From: "Gary Britt" 

If 30 years ago they had listened they'd be better off today.

Gary

"Ellen K."  wrote in message
news:4bv9p1dnpltb3cai5ag138en04fquimdaa{at}4ax.com...
> About 30 years ago on visiting England there were folks in that big park
> in London I can't remember the name of where people make speeches,
> chanting "We don't want the Common Market, we just want the
> supermarket!"
>
> On Mon, 5 Dec 2005 08:41:46 -0500, "Gary Britt"
>  wrote in message
:
>
> >
> >Well here's one guy who gets what's happening in the EU.
> >
> >Gary
> >
> >
>
>http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson5dec05,0,66712
38.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
> >
> >Yet perhaps, on reflection, it is not quite right to ascribe Blair's
> >difficulties to the persistence of the Bonapartist tradition on the
> >Continent.
> >
> >For one thing, I am no longer sure how committed the English really are
to
> >either their own legal tradition or their own economic tradition. At the
> >same time, on closer inspection, the EU, as presently constituted, looks
> >less like the rationalized Europe of Napoleon's dreams and more like the
> >ancien rŽCgime Europe he tried to get rid of.
> >
> >Voltaire famously said of the Holy Roman Empire that it was neither holy,
> >nor Roman, nor an empire. Perhaps something similar could be said of the
EU,
> >which seems less European and less united with every passing year. For
how
> >much longer will the EU really be European, given the profound
demographic
> >changes that are inexorably increasing the Muslim share of its population
> > ƒ ” to say nothing of Turkey, negotiating to become its newest and,
before
> >long, biggest member?
> >
> >And is the enlarged European Union really a union, in the sense that the
> >United States or the United Kingdom are, or something more like a
Eurabian
> >Disunion? At best it is a confederation. At worst it's a mess of
overlapping
> >treaties and jurisdictions.
> >
> >In our age of attention deficit disorders, 200 years can seem an
impossibly
> >long time ago. Yet the bicentenary of Austerlitz is more than a matter of
> >antiquarian curiosity. For remembering how Napoleon killed off the Holy
> >Roman Empire not only helps to illuminate the subsequent divergence of
> >Britain from the European continent, it also may give us an inkling of
the
> >future.
> >
> >Who, I wonder, will be the next Napoleon ƒ ” the one who rides into
Brussels
> >to sweep away the Holy Roman Empire of our time?
> >
>

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