies:
http://www.ibtimes.com/eu-brexit-2016-why-central-eastern-european-states-dont-want-britain-leave-2328313
“If a Brexit does take place, economist Anders Åslund of the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington said the immediate impact for Central and Eastern European states would be small because Britain is tied to the EU budget until 2020. But he said the overall impact could lead to the collapse of the EU, just as Polish President Duda argued.
“The tightening of immigration for Central and Eastern European countries will be more severe, because whatever Brexit will mean, it will mean work immigration from Central and Eastern European countries will cease and that would be a serious source of popular dissatisfaction,” Åslund said.”
Future changes in EU membership can and will have enormous consequences. This Wikipedia article I found last summer shows that if and when Turkey joins, the EU’s Nominal GDP per capita will shrink by almost 10%!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union
It seems to me that the UK has lots of good reasons to leave the EU.
While I don’t like what the President said and did here, I can see why he wants the UK to continue to sacrifice itself for Europe. It is very convenient for us.
Sorry, you should first check numbers.
1) The UK provides around 8 billion EUR for the EU budget. That is not that much. And most of it would have to be paid by a UK anyway for the economic access to the EU. Check Norway and Switzerland.
It is naive to assume that leaving the EU gives economic benefits for the UK or creates severe economic issues for Brussels. That is a shallow analysis.
2) If you check the immigration of various countries you see that the UK is not longer the important destination for eastern European emigrants. Here a little bit more realism is due, too.
3) You could also check the impact of the Brexit issue in central European newspapers, it has very low priority. This tells you something.
As a leader, you must go around, at times, trying to reassure and ameliorate the rank & file.
Whether he had to do it at this junction or not, is a judgment call – in my opinion.
I was not suggesting that he had been thinking in military terms; rather he might be thinking along the lines of Francis Fukuyama and other historicists such as him.
The main criticism of this pernicious doctrine of Historicism is that it cannot conceive of the possibility of a multiplicity of Historical Dead-Ends – Past and Future.
I think that you be wrong about China and indeed Korea and Japan as well.
You do not understand or know the Far Easterners – their last great hope had been the Legalists’ insistence that everyone, including the Emperor (the Government or the State) must be bound by Law.
That was rejected in favor of the pseudo-Legalist doctrine of “Just beat them into line.” and people were left with no recourse.
And evidently, yet again, and this time the Communist Party, is adopting that position.
In Singapore, they have all the machinery of Westminster type of democracy but it is entirely gutted of its substance.
Try to exercise your freedom of association, or belief, or political opinion there. They are very clever, they will not send you to jail – men in black trench coats coming at 2:00 AM. What they do is that they bring lawsuits against you and silence you that way.
All in the name of “State Stability” and “Asian Values”.
God forbid for them to actually do something that had been going for centuries among the Western Diocletians – devolution of power to cities, prefectures and provinces.
It is for this reason that the ideas of May 4-th Movement are as fresh (and as unrealized) today as they were first discussed by men such as Lu Xun.
The “89 Movement” had the potential to exceed the May 4-th Movement and finally begin realizing some of the ideals of that movement.
Which, unfortunately, came not to be.
In regards to the so-called Rise of the West (and Sinking of the East), I agree with you. There are very many causes – within the areas West of Diocletian Line and outside of it. I think Freedom of Though – indeed the whole idea of Freedom – must have had something to do with it.
I am unfamiliar of any discussion of “Individual Freedom” among thinker of Islam, Hinduism, or the Japanese and Chinese of this world.
But that is vast subject and I only know what I have learnt from secondary and tertiary literature. Suffice it to say that Western people who go to India are there to learn navel gazing and not to be instructed on finer points of Freedom of Individual, Conscience, etc.
And absolutely no one goes to China or to Iran to learn about Freedom.
That would require massacring entire cities and ruling over what is left.
My Italian friend, an EU champion, would agree with you.
“Let them go,” he would say – “it is better without them with a leg in and a leg out”.
I think UK is exaggerating its own importance to EU, although she is a very important source of financing for those outside of EU – as far as I understand such things.
If that was his judgment it shows him to be a poor leader.
If the UK leaves both sides will suffer, that is undisputed. And it is quite obvious that a Brexit will not give the UK an economic gain.
Therefore, a honest Brexit discussion would balance this expected economic disadvantage with gains in other fields, we do not see this discussion. Why?
The situation does not improve when issues, like high immigration from non EU countries, are blamed on EU membership, i.e. the EU is used as scapegoat for British screw-ups.
And there is a very low willingness in other countries to make special offers for an English EU membership.
So a quite likely scenario is that UK will leave the EU, the Scotts will try to reenter and as final result we have the dissolution of the UK and an economicially damaged England outside the EU. This for which advantages?
I thought you were a Trumpite?
American exceptionalism is unexceptional in that there exists more than one version of it.
I think his masters are indeed the moneyed interests who created him and pushed him into a position for which he is not naturally suited. They are also those, closely associated with the banksters, who control the means of shaping the public mind and mood, and use this to degenerate public taste and create conditions making such a person acceptable, and then enjoy having all his rivals grovel to them, revealing how they have debased the leaders of the peoples over whom they rule from the shadows. Obama seems to be ending his Presidency, having blamed his failures on the associates he appointed, traveling the world collecting photos of himself with ‘important’ people.
In better times he might have made an acceptable footman, waiting to be told to step and fetch something; as a butler looking after the household he is over-promoted. He has the resentment of someone who thinks he should be master of the house, but has come to realise that he really isn’t, and isn’t up to the job anyway.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/24/stiffing-iran-on-the-nuke-deal/
Stiffing Iran on the Nuke Deal
“Secretary of State Kerry boasts about how little Iran has gotten from the nuclear deal – accessing only $3 billion of its frozen assets – but that hurts U.S. credibility and endangers the deal, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.”
Is this another less violent case of a Muslim making a public sexual advance on a German woman, whilst the police look on indifferently?
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/04/24/thanking-merkel/
Has she approved the application by the USA to join the EU?
Don’t you regard freedom as an advantage?
“Don’t you regard freedom as an advantage? ”
I see freedom as an advantage, no question. However, much of the perceived unfreedom in UK is not caused by the EU. Again, which problems are actually caused by the EU and which of them would persist if UK/England wants economic access to the EU? What does the UK gave up with her EU membership?
The belief in American Exceptionalism is so near-total as to have entered into the intellectual DNA of most American Leftists as well.
Noam Chomsky, for example, is a well-known Blame-America-Firster. His emotional conviction is that America is the exceptionally evil nation and cause of all the world’s problems and worst atrocities.
One might call Chomsky’s true-belief that America is the cause of it all by the name of American Exceptional-Evilism. Exceptional Evilism is just Reverse Exceptionalism, or Exceptionalism standing on its head. So the Chomsky Left is just as much a pack of American Exceptionalists as any other pack of American Exceptionalists.
What has increasingly been given up to the EU has been Sovereignty. This has been an insidious theft. We were sold membership of a trade association, an economic community, which seemed reasonable as there was always a lot of trade back and forth with them. Then it became harmonization of standards for professional practices, which also seemed reasonable, if minor. We were told Britain would be a moral beacon for Europe, a democratic inspiration, the conductor of a heavenly choir of voices upraised to bring sweetness and light to the world – all complete nonsense of course. Now we’re not only told what shape vegetables have to be, and that everything must be measured in metric terms, we’re not even allowed to defend ourselves from an invasion of savages – apparently promoted by the connivance or cowardice of those running the EU.
The EU turns out to be a dictatorship of corrupt unelected far lefty bureaucrats devoted to the racial, national,cultural and social destruction of the peoples it rules, apparently at the behest of billionaire oligarchs like Soros. The EU parliament is a sick joke,lacking influence on decisions and designed to entangle corrupt and greedy politicians in it’s malfeasance. It won’t even produce honest accounts; it’s own auditors have refused to sign them for about the last twenty years. It provides grossly feather-bedded jobs for the sleaziest and most clapped-out members of the political class to interfere expensively and unnecessarily in our lives. It creates support for itself by bribing our politicians with hopes of jobs and huge pensions and robs Peter to pay Paul, spreading fear amongst the greedy beneficiaries of it’s programmes that they would lose without it. Never mind that if we weren’t paying subventions to the EU we could use the same money to better effect ourselves, via British government programmes, or by reducing taxes. Estimates of contributions vary, but one amusing one recently was that we could save enough by 2030 to pay off the national debt. Now it’s trying to absorb our armed forces.
It is true that the EU is doing all this with the connivance or through the negligence of our own sleazy politicians and media. To some extent it may be a bit of a whipping boy. It certainly makes everything worse, and without it, our own traitors would have a bit more difficult time.
The EU has a balance of trade surplus with the UK. They would hardly want to cut off their nose to spite their face by stopping trade if Britain left. Britain still is quite a large economy and the EU would want to have access to it. Anyway, Napoleon’s Continental System failed; Merkel’s or Hollande’s would probably be no more effective. I doubt there are major advantages, even economically, in continued membership. Richard North on his EU Referendum site has gone into the details for years, and considers that outside the EU Britain would perhaps have more input into the bodies that create international standards for production and trade.In any case, Britain, unlike Esau, should not be willing to sell it’s birthright for a mess of pottage.
If Britain escapes, other states may be encouraged to follow it to freedom. Even if it meant harder times economically, Britain could benefit from the shock. The Russians are overcoming the effect of bullying sanctions from the USA and EU. So could Britain.
The EU is a corrupt and evil organization. It should be destroyed.
OMG, you do not understand it. You will not get special conditions. And a negative trade balance means you need cheap imports, maybe you should think harder about some economic facts. Try to understand the package Switzerland and Norway have got, that is the reference. To assume that this produces agvantages for the UK is naive.
And BTW you still have not provided claer fact where UK is politically suppressed by the EU.
“Anyway, Napoleon’s Continental System failed; Merkel’s or Hollande’s would probably be no more effective.”
“If Britain escapes, other states may be encouraged to follow it to freedom. Even if it meant harder times economically, Britain could benefit from the shock. The Russians are overcoming the effect of bullying sanctions from the USA and EU. So could Britain.”
With BS like this you disqualify yourself.
The EU is not some fact of nature. It’s sleazy apparatchiks don’t control the sun or the rain, Britain does not need to defer to their condescending arrogance. Its just a temporary political arrangement, probably a lot more temporary than many others which Europe has seen. With any luck Britain will be around long after the EU has fallen apart.
I’m not seeking ‘special conditions’, or any favours from the scum that have created and maintain this monstrosity. It would be amusing if Britain just ignored the EU, stopped making payments to it’s institutions and repealed any laws that came from it, retook it’s fishing grounds; and left the EU to throw us out if they don’t like that.
The EU won’t be able to retain disciplined control over it’s other prisoners for long. Soon the moneyed interests would be whispering to their national politicians, and bribing the right people to turn a blind eye, whilst they did what was in their interests and paid lip service to the EU. Even without Britain the EU has internal tensions. Plenty of people would like to break away from control by Brussels or Berlin. Maybe it would take a ‘Ceausescu moment’ when people see some of their notional leaders lynched, but then public anger would rapidly send the EU to the same graveyard as the Soviet Union.
I’d just love to be disqualified from the EU. It would be even better if all the crooks and rabble who fawn to the EU in the expectation of receiving favours from it at the expense of other people, simply went there and stayed there to parasite each other until the other countries they were battening on arose and overthrew the EU.