Et tu, Brussels?

Of course everybody who goes to Rome brings home mucho pictures. People travel there from all over the world to tour the originating sites of the ancient Empire; then they take a little chunk of early European history home, in the form of photographs.

When we were there, yes, we certainly did do the obligatory tourist ritual of snapping photos of the so-called Imperial City. You’ve probably seen classic images of the Roman ruins, which commemorate the Empire period of two thousand years ago.

But I was most fascinated with a relatively new structure there, Il Vittoriano.

Designed in 1885, inaugurated in 1911, and completed in 1925, this incredible monument makes an absolutely grandiose visual impression when you first catch sight of it.

You can see from this grand edifice that the Italians have never forsaken their proudly imperial self-image.

This morning, however, a Roman venue of a grittier sort—the Circus Maximus— was brought to my attention. In his Seeking Alpha post,

    https://seekingalpha.com/article/4213358-now-circus-maximus?isDirectRoadblock=false

Mark J. Grant used that  ancient racetrack as a metaphor for the  fiscal contest that is now heating up over in Europe.

Here’s what Mark wrote about the presently escalating Continental showdown:

“The new "Circus Maximus" will include all of the European Union and their population of 512 million people. Sit back and enjoy the grand spectacle as Italy has now presented its budget and the European Commission has sent it back. Rome then reacted to Brussels and stood steadfast on the banks of the Tiber and now the overmasters in Brussels and Berlin will hand down judgment, and likely some form of bureaucratic justice, that was not fashioned in Italy, but which Italy is expected to obey.”

The original Circus Maximus, however,  is just a dirt racetrack.

If you’re a boomer geezer like me, you may remember, from a classic race scene in the 1959 MGM movie, Ben Hur, Charlton Heston heroically outmaneuvering a less-than-honorable competing charioteer, to win the great chariot race.

 

That scene may or may not have taken place in the Circus Maximus of olden times.

The real Circus Maximus, where those famous chariot races usually took place, wasn’t conducted in the Colosseum. The actual site was really a huge dirt track, located near the Tiber River, beneath Palatine Hill, where Roman emperors and their hobnobbing hoodoo entourages could view the spectacle from an elevated, privileged position. Here’s what the real Circus Maximus looks like now:

Seeking Alpha blogger Mark J. Grant speculates figuratively on how the present European budgetary shootout at the Circus corral may turn out:

“The European Commission will likely wield the big stick. This is initiating its so-called 'Excessive Deficit Procedure.' This process has never been used before and will likely be tortuous for both Italy and the European Union. Fines have never been applied to any country, with previous breaches by France and Germany overlooked, and yet, there is always a first time.”

If Mark J Grant’s racetrack metaphor is indeed indicative of the present European Contest, we’ll see in the days ahead whether Italy’s impudent leaders can prevail in their fiscal rebellion, or whether they will go down with classic mutterings of “. . . et tu, Brussels?”

Smoke

The European Project

The Beginning of the End of the Royals running Europe started with an upstart French officer named Napolean and a musician from the German outback named Beethoven.

The End of the Beginning of the End came when Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914, the event that ignited the First Big War.

The End of the Royals running Europe came when the appointed Generals, elected Presidents and Prime Ministers of a war-crippled Europe assembled in Versailles, France, in 1919.  The secular Leaders began trying to pull the pieces of Europe back together again, to reset Euro Civilization on a new Democratic/Republican game-plan.

Since that time, the Europeans have had a rough time of pulling themselves together as a political entity. To begin with, the rubble-heaps of post-WWII Europe ended up  in a new polarity of two distant controlling hegemonies—the US and the USSR. These two emergent political empires  were centered  far outside of the fanciful entity we know as Old Europe, which existed in previous history as a continental area governed mostly from these ancient Capitols:  Athens, Rome, Madrid, Paris, London, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, and—a most honorable mention—Geneva.

I call Geneva  honorable  because it is the City  on that grand network most associated with a very important concept: Peace.

The Peace of Europe had been, for 1900 years, an elusive State of Affairs, which somehow managed to survive as a glimmer of hope in the Heart and Soul of a quasi-mythical Europa.

Europe is very old, but contemporary Europeans have taken on a venerable Project to form a European Union. Exactly what that is, is a matter of political evolution, politics, compromise, and of course, Money.

This EU is a logical step forward, because the formerly long-hoped-for Peace of Europe has been flourishing since Allied victory was won at great cost of blood sweat and tears, in 1945. By the grace of God and Man, Europe has been at peace with itself since that time, 73 years.

But the next step beyond the Peace of Europe-- European Union-- is a prospect as elusive as finding the Holy Grail, or Valhalla, or Arcadia, or Elysian Fields of Camelot or Heaven itself.

But its political success is nowhere as easy as the Prospect for Unity that we Americans had back in the day. We had a vast, undeveloped continent as a frontier, which was populated originally by primitive tribes who were unorganized and unprepared to deal with our transplanted European development Mindset.

Most of us Americans had ancestors who wandered via Ships across the Atlantic to—as it turned out— find and construct a New World. Our forebears were confronted only by those undeveloped tribes who were already here, and a bunch of competing, mostly-poor immigrants like ourselves from different mostly-Euro traditions.

We certainly had some problems along the way, getting it all together as the United States of America. We even had a goddam Civil War trying to get it all worked out but we managed to get through that and keep the Union going, and expanding all the way to the Pacific shore.

Yes, we certainly had some problems getting it together, but our USA has been, relatively speaking, a light-duty Project compared to what the Europeans have been dealing with since the Collapse of the Old Roman Empire.

We New Worlders had advantages. We did not have, you see, all that  2000-year-old institutionalized sociological, economic and ethnic baggage that the Europeans have had and still have that keeps them caught up in differing National Purposes and Visions.

Presently, between the Teutonic bean-counters and the Mediterranean lay-backs, Europe just cannot get it together to decide how all the Expenses of governance and economic maintenance can be Paid-off.

Now we Americans don’t necessarily pay our Public Deficits either, but at least we are United in our rhetorical affirmation of equality and justice and Credit for All.  So we just keep running up the Tab and nobody gives a dam, because we have been, for a awhile, the, you know, new kid on the block and king of the hill and all that and we can get away with it.

Whereas the Euros are presently arguing about Who is going to pay the bills—the Teutonic bean-counters or the Mediterranean lay-backs.

We Americans cast a trans-Atlantic glance at them and express our deepest concern and well-wishes for a continuing Progress toward the elusive European Union and we say wholeheartedly:

Good Luck with that!

Now here’s the good news.There is a bright lining that envelopes this present Cloud of Complex Cooperation in Europa.

French President Emmanuel Macron has now proposed a new plan whereby the burdens of EU Debt, Expense, Governance and Administration of the EU are Dealt-With according to (as my American online ignoramus self-satisfied cyber-awareness would understand it) gradations of Participation, Responsibility and WhothehellCares-Responsibility in the EntitiesUnited of Europa.

These levels of Participation will be most heavily taken Seriously and Attended-To by those State/entities that are closest to the Center of Power and Influence. The peripheral Nations/States will be garnished according to their relative positions in the  outgoing Concentric Circles of Europe.

These Circles are most likely actually Parabolas. Because the actual Working Center of Europe consists not of one Point, but rather, Two Points, where the real Movers and Shakers (Bankers) of Europe run their Industrial/Financial Empires.

The Two Points are Berlin and Paris. There is a Third Centric point between them: Brussels, which is the errand by for Paris and London.

So we see that, with  Monsieur Macron’s proposed plan for the widening Circles of Influence, Europe has great Hope for the Future.

It may be a plan worthy of implementation. The Europeans have achieved Success in the Development of an essential condition: Peace.

Now it’s just the Money that’s hanging them up.

This American believes that the pesky Arguing about Who pays the Bills is actually Progress, because it is qualitatively better than Bombing each other! So they must have gotten something right, beginning back in '45.  They have indeed  come a long way since Sarajevo in 1914.

One more thing, very important. This American notices that, in spite of all the different member nations with different languages and politics and values, their system of Trains and Metros puts ours to shame. With just a mention given to their impressive High-Speed, Efficiency and Clockwork Precision, the most endearing characteristic of the Euro rail is Ease and Comfort. Taking a Euro train trip from one city to another is a much easier and far more comfortable Prospect than doing the yankee airport runaround, with sardine-contortion seating and  limited passage in the aisles when you may have to pee. Most important of all--the train seats are comfortable, roomy, easy to get in- and out-of, and less pricey than planes.

Maybe we can teach them something about Debts Pretension, while they teach us something about Running the Trains.

Smoke 

The Rights of Humankind

Twelve score and one year ago Thomas Jefferson submitted an innovative set of political principles to a congress of delegates from thirteen American colonies. The gathered assembly, known as Continental Congress, debated the contents and the merits of Jefferson's proposal. The document began with these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness--that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .

The world has changed a lot since those words were adopted as the philosophical basis of a new experiment in civil government. Here are just a few of the ways our world has changed since those revolutionary days:

~ Our fledgling national legislature, known at that time as the "Continental" Congress, is now called the Congress of the United States.

~ We Americans now associate the world "Continental" with Europe.

~ On the "Continent" of Europe, citizen-groups are now struggling to form a workable political basis for a European Union.

~~ Whereas, In the year 1776, when our American Continental Congress adopted a plan for a United States of America, we had a nominal consensus for the basis of our Union; and That consensus was based, rhetorically, upon "certain unalienable Rights, . . . Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; which Rights that had been "endowed" by a "Creator,"

~~ In the year 2000, the European Parliament adopted a Charter of Fundamental Rights of European Union, by which the peoples of Europe are resolved to share a peaceful future based on common values. . . indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity. . . based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law.

We see, therefore, that the American Union was initiated during an historical period in which faith in a Creator God was still, at least rhetorically, allowed to be a basis for political consensus.

The European Union, however, is coalescing in a post-modern, humanistic age in which their unity can only be expressed in terms of human agreements and motivations, stated above as common values.

As we Americans ultimately divided ourselves into two primary political identities, Democrats and Republicans, with one side being generally associated with progressivism programs while the other is based in conservatism,

We notice that in Europe, in what is now a churning crucible of 21st-century economic constraints, the divisions seem to be congealing toward two uniquely Euro polarities. On the Right side, we find the Austerians, whose values are based on fiscal responsibility and the austerity that is thought to be necessary for maintaining economic and political stability. On the Left side, we find the Socialists, whose values are based on equality that is assured and managed by the State, which should produce solidarity among the people.

As Thomas Jefferson had proposed a declaration based ostensibly on the zeitgeist of the so-called Age of Enlightenment, so has a spokesman stepped forth, in our age, to propose for the Europeans a document that aspires to manifest the zeitgeist of this (perhaps) Age of Equality.

Toward that end, Mr. Yanis Varoufakis, former Finance Minister of the Greek Syriza party, has proposed a five-point plan by which the Europeans would collectively assure the rights of persons as they are understood in this, the 21st-century.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/2017/01/new-deal-save-europe/

Stated simplistically, those rights are:

~ a collective investment in green/sustainable technology

~ an employment guarantee for every citizen

~ an anti-poverty fund

~ a universal basic dividend (income)

~ an immediate anti-eviction protection.


So we see, now, that in the 200+ years since the inception of American Democratic-Republicanism, the zeitgeist that was then seen as inevitable has changed. In the so-called Age of Enlightenment (c.1776) we were demanding a Government that would Protect our Unalienable Rights, defined broadly as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.

The modern zeitgeist, however, as it appears to be evolving in the Europe of Our Age, is demanding: a Government to Protect our Basic Life Necessities.

Instead of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, citizens of the World now appear to be demanding Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Equality.

And that's the way it is, 2017. We shall see how this develops as the 21st-century unfolds.

Smoke

You in America now!

While walking in our nation's Capital yesterday, my somewhat aimless wandering intuition impelled me along a pavement path that provided, perhaps unexpectedly, a sudden purview of the Fed. That is to say, I was suddenly standing there in front of the Federal Reserve, where Federal Reserve Notes, better known as dollars, are generated.

Since I like to capture pics of places that are perceived as power penumbras, I prepared to snap a picture.

But before I took the picture, I wanted to make sure everything was hunky-dory, because there happened to be a couple of federal police guys right there, where I had decided to pause and snap the pic. So I asked them if I could take this picture of the building:

The reason I sought their permission is because, a few months ago when Pat and I were in Rome, we were passing by an entrance that appeared to be some kind of official building of the EU, European Union. (I knew this because of the two flags, Italian and EU, which were displayed above the main entry door). In order to get a larger perspective for my anticipated picture, I crossed the street and prepared to snap the pic.

But while I was snipping it, the guard began gesturing to me quite frantically, really quite aggressively, so that I got the message that I shouldn't be snapping such a pic.

. . .although I did not know why. But I was nevertheless able to ascertain his prohibitory meaning, and so I immediately ceased and desisted from any further photographic presumptions. But that was after I had managed to snap one prohibited pic:

As a result of that experience I have been, from that day forward until now, a little bit inhibited to snap a permissive pic of any public place without official permission.

But yesterday, on this particular occasion, in Washington, D.C. yesterday, there was no problem, because when I asked the policeman, after explaining that in Rome they had shut me down, he said no problem!. He laughed and said:

"Well this is America, and you can take all the pictures you want!"

Boy, was I relieved.

Then later, when I thought about it all, yesterday's pic-snipping liberty seemed ironic, because the policeman's statement reminded me, oddly enough, of what the old guy, Fiddler, had said to young Kunta Kinte, in the 1980's miniseries Roots, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075572/

written by Alex Haley. When Kunta Kinte was just off the boat, a slave-ship, and bound in chains, writhing in agony, having such a hard time adjusting to life as a slave in pre-Emancipation America. That's when ole Fiddler had said to him:

"You in America now!"

Which is to say: You in slave-country now, boy, not like back in the old country where you was some kind of tribal prince or whatever you were there.

The very terrible news announced by Fiddler to Kunta Kinte was that now, in the Land of so-called Opportunity, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, the black man was, sad to say, no free citizen, certainly no tribal cheiftain or son thereof, but rather a slave, a piece of property to be owned by some white-privileged slave-owner.

But when the federal police guy said to me yesterday You're in America now, it was a much more liberating declaration than the one that Kunta Kinte had gotten when he arrived here a few hundred years ago.

These days we have more freedom here, and less paranoia, than the Europeans. Take all the pics you want. And the great grandsons and great granddaughters of slaves also have more freedom than their enslaved ancestors did.

Viva Las Picturas!

Nevertheless, today I did wander, right here in the Capital of the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, into a situation that was photographically prohibitory. At the Art Museum, I was told not to snap pics in a certain room. But I had already, in my ignorant haste, snipped one contraban pic!:

So don't tell anybody you're seeing, in the gallery background above, this American photo of a famous French painting. That way we can continue to celebrate La Liberté, La Fraternité, L'Egalité.

Glass half-Full

What Glezos the Greek says

Nursing homes across the world are full of old folks who would love to tell you a thing or two about how things were back in the day. But how often does someone (you or me) stop to listen to their incomprehensible memories? It seems they are just rambling on about things that happened seventy or eighty years ago.

For most young folks these days, including me at age 63, life seems to be whizzing by at 70 miles an hour. So why should we spare the time to consider what events were shaping the world 70 years ago?

Nevertheless, such shared recollections can happen, and be beneficial, and even in a very big way.

Take, for instance, the infamous Greek Debt Crisis. In the midst of it, here's one old Greek over in the left corner going on and on about stuff that happened 70 or 80 years ago. What's his problem?

Well first, we need to understand that the old guy is not just any old Greek. This man was there when "it" happened, and he lived to tell about it.

"It" being Nazi occupation during the Second Big War. Mr. Manolis Glezos was there, and he did live to tell about it. And he wants you to know about it.

You should know about it.

Mr. Glezos was not only there when the Germans took over Greece in 1941-- he resisted the Nazi way of doing things in a very big, and public, way.

Now we know the situation in Greece has greatly improved since those dark days of the Second Big War. Make no mistake about that. But push comes to shove in this debt-burdened year of 2015. Half of Europe (the northern half) is twisting Greek arms for repayment of huge, admittedly irresponsible debts.

So it's no surprise that an old geezer like Manolis Glezos would remember--and call the world's attention to--what Europe and the Greeks did to bail Germany out of their failed attempt to conquer the world back in the day.

1953, to be exact. That was the year of the Agreement on German External Debts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Agreement_on_German_External_Debts

But is debt forgiveness that was given to Germany in 1953, a few years after the Second Big War, even relevant in today's fast and furious world?

You bet your sweet drachmas it's relevant! Lest the Greeks be forced to drop out of the Euro and fall back into their drachmas, leaving the other Euro nations with a dismembered collection of blithering technocrats.

Mr. Manolis Glezos, now the grand old man of the Syriza party, ought to be pleased about how far we've come since 1941, and here's why: His now-majority party, and the Greek people, are presently contending with EU technocrats and bankers over austerity issues. As difficult as this current debt impasse is to resolve, such crisis is small change compared to surviving the Nazi occupation that was imposed on Greeks during World War II.

In the contemporary war of words and EU budgets, Wolfgang Schaeuble, Angela Merkel and the taxpayers of Europe are surely more amenable opponents than Hitler and the blitzkrieging Wehrmacht of the Third Reich.

Appropriately, a 93-year-old guy is trying to drag the issue of that debt forgiveness for Germany, back up into highlight of Euro-consciousness.

But as I mentioned above, Mr Glezos is no ordinary old geezer Greek, and here's why:

Back in the day--April, 1941--Manolis did something that forever defines and inspires the very character of the Greek people. The situation was this: the bullying wehrmacht of Nazi Germany had just rolled into Greece and taken control of the country. One of the first things the German soldiers did was to publicize their newfound dominance by raising a swastika flag atop the Akropolis, which is a great rocky outcrop in the middle Athens, and an ancient national landmark.

Manolis Glezos--only 19 years old at the time--along with his compatriot Apostolos Santos, climbed under cover of night, up the stony face of the Akropolis, to the highest place, where the Nazi flag was flapping in the breeze. Their mission was to establish, in a highly visible way, the resolute resistance of the Greek people against the tyranny of Nazi occupation.

When the daring duo reached that flagpole, they lowered the swastika rag, shredded it, and replaced it with the bold blue and white stripes of the flag of Greece.

This, the people of Greece never forget. Furthermore, this American will never forget about it, after being told of the incident while I was in Athens a few weeks ago.

Now with a little help from the old hero, Manolis Glezos, Europeans will not neglect to remember what their nations did collectively back in 1953, so that Germany could recover and rebuild.

Nor should the Germans forget (nor the French, Belgians, nor everybody else) to remember what creditable grace was extended to their defeated parents/grandparents back in the day--post World War II.

Forget it not, while working together toward a restructured Greek debt in 2015.

After all, is mismanagement of a national economy a more grievous offense that trying to conquer the whole damn world?

We think not.

Get your house in order, Europe, and give the Greeks a break. Let them get busy again reconstructing their nation, instead of being strapped to the whipping post of old debts. They can rebuild, as they have been doing for 2500 years. They've done it before, and they can do it again, with a little help from m'friends.

You should know there are bigger problems on the horizon for Europe than old debts between members. You better get it together. It's time for the strong to bolster the weak, not humiliate them.

Humiliation is what ISIS does, not civilized Europe.

Smoke

A Tale of #GreekDebt

A New swelling of national Debt, in a country as old as the hills
compels northern EU partners to halt Greece's spending thrills.
So they bind up Hellenic budgets with a cord called Austerity;
It's the only way, they say, to get back to Euro-prosperity.

A few years down the road, and Greece is really hurting;
the Greeks are sighing, even crying: this Austerity's not working.
We need our jobs back; we're tired of all these layoffs,
Just give us something Greek to do besides supplying EU payoffs.

Now along comes a liberator, a homegrown politician, Alexis Agonistes.
He's got homegrown renown and resolve unbound, to set free the Economy of Greece.
Chosen by the Austere-stretched people of that ancient Hellenic polity,
Alexis steps up to the mike to strike, and dispose of austerity.

With his fearless finance guy, Yanis the Untamed, standing at his side,
bold Alexis tells all the Eurocrats it's time to let the Greek debt slide.
Growth is what we need, says he, invoking the holy grail of the economic world.
Just release this Troika bondage, and scrap these EU rules. Let Greek flags fly unfurled!

You've worn us out with repayment plans, and schedules without end.
Let us do the hire and fire; we'll pay you when we can,
'Cause we're Syriza 'bout strong labor, wages and good jobs for our nation,
And we will rescue our Hellen from your Troyka domination!

Now the Germans told the Belgians and the Brits told the French,
Beware Greeks bearing debts; they'll sink our Euro inch by inch.
But here's the message from Syriza, and it surely isn't funny:
Beware the Troikan horse, and Europeans demanding money.

Glass Chimera

Road to a Grecian Turn

With apology to John Keats, a new poem for 2015:

Oh, You unbridled bride of Entitlement,
Can you still afford to pay the Rent?
You, love-child of Austerity and Free-spending,
Is your ambrosia Never-ending?

Paid debts are sweet, but those unpaid are sweeter
says your new Syriza leader,
'cause we've got to get the people working,
so in Unemployment they'll not be lurking.

Ah, happy, happy days that cannot end,
as long as EU-lovers still do send
debt forgiveness and, and credits new
so you'll never bid EU adieu.



Who are these coming to the Sacrifice?
a little help from Euro friends would sure be nice.
The Germans, the French, will surely come
and Play the Games until they're done!



Oh Athenic State, on marbled path of Austerity
Can you reach that elusive peak of Victory?
Winged Athens, her goddess wings now torn away--
Has she lost her head in heat of the fray?



Oh, for ever may you live, and Greece be fair!
as long as EU pals still care.
Austerity puts Prosperity on the go--
That's all you really need to know!




Glass Chimera