The StuSie

A waste of time?...

Before I delve back into more relevant subject matter, I wanted to make a confession and say that Sudoku is not only the best, but also the most dangerous waste of time ever. I, the crossword fanatic, have also been wrapped in the tantalizing web of numbers that is a sudoku board, and I'm not proud of it. I condemn you, Herr Vacuum Cleaner, for putting that little link on the right side of the screen. It beckoned, and I clicked; my fricken eyes are crossed from staring at the screen, I'm not all that convinced they're back to normal yet, and I'm still fucking below average. Either I'm stupid or there's people out there with even more time to waste than me...depressing in more ways than one. At least I can say I've gained something from those 16 minutes of sudokuing...Number one, I learned that there are other ways to damage the retina other than staring at the sun, and two, I now have an increasing sense of Minderwertigkeit. Shit. I'm sticking with minesweeper and my crosswords.
Now, you may say after a senseless outburst like that and a clumsy segue like this: 'Mistfink, I'm done taking you seriously because I think those two years 'working' in Austria has had an unmistakeable and negative effect on your cognitive functions.' Well, while I may still be on the wrong thin end of the bell curve, at least I don't eat people, so that's something, right? So, read on, brother (or sister). You might learn something...

The master planners at the European Union seem to not only be masters of über-complicated bureaucracies, but also masters of conjuring up the turning point. The much-anticipated Austrian presidency of the EU has arrived, and after the recent turning point regarding Poland, Romania and co. and the even more recent crossroads w/r/t Turkey and Croatia, ÖVP member Wolfgang Schüssel (Österreichischer Kanzler) and friends must now determine the fate of the Union. Will the EU continue to grow? Will there be a constitution? The problems of such a multi-faceted conglomeration are gathering like moss on a non-rolling stone, and growing impatience among the population has put the future of the EU into pretty serious question. As always, I'm also a pessimist...
Before we get into problems, though, let's talk about reasons why the EU should fight hard for survival. Whether they admit it or not, from the beginning the EU has looked to the United States as an example of a tightly united federation of states who maintain some level of autonomy while cooperating and sharing resources to the advantage of everyone. Now, its obvious that the US is not compareable with the EU in terms of diversity, but that is exactly why the EU is such an extraordinary and important venture: it is, with the exception of the UN (which is fading into redundancy anyway), the first example of a genuinely wide variety of peoples agreeing to come together, share resources, and collectively embrace a peaceful and neutral political philosophy. If we look at things like social and environmental policy, the EU is decades ahead of the US, which is still too full of itself and too old fashioned to recognize how backward some of its policies are. In short, the EU - at least in its ideal form - is the result of centuries of development. Europe has been in the grips of conflict, war, political blackmail, and destruction for scores of centuries (see 'Dark Ages'), and though more than one of these things remain today, one cannot disagree with the fact that the current peaceful situation (and the fact that a big brother EU is probably the only thing holding the Balkans together) is an extraordinary thing. We can only hope that it will continue...
But...
As I said before, the ideal of the EU is all well and good, but as we all know, ideals are ideals, and reality is something completely different (see 'Marx and Communism'). As the EU has grown and evolved, it has become more and more clear what the EU is really about, and it isn't all that different from what the US is about...neo-capitalism and money. The best example of this is the Eastward expansion. The optimist would say, well, Bulgaria and Romania are part of the continent; however, in reality the overwhelming motivation for including such undeveloped and instable countries and economies into the club is that the only way sagging economies in Western Europe can become 'erect' again is by taking their business elsewhere, so to speak. In the US, outsourcing took production and jobs to Asia. The EU has found this opportunity right in its backyard. By the dozen, Polish, Slovakian, even Russian banks are being swallowed by German, Austrian, and French juggernauts. This sort of international expansion has a perfect counterpart in the American multinationals that have essentially driven the world into a clusterfuck of an unequal global market. Europe is looking to follow the trend lest they become a collection of aging, obsolete crackers bragging about their windmills and biofuel.
Which brings me to my next point. The forward-thinking environmental policies that defined the EU at its outset are beginning to fall victim to the forces of capitalism and necessity. England (in many ways the black sheep of the EU) is constructing dozens of new nuclear power plants, genetic farming is making inroads all over Europe, and tight transportation controls are being loosened under the banner of 'the free movement of goods' (ex: Austria is no longer allowed to limit the number of LKWs on their freeways because Italian and German trucks have the right to travel freely through the centrally located Austria). All of this adds up to a phrase that defines the US economy and global capitalism in general: more is better, and to hell with the consequences. This is not the European Union I was hoping for.
Needless to say there are many more problems with regards to bureaucracy and agreement between EU and National legislation, but we only have to look to the masses to see that there are more problems than benefits. If I walked across Europe asking people if they approved of the EU as it is now being run, I can guarentee clear negative results. Herr Schüssel has promised to bring the EU 'closer to the people', but this just sounds like another dose of out-of-the-cornhole rhetoric than realpolitik. The EU and the Austrian presidency under Schüssel need to decide whether its purpose is simply to compete with the US and China in the current system, or whether there really are some novel and nobel ideals behind Europe that will maybe even provide a model for humanity in the future. There's no question in my mind that the current direction of the EU is not a very good waste of time.

posted by der Mistfink @ 04:40