Hat's off to the Irish citizenry

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

Another blow to the New World Order:"The Irish people have spoken; Lisbon is dead"
By Mike Whitney
Online Journal Contributing Writer


http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3387.shtml

---snip---

Ireland's entire political and corporate class stood solidly behind the treaty, but the Irish people shrugged off the fear-mongering and bogus promises of prosperity and voted No. The referendum results showed 53.4 percent voted No, while 46.6 percent voted Yes. Despite the massive public relations campaign; the vote was not even that close.

A spokesperson for the No campaign put it like this: “The Irish people have spoken. Contrary to the predictions of social and political turmoil, we believe that hundreds of millions of people across Europe will welcome the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. This vote shows the gulf that exists between the politicians and the elites of Europe, and the opinions of the people. As in France and the Netherlands, the political leaders and the establishment have done everything they could to push this through – and they have failed. The proposals to further reduce democracy, to militarize the EU and to let private business take over public services have been rejected. Lisbon is dead. Along with the EU Constitution from which it came, it should now be buried.”

Europe's political class tried to ratify the treaty via a stealth campaign which intentionally obscured the implications of the new regime that would be put in place. Former Irish Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald*, summed it up like this in the Irish Times on June 30, 2007: ”The most striklng change is perhaps that in order to enable some governments to reassure their electorates that the changes will have no constitutional implications, the idea of a new and simpler treaty containing all the provisions governing the Union has now been dropped in favour of a huge series of individual amendments to two existing treaties. Virtual incomprehensibilty has thus replaced simplicity as the key approach to EU reform. As for the changes now proposed to be made to the constitutional treaty, most are presentational changes that have no practical effect. They have simply been designed to enable certain heads of government to sell to their people the idea of ratification by parliamentary action rather than by referendum.”

Hmmm. In other words, European policymakers figured the only way they could pass the pro-business treaty was to make it as unreadable as possible. It's no wonder, too. According to multiple sources, the treaty contains language that would restore the death penalty and override national decision making on critical issues. So much for sovereignty! . . .

[anigbrowl]

1. As an Irish person, I think this is total BS.

I was basically in favor of the new EU constitution but they made a hash of selling it and the europhobes won. New World Order my disbelieving Irish ass.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

3. I don't claim to be intimately familiar with the Lisbon Treaty...

...but it sounds like a rightly rejected play for privatization and power consolidation among the corporate elites to me.

If you'd care to elaborate on why you think the citizenry should have accepted this treaty, please do -- I'd be interested to hear.

[anigbrowl]

5. OK, but only briuefly

It's long, complex, and I really don't want to spend teh whole evening summarizing a piece of failed legislation. In a nutshell, it reduces the number of EU commissioners (who are sort-of like senators but have executive power) in order to have a working number rather than 27-member commission that can't agree on anything and thus gets nothing done; allows Europe to have people in charge of foreign policy, energy policy, and criminal justice. It also changes the method of voting in the European council which would allow legislation to get passed a bit quicker. The smaller countries say they'd get less influence than they do now. Since they get more influence than they would in proportion to their population as it is this doesn't bug me much. It solidifies Europe's human rights laws, which would make it easier for someone to pursue appeals to the European courts when they feel their national legal system has let them down (the Europhobes hate that one).

Well I could go on and on. But basically I'm in favor of a united states of Europe because I dislike nationalism. So I am fine with an EU superstate, and I am also fine with free markets, especially within Europe. The current situation is like a company from say, New york needing to get bureaucratic permission to open an office in California, which is hopeless BS.

You can read about it here; http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2007:306:SOM:EN:HTML

'Corporate elites' - come on, that's just a buzz word. If you don't know what the treaty of Lisbon is about I respectfully suggest that maybe you don't know European politics all that well to begin with. It's not that I expect you to agree with me but I think it's foolish to form an opinion on something you barely understand. I personally think the whole 'NWO' idea is a crock of shit. I just like the idea of the EU becoming more like the US in some respects. The EU has done a lot for people of Europe (especially my country0 and I think they're a bunch of ungrateful self-serving bastards for voting no on the treaty. The main reason they objected to it was to spank the government, because the Prime Minister (who they re-elected in a ladnslide last year) turned out to have been lying about some political donations (which everyone knew when they re-elected him, but Irish people are kind of perverse that way).

[mdmc]

6. The Irish rejected this treaty to punish Europe

for the failures of officials the Irish elected and re-elected.

The Irish people rejected the deal to make their leaders look bad.

That was my reason for opposing the immigration compromise back in 2006 - Bush supported it.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

10. I agree that it's foolish to form a hardened opinion...

on something one lacks a thorough understanding of, which is why I didn't, and why I invited you to elaborate on your thoughts about the vote. What I thought I had expressed was simply what it sounded like to me based on what I'd read.

I don't like Nationalism either, but I wonder if this was more about the citizenry of Ireland just trying to hang on to their autonomy.

You sound a little angry about the result. Is this the case? Do you have friends/family in Ireland you believe to be negatively impacted by this result?

[anigbrowl]

11. No, I'm just disappointed because Ireland done very very well out of Europe

and really I thought that the decision was made on local political issues rather than out of real conviction. Additionally there is a Europhobe contingent who are well-funded and think like Republicans, they're just reflexively against 'big government' same way people here like to grumble about the federal government (on a conceptual level rather than because of anything particular to do with the administration). I'd say 'corporate power elites' did better out of a no vote because they have vested interests that make competing in a fully open market more difficult.

[malaise]

7. You are 100% correct n/t

[RB TexLa]

9. Yes, total BS. Amazing the lengths some will go to make something sound evil and sinister.

[wildbilln864]

2. Bravo! eom.

:patriot:

[seemslikeadream]

4. a fanatic heart.

Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.

William Butler Yeats

[MichiganVote]

8. :) The Irish.........taking care of themselves, survivors one and all.