“We must break up the Euro-zone… I owe no allegiance to that flag…”
So much of what happens here in Barbados is dependent upon what happens in London, Brussels, New York, Washington, Ottawa and Paris.
Therefore it is appropriate that we Bajans pay attention to the US elections coming this November and also to the social and economic turmoil that is shaking the European Union to its foundations.
Those who have ears, let them hear…
Barbados Free Press 
Nigel Farage’s views on anything need to be examined carfefully.
He is a Member of the European Parliament who believes it should be abolished. He took £2 million in expenses from his EU job and paid (amongst others) family members to promote his political party.
His party stands for “protecting our borders” and “ending multiculturalism”. I think that means throwing out the foreigners.
Not someone whose views should be promoted lightly.
Everyday current events reported by the internet media indicates the EU will soon follow the dodo’s example and become extinct…its already virtually useless.
@ St George
Yes, you are right. It is a Party agenda. BUT arguably it strikes a chord with many very ordinary British people who, sadly, channel their empathies to the ‘national-socialist’ movement. I think the Farage sentiment “I owe no allegiance to that flag” would be shared by millions across Europe. Do you agree?
@ BFP……..why are you moderating my last post? I don’t see any offensive word there.
Hi Robert Ross,
I don’t know why the filter grabbed it but it did and now I’ve freed it.
You’re welcome!
george
Thanks George.
Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party (UKIP) is the new darling of the right or ultra-right. He is wearing the clothes of the racist defunct British National Party (BNP) but tries to give his position respectability. He now feels epic, having survived a plane crash and marital infidelity. He was re-elected as the UKIP leader some months earlier but the party remains essentially small beer.
This man attempts to couch his words carefully but he is ill-informed. He sees greatness in Britain, as a separate entity-without the colonies or Europe-but his views are anachronistic. Britain cannot survive alone and he fails to understand that the Union in Europe may be the only alternative to strife in Europe. What is peculiar to Europe, including the British, is that they always seem to turn to the racist element during economic difficulties.
Farage hates foreigners but when he blinks, he fails to see that people of a different hew are in the ascendency. Look at China. Farage’s xenophobia will not endear the British peoples to prospective markets where they might wish to sell their goods, although it escapes me exactly where Britain currently holds mass market trading advantages.
I think that there will be international blocks in the world: Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. The empire seeking entities will die. As Europe and the USA now struggle for economic stability, they will in time have to join international trading blocks, like Europe. However strongly I feel about this issue, international markets are interdependent and if there continue to be problems in the first world communities, Barbados will pay a heavy economic price. But do not believe everything you hear about the demise of Europe.
Note in my earlier posting: ‘hew’ is also ‘hue’.
“Multiculturalism” has been a huge..
-nay EPIC Failure in Europe.
It has seriously screwed-up the entire continent
and I lay the blame, all 101% of it
at the feet of the Politically-Correct movement
who shall likewise devolve into a similarly Epic Failure!
Just wait and see!
Mankind is .. what mankind is
and he is millenia away from being receptive to anything like multi-culturalism!
@ Robert Ross
If you ask most Brits whether they are European, they would say no, they are British. If you ask them if they want to get Britain out of Europe, I think they would want to say yes, but could not because of the economic fall-out.
My view is that European integration was pushed too far and too fast and will stall, or reverse for a while. The Euro may well fail, or lose some member countries.
I do not believe that the EU will completely disintegrate. The initial reason for forming it, and this is still strongly supported by the Germans and the French, was to stop another World War. I am not sure that fear has disappeared.
@ St George
That is exactly my view which is why I asked you to confirm.
@ Andy Smith
I disagree with pretty well everything you have said. Yes UKIP is not likely to break the present construct and yet performs a useful function by ‘tastefully’ giving expression to what so many Brits actually feel. Nor do I accept your loaded assessment of what Farage ‘IS’….and your reference to ‘epic’ and marital infidelity is, frankly, cheap. Tell all that to Martin Luther King’s ghost and Jessie Jackson. As for the BNP, you must know very well that it is by no means ‘defunct’..it was never exactly ‘funct’….thank goodness.
In the May local elections UKIP captured 14% of the vote and were two points behind the Lib-Dems.
The political fortunes of small British parties are always in a state of flux. People who vote for parties like UKIP and, to a lesser extent, the Liberal Democrats are not so much voting for those parties but are protesting against the two main parties, being Labour and the Conservatives.
As I understand it, British people jealously guard their independence but I am uncertain that they fully consider or care about the risks of going it alone.
Nigel Farage, and I apologise for my cheap shots concerning his personal affairs, expresses the view that Britain can succeed as a separate entity and can mimic the success of countries like Canada. He might be right but the British link to Europe is more fundamentally challenging.
The European Union (EU) was set up after the Second World War to obstruct the lunacy of further conflict in Europe between neighbours. It has been evolving since that time and it is true that some errors have been made, particularly since the launch of the single currency in 1999. Although 17 nations are currently part of the Euro, some of them like Greece should never have been admitted because of the structural weaknesses in their economies. That should not obviate the continued existence of the Euro, albeit with some changes. Those changes are likely to see a smaller currency union between the northern countries in Europe, whose economies are more in tune. It is also likely that some countries will want to withdraw from the EU altogether but there are significant advantages to membership. If and when the world economic situation settles, we are likely to see a resurgence of interest from countries in staying the course in the EU. What is the alternative?
Political parties in Greece are struggling to come up with a power-sharing coalition deal, sending the crisis-hit country into further turmoil. General elections on Sunday failed to produce an outright winner, with leading parties so far failing to form a government. Without an agreement, fresh elections would have to be held. On Thursday, Athens is due to receive 5.2 billion euros in bailout funds but several eurozone countries were reluctant to forward this money because of the political instability. As part of the bailout terms, Athens must pass 14.5 billion euros worth of austerity measures in June. But financial chaos has led to public mistrust of pro-austerity parties. For more on this, RT talks to economic analyst, Michael Mross.
@ Andy Smith
The alternative?…well there are various possibilities. Consider Caricom (not to be taken too seriously – and what does that experience tell us about ‘regionalism’?) but it’s a start; and what of the old EFTA? The fundamental objection is the idea of a super State with monetary union and loss of sovereignty – and, yes, colossal waste….reconciling the irreconcilable. But thanks for responding.
Mr Ross, the EU is a work in progress. Have you forgotten about the (Federal) United states of America? Once it stops its dream of empire, it may rekindle its power base within its trading block. And what of the emerging power houses of India, China and even Russia. Will individual European states compete with them? I doubt it.
An additional complication in the mix of issues concerning the EU is the fact that today Germany is already taking the best brains from around Europe and these young graduates are helpng Germany to oil its superior industrial base. Germany is providing these graduates with mentors to help them to settle, learn German and enjoy the advantages of accommodation, health benefits and so on. I rememebr a time from history when Germany took parallel steps, albeit with force, to oil its industrial and military machine. Sometimes we choose to forget the past, so that we can make the same mistakes again. I pray that I am wrong but I hope that Europe can reconcile its differences and work together.
@ Andy Smith
Amen to working together.
Keiser Report: Central Bank Monarchs
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert discuss the alleged meritocracy of old Etonians running the world (into the ground) while the rest of us remain wards of the state – from the President of France to PhDs on foodstamps. In the second half of the show Max talks to John Titus, producer of the new documentary, Bailout.
There’s no point comparing the US Federation of States to a Federated Europe. European nations are, even though small in some cases, very different from one another and it has taken thousands of years for them to develop a distinct, national identity. Different languages, different cultures. When questioned by deed poll, most individual Europeans want out of the EU. Most US citizens are proud to call themselves such, even though they come from states which vary wildly in ethnic makeup and religious beliefs etc. Compare Maine with Texas, for example. Yet they feel like Americans. Not many Americans want to secede from the Union!
This does not apply in Europe where everybody speaks different languages, there are religious differences which have caused major wars over the past thousand years and many are intensely keen to cling onto often newly gained independence from Russia for example and where there is long-standing resistance to being yet again, “absorbed” into a greater nation state. Many countries hopped onto the bandwagon of the Euro, especially if they needed the cash input this gave them, which their previous currencies did not. Others promoted the Euro because they realised it would give them great power asnd wealth in lending to the poorer members. That’s what has happened. Poorer members lived the life of Riley for a few years on borrowed capital which bamboozled people into thinking they were as rich as Germans – eg Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland to name but a few but now the reality has shown that the model of a hard working, diligent thrifty and non-debt accruing German person and State does not match the profile of a person or state in southern Europe. It is not rocket science to have seen this coming. It’s never worked in history either, you only have to look at Ancient Greece and the Delian and Athenian leagues. One state gets all the power, supporting the weaker ones and it ends up in a fascistic takeover. Which is happening now in Europe whilst the poor fools who signed up the the common currency are being dictated to by the richer ones.
In the southern states of Europe with a long history of corruption, there’s been a massive free-for-all grab (theft) of government funds by individuals and failure to pay tax by everyone, apart from government employees like teachers etc. so there is no state kitty to pay the ridiculously high pensions upon retirement or the medical bills or education of the people; all the money to pay these bills was borrowed from the richer countries, mainly Germany, which profited greatly from the interest on the loans.
There were good things to be said for a European Union when the danger of Soviet threat was all too real. People in the Soviet Union were not allowed to leave. If you were a Bulgarian, you had to stay in Bulgaria, like it or not. Live in East Berlin? Could not visit West Berlin, let alone anywhere else in the world get shot leaving. This fiasco ended in 1989 after 50 years of oppression but the idea that we could all happily move within each others’ borders which is the situation now, has had unhappy consequences. Border control has vanished which has led to the influx of people from all over the world turning up illegally and disrupting economies all over Europe. The situation has gone toxic with European nations having to handle vast influxes from all over which cause social and economic problems in every country. Greece is particularly overburdened and cannot cope with the number of illegals, especially as noted above, when they have not got the infrastructure to deal with the situation, owing to the fact that hardly a Greek pays tax so there is no government funding to deal with the problem. Italy is overwhelmed by Albanians and North Africans, Spain, similarly. France has problems with North Africans, too but largely because of their political system. The UK, since relaxing border controls is flooded with Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia as well as Africa, who demand that the law of the land be changed to Sharia law.
The point about UKIP which makes sense, is to say hang on, let’s control our own borders, put back into place the measures by which people were allowed to come and live in the country. Race does not come into it, it’s about the fact that a small island can only support a finite number and that those who want to live there must be needed and wanted by that country. And, by the way, learn the language and not try to change the law of the land. Barbados is trying to stick by that principle, I have noticed, not adhering to the Caricom idea where all islanders could come and go freely. Wonder why?
Victor, your point is well taken. And I especially like the supportive evidence that you have given to substantiate your argument. But, what makes America kinder unique beside its common linguistics, when we compared to the rest of the world, I think; Is the set of convictions, principles, and ideals, which the union has been framed around from its inception . And quite frankly this has held the union together thus far.
Now, American Republican form of government is a complex organism when one stops to examine its political system. What makes America fundamentally different I think is the concept of freedom it advocates, irrespective of its legacy of Slavery. It is important to note however, that even though that United States seems to be a united country, each states has what is called its (Individual Sovereignty). In other words, power emanates from the Federal government, State government, Municipal, and the School- broad. So even though, America may seem united each on the surface, each state has the constitutional right to implements its own laws, Ordinances, and statutes. Take for example, a law governing Rape in connecticut, might be quite different in New York state. So in essence, each state is a independent country, until the federal government said differently. Because, Federal law in America supersedes state law, and municipal law. But federal must be in compliance with the Constitution in order to take effect, if not, the state can challenge it in the Supreme Court. Here is where the principle of Checks, and Balances comes into play, sounds complicated doesn’t it?