Bravo Europeans !!

Yesterday the largest part of the European electorate voted… no, not with their feet, but with their backsides! Out of disinterest or – as in my own case – out of deliberate passivity in protest against the anti-democratic nature of the EU, they decided to stay home. To vote in a democracy is a solemn civic duty. But to vote for a sham parliament only legitimizes the robbery of democratic rights, and hollows out the people’s political entitlement.

Participation in these 2014 Eulections was a miserable 43.1 %. This was immediately pounded upon by the Europhile politicians and media as a triumph. You see: participation is the last elections was lower. Much lower. A full… 0.1 % ! Yes indeed! You astound reader, I am sure you do. The popularity of the Union has risen vastly…

Of course, before we take this as a sign of growing EU-love, let’s not forget that the number is a little inflated, since in various countries of the Union (Belgium, Luxemburg and little Malta), the voter has no choice. Voting is obligatory. Thus, 90 % of voters turned out in Belgium and Luxemburg, where you get fined if you stay away. Of course these countries only contain some 2 % of the European population, but it still means a distortion; therefore, to take those 43.1 % as a reliable measure of Union patriotism is pretty questionable.

Vintage Europhiles like Mr Verhofstadt and Mr Barroso were quick to jump upon the rostrum to proclaim a Victory for the European Project. You see, Euro-hostile parties had only scored about 225 out of 750-something seats in the sham parliament, less than a third! And if you compared that with all the other parties put together – never mind that it then contained such incompatible bedfellows as conservatives, liberals, socialists and greens – the pro-European vote was clearly overwhelming.

It is – yet once again - quite an exercise in shamelessly staying blind and deaf to what is really going on. After all, is there not reason to argue that many of the near 60 % of abstainers are clearly lukewarm, if not straightforward hostile, to this megalomaniac project? One reason to think so is that they stayed home despite the most vehement campaigns to get them to come vote. Another that, in the past, WHENEVER a proposal was put to them in referendum by our Brussels Masters, the answer was inevitably a resounding NO. A rejection which in all cases – France, the Netherlands, Ireland various times – was then cheerfully ignored by the hollow men in power. The Project Must Go On… Some democracy!

Meanwhile, across this disjointed Union of ours, weird, or roguish, or extremist parties have not only grown substantially, but in various places have simply won the elections, becoming the first political force on the national scale. In France, the Front National won with over 25 %. In Britain, the far more respectable Ukip took 30 %. In Greece, the radical left wing Syriza scored 26.5 %, apart from a scary 9 % for the SA-style Golden Dawn bunch… Much the same, if not as scary, took place in Italy, in Austria, in Denmark, in Hungary, and in the Netherlands, where Europhiles enthusiastically danced over the TV screen to the news that Mr Wilders’ PVV had ‘only’ scored 4 seats and 13 % of the vote; the party had been expected to win 5 seats and 20 %. Some Victory! King Pyrrhus could not have improved upon Europhile performance!

Oh, it is such a pleasure to see such parties back in the European political landscape again, after an unbearable absence of near 70 years! We have missed them so badly, yearned so deeply for their crackpot racial theories, their love of Leaders, their slash, burn and strip economics and their ‘solutions’ to the problems caused by crime! Let us all rejoice that we may soon see easy answers to complicated problems again, clad in uniforms and boots, holding rallies and razzias, burning books and smashing shop windows...

But to whom do we really owe their rise, dear readers? To the evil intentions and the stupidity of the voters? You must be a true democrat if you believe that… ‘The electorate is always right,’ I hear you mumble, ‘as long as they vote the way I want them to…’ The attitude makes one think of a T-Ford in another colour than black…

The Eurochamber's predecessor: the Weimar Parliament

Let me try to explain it one more time. We owe the rise of suspicious movements to the boundless arrogance of the respectable political parties. All of these, of all political convictions, left, centre and right, are blindly pro-EU and want an ever closer Union, with ever more powers, ever more money, and ever more countries. However: an overwhelming part of the European populations wants a stop to this tendency. They want the EU to be pulled to a halt. They want no more steps towards a Federal Europe, less power to Brussels, less money to its institutions, and no more new countries for a long long while (no Ukraine, no Turkey, no Tunesia or Morocco).

And now comes the crux of the matter: if you wish to vote against the automatic Ever More Europe, whom do you vote for? All the respectable parties want more of it. That leaves… Well, you guessed it.

If you wish to get rid of the fascists, then heed the wishes of the people, you oafs!

Sadly, the European leadership in Brussels, and their elected lackeys in the various capitals, have already given unmistakable signs that they will not heed these things. That they will not listen, will once again ignore the message, will go forward with what they tell themselves is good for the people in spite of the people. They also are great democrats…

And how do you think the electorate is going to react to that?? Different, right?

Oh, yes: we are living in Interesting Times. Brace yourselves, dear readers. We ain’t seen nothing yet…

How to vote in the coming ‘Eulections’

Bakunin once made the neat remark that to participate in the established political processes of the oppressive state, such as elections, is to capitulate to the system. And even though I’ve had my brush with dear Mikhail Alexandrovich and his rowdy followers (I could tell you a few juicy stories from my days in the Bakuninist-run Andalusian village of Castro del Rio during the good old Spanish Civil War…), I must for once agree. DO NOT VOTE for this hollow shell of a EU parliament. To vote in this election implies that you accept their waste, corruption, theft of sovereignty, destruction of social rights, reduction of benefits, and the erosion of your hard-fought democracy! Let the Eurogues NEVER enjoy the triumph that more than half of the electorate legitimizes their swindle! Do not give them that satisfaction! Do not give them a mandate! Give them instead the finger!

NOTA BENE: Alfred B Mittington is NOT against voting. On the contrary. Voting is a civic duty when done in a veritable, functioning Democracy, where the leadership is accountable, the Constitution calls the shots and the executive is at the mercy of the electorate. This is nowhere near the case in the Byzantine EU. If you wish to learn how your vote is truly valued by the Brussels Beurocracy, just take a quick look at this here footage of only 6 years ago! 

Whom to vote for in the coming ‘Eulections’

Now that we have all watched with breathless attention and boundless fascination last Thursday’s Great Debate between candidates for the post of President of the European Commission (not to be confused with the President of the Council, of the Euro group, of the Euro parliament, of the Eurozone… Oh, well, you know: with any of the countless other Presidents in this austere democratic Union of ours), it is surely beneficial to paint the portrait of the three men who stand a chance to be elected to the job presently held by Mr Ali Babarro--- … I mean: by the excellent Mr José Manuel Durâo Barroso, who is stepping down at the end of the month.

For yes, dear reader, you astound, but this time around, we will ourselves elect the President of Europe…! Well… That is to say… Sort of… Kind of… In a manner that does not unduly increase the say and influence of the electorate, naturally. For this is not Africa (to quote the charming Ms Shakira); it is Europe, silly, a backward continent still in the process of developing its democratic institutions…!

Three are the candidates that stand a chance to be elected, and we will take them in alphabetical order.

First of the three is Mr Jean-Claude Juncker. He is a Christian Democrat from Luxembourg, and has held many European jobs for many a year. His most outstanding qualities, in my humble view, are that I have never seen him angry (which is more than you can say of the other two…) and that he has at least a sense of humour (ibid). Or perhaps I rather ought to say that he has a teflon brazenness which makes you shake your head, grind your teeth and smile sourly. Thus, at the height of the financial crisis caused by Lehmann Brothers and the evil €uro, he remarked affably: ‘Well, we leaders know what we have to do… We just don’t know how to get re-elected if we do it!’, showing you clearly where the gentleman’s priorities lie. Also, it is whispered in the murky corridors of gossip, that he – a prominent clog in the machinery that forbids Europeans to smoke in the workplace and the bars and the train-stations and (soon) on their own balconies – that he then, lifted that ban during the lengthy crisis sessions of the Eurogroup he presided, because he loves to light up himself every so often. Some piggies are more equal than other piggies, after all… And the rules we slab on the taxpaying plebs should not apply to us Euromagnificos, right??

Mr Juncker’s program? Well: more power to Brussels, more money to EU institutions, and ever more countries into the ever closer Union.

Next we have Mr Martin Schulz, the Socialist candidate from Germany. He is a solid man, a former bookseller (oh, he might have done so much good if only he had kept at his former trade…), with an awkward smile he must have practiced for hours in front of the mirror and a rhetoric which never surprises. Due to his looks and his last name, he always reminds me awfully of one of those eager, greedy and unwise German jungle explorers in an old black-and-white Tarzan movie, who turns on the helpful ape-man as soon as he’s seen the buried treasure, and ends tragically at the bottom of a mine-shaft or under a hail of native assegais… Normally, Mr Schulz is self-control incorporated; but if you wish to get a peep at his deeper temperament, do take a Youtube look at one ofhis clashes – as Speaker of the House! - with political enemies in the Europarliament, and learn what the words Pent-Up Anger truly mean…

Mr Schulz’s program? More power to Brussels, more money to EU institutions, and ever more countries into the ever closer Union.

Lastly we have Mr Guy Verhofstadt. The liberal candidate from Belgium, Mr Verhofstadt is easily the ugliest and the most unpleasant of the lot (the former of which is not of course his fault.) He is impulsive, he is driven, he is a True Believer in the tight, iron-clad, obligatory Federal Europe of his Flemish dreams. And he does not suffer opposition lightly, most democratically roaring over fellow MEP’s who have the word in the Euro-parliament, and exploding into furious and often infantile diatribes that barely deserve the word well-bred (watch, for instance, this one delivered in horrid English and the ad hominem mode). He is, in short, like the obnoxious brother-in-law that your sister inexplicably married in a moment of mental weakness, and who is sure to disturb any pleasant family celebration with his unstoppable rants and nagging remarks… Is this the sort of character we need in the Euro-President of us all? You, dear reader, may answer that question for yourself.

This Guy’s program? Guess what? More power to Brussels, more money to EU institutions, and ever more countries into the ever closer Union.

The differences between these various programs are so very pronounced, dear reader, that you surely will have an awful time choosing between the three of them! But fortunately, you do not have to choose between the three of them! In their endless democratic wisdom, Our Leaders have decided that we will not need to elect the candidate directly. You will look in vain for their name on your ballot sheet. You cannot vote for any of them. Instead, you are simply supposed to vote for the locally superfluous national politico of the same political family, ideology, and program, who will then be packed off to Brussels to put a plutocrat ending to his or her insignificant career. They will then vote, in your stead, for the candidate of their choice; after due consideration, negotiation and – I imagine – the necessary quids pro quo…

Is it any wonder that in most - if not all - of the participating countries, these ‘elections’ have degenerated into little more than a decaf plebiscite on the performance of the sitting national government, in which the word ‘Europe’ is continuously repeated as a miracle-making mantra, but is completely absent as an issue?

It is, dear reader, an electoral farce. And perhaps we should ask General Pinochet to come and ‘bring Democracy’ to Europe…