Category Archives: politics

Brussels Interferes Again

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Now the European Court of Justice has decided to weigh in on Brexit.

The European Court of Justice’s opinion, which requires confirmation in a final court ruling, says the U.K. can unilaterally stop the process of leaving the EU, something that Brussels and the U.K. government had sought to oppose. A final ruling is expected within the next few weeks.

This is yet another cynical effort by Brussels to interfere in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation, this time compounded by Brussels’ insistence on punishing the Brits for their impertinence.

Were this a serious, honest move, they would have issued this opinion two years ago, at the outset of the sham negotiations.

Macron and Nationalism

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French President Emmanuel Macron decries nationalism when he’s taking his swipes at President Donald Trump.  But he’s only showing his nationalistic, cynical hypocrisy when he does that.

As The Wall Street Journal has noticed,

[T]he French are nationalist to the core. Ask the European parliamentarians and their staffers who must make the expensive, time-consuming, carbon-emitting trip from Brussels to Strasbourg once a month to maintain the absurd fiction that French Strasbourg is the home of the European Parliament. Ask any European negotiator who has tried to prune back the Common Agricultural Policy, a giant boondoggle under which France is the largest recipient of funds. Ask any Italian diplomat about French policies in Libya. Ask any American negotiator about France’s approach to trade.

And this from Germany’s Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor, Olaf Scholz on 28 November.

Here is my proposal: In the medium term, France’s seat on the Security Council could be converted into a seat for the EU. In return, France would then have the right to appoint the EU ambassador to the United Nations in perpetuity.

It really doesn’t get much more anti-nationalist than that, right?  Give up the nationalist seat in favor of a continental seat?

Macron and his anti-nationalist government demurred, the very next day.

When defending our national positions, we take all European positions into consideration. We actively participate, together with Germany and all other member states, in the coordination of the EU’s position.

Of course, you do.  So long, as it suits our national positions.

No, insists anti-nationalist Macron.  We’ll keep our French seat, thank you.

What’s So Hard?

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Great Britain is agonizing over how to deal with the People’s Republic of China’s Huawei Technologies Co and the latter’s desire to supply the nation’s 5G mobile network.  On the matter of Huawei’s having supplied the predecessor 4G network, Great Britain thinks it had arrived at “an understanding” with Huawei concerning the latter’s behavior vis-à-vis the installed 4G—which, astonishingly, allowed Huawei to monitor “aspects” of 4G tech.  Britain’s MI6 head, Alex Younger, seems to be the chief agonizer.

5G will by and large be based on Chinese technology, chiefly with Huawei. We need to decide whether we are comfortable with the ownership of these platforms in the case where our allies take quite a definite position…This is not straightforward[.]

Why must Huawei be the supplier of Britain’s 5G network?

And: Huawei is an arm of the People’s Republic of China government—how is this not a straightforward decision?  Why is it so hard to decide whether the nation wants to let the PRC government spy on every aspect of the British government, its defense, its economy, its citizens?

Rewarding Thuggery

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Recall the rioting, looting, and graffiti-spraying—on l’Arc de Triomphe, yet—in France over the Macron government’s decision to raise fuel taxes and utility rates.  Now the government has abjectly surrendered to the rioters: it will not implement the new tax and utility rates at all (Deutsche Welle has reported that the tax is suspended for six months rather than canceled altogether).

The tax and rate hike were bad moves on principle: it’s nearly always wrong to raise taxes before cutting spending or to raise utility rates for reasons other than to cover expenses and preserve a measure of profit, but these were especially foolish: they were intended to fund the nation’s even more expensive—to the citizenry, and especially the nation’s poor and unemployed—move to a purely “green” economy.  This, though, was the wrong time to correct the error, and it’s the wrong reason to do so.

This was done, not in response to the will of the people demurring, it was in immediate, meek obedience to thugs.

And far from putting an end to the troubles, it has had the opposite—and obvious to objective outside observers—response from the thugs.

France’s Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe:

No tax is worth putting the nation’s unity in danger[.]  …  The violence must end[.]

I plead with you.

The response for his reward:

But the announcement is unlikely to put an end to the road blockades and demonstrations, with more protests possible in Paris this weekend.
…
“It’s a first step, but we will not settle for a crumb,” said Benjamin Cauchy, a protest leader.

And

Segolene Royal, a former candidate for president, lauded Philippe’s decision but said the course correction on the climate change tax came too late.

And

Marine Le Pen lashed out at the decision as too little, tweeting it was “obviously not up to the expectations of the French people struggling with precarity.” … “A moratorium on taxes is being considered. But a moratorium is only a postponement.”

President Emmanuel Macron:

I will never accept violence.  No cause justifies that authorities are attacked, that businesses are plundered, that passers-by or journalists are threatened or that the Arc de Triomphe is defiled.

Tough talk for someone who has just surrendered to the thugs.  No, Macron’s government isn’t finished paying up.

PC Police-ism

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In re the matter of Professor Richard Ned Lebow, of King’s College London, and Professor Simona Sharoni, of Merrimack College and a member of the International Studies Association, the ISA’s Executive Committee has spoken.

I demur from the ISA’s politically correct (if ever there were an oxymoron, here is one) position, in particular their Item 7.

7) … Although you explained that your comment was intended as a joking reference to an old, cultural trope, your email was not apologetic and PRR (and eventually ExComm) found that it was marginalizing and trivializing Prof. Sharoni’s reaction to your comment and that it was an attempt to intimidate her….

It was, in fact, a joke–funny or not depending on the audience, but clearly a joke, nonetheless.  Indeed, I didn’t think it that funny, if only because it’s so old and used up.

Accordingly,

  1. no apology was warranted
  2. Sharoni’s manufactured overreaction deserved marginalization and trivialization
  3. There was no attempt to intimidate, and if Sharoni claimed she was, she either is a fragile snowflake of breathtaking dimension, or she carefully manufactured that response as well.