Thursday, November 08, 2007

The sin of Onan

So the Agora happening and yes they are talking in circles, congratulating each other and behaving exactly as you might imagine they would.
Some comments from the assembled elite,
So we have HRH Peottering talking about that magnificent success the Euro. You and I might think that a currency is a store of economic value, a means of exchange and so on, not Hans Gert, no for him,
"The Euro is a joint instrument of peace".

Then TEBAF Wallstrom chimes in,
"Democracy and accountability will be bolstered by the institutions of the reform treaty", obviously not listening to the voters of France and Holland is part of the bolstering. However "Revision of the treaties is essential to aid the democratic process"..."none of the member states can afford to have a situation where its citizens are feeling distanced from EU processes". The self delusion is magnificent. None of the member states... I mean wake up lady, tell me one member state of your personal knowledge where the citizens feel close to the EU processes and I will give you one hundred euros to be spent on a charity of your choice. It bears repeating, when asked they said NO, brave inclusive words do not wash, you are living a lie and if it weren't for the wages even you would admit it. Gloriously she finished by telling us that, "it is important to discuss what we will do with our information".
Your Plan D was all about that, and what did you do with the information you received, you chose to ignore it.

There will no doubt be more of the same, this afternoon we have the workshops where our para governmental organisations will tell us what we all want to hear. Dan Hannan again puts it succinctly,
"the Commission pays Friends of the Earth to urge it to take more powers in the
field of climate change, it pays WWF to tell it to assume more control over
environmental matters, it pays the European Cyclists’ Federation to… oh, you get
the picture".

2 comments:

rz said...

Let me first state that I can understand your feelings about the EU happy talk.
"The Euro is a joint instrument of peace"
That's really rich.

But now lets look at some claims "you" make (it's great that you cite Daniel Hannan, because it's his post I have Issues with).

WWF, Friends of Earth and the European Cyclists’ Federation seem to get some of their funding from the EU. But this is only a small part. To imply that these Organizations are Sockpuppets of the Commission is highly misleading.

Gawain Towler said...

RZ
Your issue with Mr hannan is sort of fair. But from my experience here I would say that though many of these organisations could be shown to have run campaigns that are antipathetic to certain EU policies, their general tenor is as part of the general mood music. Very rarely do they come out strongly against the Commission, or the institutions as a whole. It may be a cliche, but he who pays the piper does indeed call the tune.

I know people in many of these organisations (including two of the three mentioned) who would claim to be independent, well initially, but when you question them closer we see a slightly different response. (And yes I have doen this on a number of occaisions, it livens up dreary dinner parties).
getting them to go on record is impossible, it would be a sacking offence.

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