A senior European Commissioner marked VE Day yesterday by accusing Eurosceptics of risking a return to the Holocaust by clinging to "nationalistic pride".Plainly, "institutional relations and communications" fall outside Wallstrom's core competency. Nationalistic pride was number one with a bullet in WWI. But war two's villains were a fascist three-some (with a player to be named later), several well-intended weaklings who imagined "soft power" had any power at all, and others who lay back and thought of Hitler. Indeed, the last "pooling national sovereignty" in Continental Europe spread -- not slowed -- "Nazi horrors."
Margot Wallstrom, a Swede and the commissioner who must sell the draft constitution to voters, argued that politicians who resisted pooling national sovereignty risked a return to Nazi horrors of the 1930s and 1940s.
Mrs Wallstrom, vice-president of the commission for institutional relations and communications, was speaking in the former Jewish ghetto of Terezin in the Czech Republic.
She blamed the Second World War on "nationalistic pride and greed, and … international rivalry for wealth and power". The EU had replaced such rivalry with an historic agreement to share national sovereignty.
Her fellow commissioners also issued a joint declaration, stating that EU citizens should pay tribute to the dead of the Second World War by voting Yes to the draft constitution for Europe.
The commissioners also gave the EU sole credit for ending the Cold War, making no mention of the role of Nato and the United States.
Worstall links to the actual text of her speech, which he quotes (and comments upon) as follows:
Comparing pro-democracy and free-market Europeans to Nazi murderers is appalling. But, interestingly, there's either two versions of the speech or a cover-up: the "road to Terezin" line has vanished from the official text! Telephone for Mr. Liddy. . .We also came to this terrible point in our history through nationalistic pride and greed, and through international rivalry for wealth and power. It was precisely to put an end to such rivalry that the European Union was born - the first ever supranational organisation in which sovereign nations voluntarily share their sovereignty. . .So no, Margot did not come right out and accuse Eurosceptics of being proto-Nazis but she came pretty close to claiming that the only thing between Europe and a re-run of the holocaust is an acceptance of the new Constitution. Quite obviously reasonable people can disagree on the subject of European integration but that is a near insane allegation.
Yet there are those today who want to scrap the supranational idea. They want the European Union to go back to the old purely inter-governmental way of doing things. . .
I say those people should come to Terezin and see where that old road leads.
But don't worry. I'm sure Wallstrom's thinking of Brussels even now. Call her if you're in town--I hear there's a sale on iron ore.
More:
Tim Worstall remains optimistic: "We may be Europeans, but we’re not that damn stupid."
3 comments:
Many thanks for the notice and the link.
I still think my last line is worth repeating. We may be Europeans, but we’re not that damn stupid.
Tim
It's a great line--so which countries will reject?? A proposed list of not-stupids? Everything about this constitution seem wrong--especially Article III-121.
Seriously, thanks for the info! Do you still have access to the text you quoted from the speech?
As in Wikipedia; It was known in government circles in Sweden that Germany had been considering an invasion of Sweden, but the idea was shelved in light of the fact that Sweden was well armed, and a German invasion of the country may have proved difficult and impractical. Impractical, (das ist ja unpraktisch) and for all practical purposes, unnecessary.
How about that ball-bearing factory in Schweinfurt that the Swedes owned? Nearly 90 percent of the approximately 100 million bearings used by Germany annually was manufactured in Germany, and 60 percent of these were produced in Schweinfurt by a subsidiary of the Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF) owned by the Enskilda Bank of Stockholm, which was owned by the Wallenberg family.
Do a little bombing and they reorganized and decentralized this production, but:
Allied-Swedish trade agreement of September 1943, which halted exports of ball-bearings, neglected to impose restrictions on exports of high-grade steel used to manufacture ball-bearings and appears to have allowed Sweden, largely through an SKF subsidiary, to undertake to provide Germany with 30,000 tons of ball-bearing steel, largely offsetting the drop in the export of finished ball-bearings.
After the unsuccessful air campaign against the Schweinfurt ball-bearing plants, the SKF plant in Sweden assumed even greater importance to U.S. officials. SKF was the largest foreign supplier of ball-bearings to Germany, supplying up to 70 percent of German imports.
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-38797/specarbete/sweden03.htm
My Swedish Grandpa would NOT be proud, but he came here on purpose. I don't know what the hell's wrong with my deluded Socialist MoveOn Mother...
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