The European Union - Discussion.

Tenshinai wrote:
You realise that most east European nations that have joined the EU have been the LOOSERs of the deal?

Not sure which countries you mean.

The ones I looked up just now - Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary Poland, Czech Republic (I admit I was lazy and didn't look up more of them because it takes a while) did pretty good up until the global financial crisis 2008-2009.
Poland and Hungary actually grew faster after joining.

Poland got through the global financial crisis real good - the others less so, but countries outside of the EU had the same problem and didn't seem to do better really.

The newest figures I found show the above countries seem to be getting back to their feet since 2012 and growing again.

Anyway it would be unfair to blame the effects of the global financial crisis on the EU. Sure the EU banking system wasn't in the shape it should have been and needed reforms - which are being implemented - but the same was true outside of the EU as well.

Not claiming to be an expert on the world wars, but from what I can see:

1. When Germany went from being a scattered collection of princedoms to a united country with the highest industrialisation in Europe in the space of a generation, it freaked out everybody. So France, Russia and the UK eventually create the "Triple Entente" to basically contain Germany if it becomes expansionist. The problem being, Germany knows that it cannot survive if both Russia and France attack at once. It can, or thinks it can, however, take on either of them by itself. Tensions rise, the Archduke of Austria is shot, and the war starts.

2. The end of the First World War leaves Germany crippled by reparations, divided by treaty, and on at least one occasion occupied by the French. The reparations grow rapidly beyond what was agreed to in the armistice, when the costs of the dependents is added, counter to the agreements prior to the armistice. This bleeding white of Germany leads to an economic collapse
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinfla ... r_Republic)

Germany has been physically divided by the ceding of the port of Danzig (now Gdansk) to Poland. This included a 100 mile corridor from the city to Poland proper. The Polish flatly refused to cooperate with or allow any rail links between Germany and Prussia in the east.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Germa ... er_WWI.svg

On top of this, despite the agreement that European nations were to reduce their armed forces to 'to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety', both Poland and France have refused to do so.

3. To some up, Germany is divided, its eastern part for all intents and purposes blockaded from its remainder. It is being bled white by reparations far in excess of what was agreed to. And it is once again surrounded by hostile nations with large standing armies.

I believe that even if Hitler and the entire Nazi party had been struck dead by lightning in 1930, Germany would have rearmed and invaded Poland by sometime in the 1940's. It simply had no other choice.

EDIT: My mistake, the city of Danzig was made a "free city". However, the Polish Corridor did completely encircle the city itself.

Bruno Behrends wrote:At least I provided the opportunity to vent

Joking aside: Europe didn't land in the mess of the first half of the 20th century because of some fascist regime smacking down which was a simple solution.

The problem was much, much deeper and more complicated than that and there wasn't a simple solution to it.

The fascist regime you are talking about was the product of the history that preceded it which went back centuries and at last had culminated in the extreme nationalism and power-politics of the late 19th and early 20th century. That produced WWI - no fascist regime needed. The kind of thinking the European nations where in at that time sufficed for that.
And it is very, very important to prevent that kind of nationalistic thinking from making a comeback.

I think the EU has a very important function there. As a framework for working together. As a symbol of common identity and something larger than the national border. As a means to create strategic safety instead of everyone being surrounded by imagined enemies.

Bruno Behrends wrote:Not sure which countries you mean.

The ones I looked up just now - Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary Poland, Czech Republic (I admit I was lazy and didn't look up more of them because it takes a while) did pretty good up until the global financial crisis 2008-2009.
Poland and Hungary actually grew faster after joining.

Poland got through the global financial crisis real good - the others less so, but countries outside of the EU had the same problem and didn't seem to do better really.

The newest figures I found show the above countries seem to be getting back to their feet since 2012 and growing again.

Poland is the one nation that clearly benefited from joining EU. But at least part of that upturn is also the result of USA under GWB bribing them to support war in Iraq(and throwing some serious bundles of "cash" at them in the process).

Romania is at the opposite end, with going to Germany, Denmark and Sweden to beg on the streets as the fastest growing "industry" of Romania right now. To the point where their ambassador here made headlines not long ago by saying that begging should be made illegal.
Yeah, really big success...

Czech´s aren´t really eastern Europe outside of the illusions of those who still think in terms of Warzaw pact countries by default being "eastern".

Try comparing with Norway or Switzerland.
Yes, Norway has oil, but remember that they put most of that money in the bank.

Bruno Behrends wrote:Anyway it would be unfair to blame the effects of the global financial crisis on the EU.

Oh i´m not doing that.

Bruno Behrends wrote:Sure the EU banking system wasn't in the shape it should have been and needed reforms - which are being implemented - but the same was true outside of the EU as well.

Or you know, nations could try to be fiscally responsible? Dreadful thought isn´t it?

At least that´s one good thing coming out of the bank mess/house pricing crash here in the 90s, as it lead to a severe cleanup of finances (when the PM talks about an "economical steel bath" you know it´s not gonna be pretty), just tragic how the current rightwing government is squandering the formerly decent national finances for no better reason than ideology.

Well it finally looks like they´re getting kicked back out at last, left/center opposition getting over 50% in polls, with current govt getting around 35%(and that´s even if none of the 4 govt parties end up too small for parliament, as 2 of them are currently polling below the 4% limit), and this year is election year.

Bruno Behrends wrote:Joking aside: Europe didn't land in the mess of the first half of the 20th century because of some fascist regime smacking down which was a simple solution.

The problem was much, much deeper and more complicated than that and there wasn't a simple solution to it.

The fascist regime you are talking about was the product of the history that preceded it which went back centuries and at last had culminated in the extreme nationalism and power-politics of the late 19th and early 20th century. That produced WWI - no fascist regime needed. The kind of thinking the European nations where in at that time sufficed for that.
And it is very, very important to prevent that kind of nationalistic thinking from making a comeback.

Yes well that kind of thinking is still very much present unfortunately. Just not as honestly shown.

EU and USA cooperating to mess with Ukraine is the currently most obvious example.
All in the name of "national interest", even if not in the name of a SINGLE nation any longer.

And you should probably remember that Hitler didn´t get into power due to popularity, but because "socialism" was soooo dreadful that anything was better.

So in a bid to gain influence in Ukraine(and shut Russia out), EU is currently dealing with people there best described as scum, and nicely described as extreme nationalists a bit too enamoured with wearing uniforms and marching.

EU isn´t the solution, it´s the culprit.

Bruno Behrends wrote:I think the EU has a very important function there. As a framework for working together. As a symbol of common identity and something larger than the national border. As a means to create strategic safety instead of everyone being surrounded by imagined enemies.

Not seeing it. You could effectively remove EU at the drop of a hat and you would loose nothing.

It´s an absolutely puny part of the EU population that looks at EU as a common identity or nation.

Invictus wrote:1. When Germany went from being a scattered collection of princedoms to a united country with the highest industrialisation in Europe in the space of a generation, it freaked out everybody. So France, Russia and the UK eventually create the "Triple Entente" to basically contain Germany if it becomes expansionist. The problem being, Germany knows that it cannot survive if both Russia and France attack at once. It can, or thinks it can, however, take on either of them by itself. Tensions rise, the Archduke of Austria is shot, and the war starts.

Don´t forget that when WWI started, it started most of all because of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and due to the criss-cross of alliances rather than because of Germany.

And the Austro-Hungarian empire should never be forgotten in regards to WWI, even if it no longer exists, with a prewar military of half a million, and wartime military of over 3 million even if little focus is put on it, it was still important to other events.

Invictus wrote:3. To some up, Germany is divided, its eastern part for all intents and purposes blockaded from its remainder. It is being bled white by reparations far in excess of what was agreed to. And it is once again surrounded by hostile nations with large standing armies.

I believe that even if Hitler and the entire Nazi party had been struck dead by lightning in 1930, Germany would have rearmed and invaded Poland by sometime in the 1940's. It simply had no other choice.

"sum up" btw...

Anyway, yes. And you still haven´t included the troubles with the Sudeten areas, or far far worse, that there was persecution of ethnic Germans in Poland, especially in the areas that were previously German.

And Poland overall was seriously not a nice "player" between the wars, cheerfully attacking Russia as a landgrab for the good of "Greater Poland" ( ), being overall an almost facist state, highly militarised and organised for agressive use of that military.
(essentially, Poland between the wars managed to piss off ALL bordering countries to such a degree that even newly created Slovakia added troops to the German invasion)

Polish antagonism was indeed the primary reason Hitler managed to get any real support from the otherwise highly anti-political German military. Things went downhill from there on a classic slippery slope that turned out to be VERY slippery.

Tenshinai wrote:...snip...

And you should probably remember that Hitler didn´t get into power due to popularity, but because "socialism" was soooo dreadful that anything was better.
...snip...

Ok, I am confused. "Anything is better than socialism." Yet the party name was the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Double think on whose part. The people elected or people doing the electing. Or us 80 years later trying to figure out what the people doing the analysis.

T2M

thinkstoomuch wrote:
Ok, I am confused. "Anything is better than socialism." Yet the party name was the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Double think on whose part. The people elected or people doing the electing. Or us 80 years later trying to figure out what the people doing the analysis.

T2M

That´s because you assume that just because it uses a same word, that it´s the same thing.

It´s not "Socialist", it´s "National Socialist".
And the latter has very little to do with socialism. Except possibly in the role of arch-enemy.

That´s like assuming that because DDR was named the Democratic Republic, that it really was a democracy or republic.

There´s plenty of people who keep blabbering about how Nazis are really socialist or lefties or something because oh my, the name includes the word!

Well, what that ignores is that the word IS a WORD, not just a concept, and that words are placed together exactly because they then interact to create meaning beyond what the words alone have.


In short, if you look at something saying "Not Good", and from that derive that it means something positive, because the word "Good" is part of it, well that´s the fallacy you´re so confused by.

A good question.

I am no expert on this and without looking it up - which I don't feel like atm - all I can tell you what I (think I remember) I learned at school about it:

A part of it was that the Nazis were trying to coopt just about anyone. So their party name included both extremes of the political spectrum.

I am sure there is more to it and I forgot it. One would have to have a closer look at their politics to see if there was any 'socialist' element in it. There may have been and I simply forgot since school was long, long ago. Anyway I think the party name was never meant as a true descriptive of their politics but rather a label to sell it to as many people as possible.

Anyway - double think certainly sums it up well.

thinkstoomuch wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:...snip...

And you should probably remember that Hitler didn´t get into power due to popularity, but because "socialism" was soooo dreadful that anything was better.
...snip...

Ok, I am confused. "Anything is better than socialism." Yet the party name was the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Double think on whose part. The people elected or people doing the electing. Or us 80 years later trying to figure out what the people doing the analysis.

T2M

Edit: The party name is even more crass if you savour the whole of it: "National Socialist German Worker's Party"

They were trying to coopt the extreme right nationalists, the socialists, the center and the working class.

Bruno Behrends captures a lot of what I think is/was happening.

My recollection was that socialism here in the US was deemed the wave of the future (though if Henry Ford was for it puts a serious question into the value, the man was so OCD he makes even forumites slap-dash ). Which is why that comment triggered the question.

Curious if anyone has a link to some of Hitler's speeches from around 1929-32. It is my OCD kicking in and would like to read what he was promising. Many people here are attributing things to right and left that may or may not be true. A lot of what I am remembering of my history reading and learning seems awfully familiar based on some of the things happening in the EU today. While Switzerland is not a member but the whole anti immigration trend I am seeing in the BBC stories and corruption strikes a chord.

I would like to get some good translations to read and contemplate. Not silly highlights from secondary sources.

Thanks in advance,
T2M

PS Henry Ford is one of my heroes but the boy had issues. Probably why he was so successful.

Tenshinai wrote:
Don´t forget that when WWI started, it started most of all because of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and due to the criss-cross of alliances rather than because of Germany.

And the Austro-Hungarian empire should never be forgotten in regards to WWI, even if it no longer exists, with a prewar military of half a million, and wartime military of over 3 million even if little focus is put on it, it was still important to other events.

I wasn't, but its hard to compress 50 years of history into a paragraph without missing the odd empire or two

Tenshinai wrote:
"sum up" btw...

(Facepalm) I knew that... I need to get more sleep.

Here is a good source.

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaste ... 0Index.htm

Mien Kompf should be required reading.

Hitler's political dogma was a wicked brew of nationalism, racism, eugenic and Malthusism that were the premisses that justified the territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing that was presumably needed to establish a socialist paradise.

thinkstoomuch wrote:Bruno Behrends captures a lot of what I think is/was happening.

My recollection was that socialism here in the US was deemed the wave of the future (though if Henry Ford was for it puts a serious question into the value, the man was so OCD he makes even forumites slap-dash ). Which is why that comment triggered the question.

Curious if anyone has a link to some of Hitler's speeches from around 1929-32. It is my OCD kicking in and would like to read what he was promising. Many people here are attributing things to right and left that may or may not be true. A lot of what I am remembering of my history reading and learning seems awfully familiar based on some of the things happening in the EU today. While Switzerland is not a member but the whole anti immigration trend I am seeing in the BBC stories and corruption strikes a chord.

I would like to get some good translations to read and contemplate. Not silly highlights from secondary sources.

Thanks in advance,
T2M

PS Henry Ford is one of my heroes but the boy had issues. Probably why he was so successful.