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Europe
Poland invokes WWII dead in tough EU negotiations
2007-06-22
Poland pushes back against German pressure to okay the EU constitution.
European leaders gathered last night in Brussels for a bruising battle over the future of Europe, with Britain pledging no surrender on key demands and Poland evoking losses in the second world war to push for more votes in the running of the EU.

Under the chairmanship of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the 27 EU countries launched an attempt to hammer out a consensus on a "reform treaty" to replace the defunct European constitution.

Earlier, Downing Street said Mr Blair was ready to walk away from the summit and see it collapse if his four central demands were not met. However, Ms Merkel views Poland, rather than Britain, as the main opponent of a deal and the hardest nut to crack

"If Poland had not had to live through the years 1939-45, Poland would be today looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million", rather than 38 million, and would warrant a much higher quota of votes in the EU, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the prime minister, told Polish radio.
If Gaul had not had to live through the time of 59 - 51 BC, modern France would have several ten million more Gaul-speakers today.
Under current arrangements dating from 2000, Germany has 29 votes to Poland's 27 in EU councils. The new system,based on population sizes, will give Germany more than double the Polish vote. The Poles are demanding a new way of calculating votes that would diminish German "hegemony".
At least one Brit columnist is applauding the Poles on this one.

Posted by:lotp

#29  I salute the Poles irony in a German proposal for population based representation in EU government. Another question might be what percentage of a person does a Turkish resident of Berlin count for the purposes of EU representation.
Posted by: Super Hose   2007-06-22 23:48  

#28  Likewise.
Posted by: 8872   2007-06-22 23:14  

#27  Potential apology rescinded. I really do not understand this childish need to make oneself so despised. Thanks for the peace of mind, Pappy. I should have felt awful if I'd said such things to a reasonable human.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-06-22 22:45  

#26  You know zippo about my fruits. On the contrary, there are quite a few fruits I am proud of. And hopefully, there would be more, god's willing.
Posted by: twobyfour   2007-06-22 22:39  

#25  by their fruits you recognize them...

Oh dear. Don't apply that standard to yourself, you won't like yourself very much.
Posted by: 8872   2007-06-22 22:31  

#24  the comment was a jest about trying to go back in history to fix things that can't be fixed.

Oh I'm sorry. Coming from you I thought it was something else entirely. See how easily people can be mistaken.
Posted by: 8872   2007-06-22 22:27  

#23  But then, you'll walk like a twit, talk like a twit... you will be the same twit.

by their fruits you recognize them...
Posted by: twobyfour   2007-06-22 22:27  

#22  Don't worry Paps, I'll change the IP one of these days and then you won't have that hang up. But then again...who cares.
Posted by: 8872   2007-06-22 22:24  

#21  If I'm confusing you with that odious Canadian twit who posts here under a variety of names, thinking himself so courageous for speaking truth to power, then I do apologize.

No need to apologize. It's the same, er, one.
Posted by: Pappy   2007-06-22 21:59  

#20  Darth, you're absolutely spot on mate, and sadly, at least to my mind Pebbles, so are you :(
Posted by: Tony (UK)   2007-06-22 21:57  

#19  We're all familiar with the conquest of Gaul and its several outcomes for the Celts and for Rome. Julius Caesar was looking for conquest and booty, and found it took killing, maiming and enslaving a great many Celts to accomplish that. In contrast, one thrust of Hitler's long term plan was to completely exterminate the Slavs, including the Poles and the Jews, Roma, and incidental strangers among them. Killing, maiming and enslaving were merely short-term pleasures in pursuit of a greater goal -- fortunately stymied by the Allied victory. But I can think of a great many What If's as I sit here. If Germany hadn't started two world wars, there'd be a lot more Germans, my mother's family included. If England hadn't spent men and materiel so freely to build and maintain her empire, there'd be a lot more Brits in all four constituent countries, but the world would be considerably poorer for it, I think. If the Niger-Congo=Bantu tribes had not conquered much of sub-Saharan Africa in the misty past, there would be a great deal more variety of language and culture than exists is there now.

You do have a point, though, 8872. If I'm confusing you with that odious Canadian twit who posts here under a variety of names, thinking himself so courageous for speaking truth to power, then I do apologize. But then he feels triumphant facing a little, Midwestern, suburban housewife like me. *shrug* Again, if you're not he then some of my vitriol was misplaced.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-06-22 21:41  

#18  8872, the comment was a jest about trying to go back in history to fix things that can't be fixed.

Seven million Jews and tens of millions of others died in a despicable war. We can't bring any of them back. Trying to futz around with politics today to represent people who are dead sixty years isn't likely to work.

Being critical of Rantburg commentary indeed doesn't make one a Jew-hater or commie. Your comments, however, are beginning to make reasonable people wonder.
Posted by: Steve White   2007-06-22 21:29  

#17  adamantly opposing all efforts to protect the same class when they are alive -- when they are Jews, at least

Your imagination is running rampant. Being critical of Rantburg commentary does not equate Jew-hatred, Liberalism, Communism, pro-Terrorism or whatever.

You notice many things, but Steve's disgusting insinuation flew right past you, didn't it?
Posted by: 8872   2007-06-22 20:59  

#16  There is no single european people
There is therfore no single european demos
There can be no european democracy.

The EU should be disbanded in favour of country based reciprocal agreement.

The EU makes a war more likely.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2007-06-22 20:29  

#15  I do apologize. That should be Polish-Catholic, of course. we wouldn't want 8872 (such a cute little number he picked, to be sure!) to think I'd taken the easy path of marrying into a family of Polish Jews.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-06-22 19:32  

#14  Since I married into a Polish family, 8872, it's possible I always suspected that was true. Then there's the fact that I come from a family of Holocaust survivors -- I'm first generation American -- and you clearly don't like me... but we mustn't draw conclusions from such anecdotal evidence.

You see, waxing sentimental over the dead but adamantly opposing all efforts to protect the same class when they are alive -- when they are Jews, at least -- does rather smack of Jew hatred. Those of us who are Jews, who are Israelis (my father and his mother were the only ones of his immediate family to survive, because they'd made their way to British-mandate Palestine while the others had remained; Daddy has a cute little pin that was awarded to him for extraordinary something or other in 1948), whose families were significantly reduced because so many of their neighbors felt as you profess to about the enemies of the Jews... well we notice such things.

Or were you about to say that the world must act to stop those like Saddam Hussein and the Iranian Mullahcracy, who are doing and have done all they can to effect the genocide of the six million Jews of Israel? Choose, my dear 8872: act to protect the Jews by removing from power those like Saddam Hussein and Mullahcracy, or refuse, thus taking on the guilt of the Nazis of your own free will.

No, I don't hate you. You aren't worth energy expenditure.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-06-22 19:30  

#13  that indeed some Poles like Jews

True! I personally know 1. The other Polaks I know are, of course, unrepresentative.
Posted by: twobyfour   2007-06-22 13:15  

#12  Who was it that said, Europeans love their dead Jews... and hate their still-living relatives? 8872 will no doubt be proud he's achieved such a European attitude.

So I'm a Jew-hater now, is that it? You hate me so that must be true. Rationalize it to yourself any way you must, I don't care.

See, the difference between you and me is that I am willing to stand up to despicable comments and posters here, whether they are friend or foe. You on the other hand lack the courage and honor to do so.
Come down from the cross, pal, we could use the wood.
For your information, Poland was the most hospitable place for Jews in Europe before the war. It was so even going back 1000 years. So it is entirely possible, even if your ego won't let you grasp it, that indeed some Poles like Jews.
Posted by: 8872   2007-06-22 12:40  

#11  "If Poland had not had to live through the years 1939-45, Poland would be today looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million", rather than 38 million, and would warrant a much higher quota of votes in the EU, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the prime minister, told Polish radio.

And if Britain and its Empire has not stood up to the Nazis, Poland's population would be a) Germans or b) dead and the whole notion of voting would have been replaced with the Fuhrer-principle in any event.

All your votes are belong to us.
Posted by: Excalibur   2007-06-22 11:34  

#10  You did hit the nail in the head.

Posted by: JFM   2007-06-22 10:35  

#9  The problem is that Europe still sees the elite class as the only fit rulers and the working man (peasants) have no business helping run the country.
Posted by: DarthVader   2007-06-22 10:21  

#8  Sounds to me like the EU needs a compromise like we have in the US

Something like:

We the People of the European Union, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the European Union.
Posted by: JFM   2007-06-22 10:09  

#7   Sounds to me like the EU needs a compromise like we have in the US: each state has a number of representatives based on population; each state also has two senators. The two houses of Congress have to both agree to pass laws.

Considering that EU apparatchik bureaucrats have no more need for the consent of the governed or what the people want than it appears the US Senate does, it appears the model has flowed the other way. Doing away with classical representative government [vote of the people] and instituting commercial/special interest representation seems to be the post-modern evolution of government. Along the lines of Peoples Democratic Republics of the mid to late 20th Century in one form or another.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2007-06-22 10:01  

#6  Ima waiting for the Germans to invoke liebensraum.
Posted by: ed   2007-06-22 09:50  

#5  Sounds to me like the EU needs a compromise like we have in the US: each state has a number of representatives based on population; each state also has two senators. The two houses of Congress have to both agree to pass laws.
Posted by: Rambler   2007-06-22 08:53  

#4  Do you indeed, my dear 8872? And what do you think should be done to those who work toward the mass murder of the descendants of the remnant of the Jews of Poland? I know you're a little unclear on these historical details, but most of them moved to Israel, where first Saddam Hussein and now Iran financed, trained and armed the suicide bombers and rocketeers aimed so fixedly at killing off as many of said descendants as they can accomplish... until Iran's scientists develop the atomic bomb they plan will render the remainder of said descendants into radioactive dust.

Who was it that said, Europeans love their dead Jews... and hate their still-living relatives? 8872 will no doubt be proud he's achieved such a European attitude.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-06-22 06:43  

#3  Absolutely hilarious. Good on the Poles - that's how you tell the Krauts to STFU. Shame Tony can't find his balls.
Posted by: Howard UK   2007-06-22 06:25  

#2  Yep. I thought it was you. How's that Emo trip going?
Posted by: Shipman   2007-06-22 01:27  

#1  If Gaul had not had to live through the time of 59 - 51 BC, modern France would have several ten million more Gaul-speakers today.

I, for one, lament the killing of Poland's 3,000,000+ Jews, Roma, Poles and others.
Posted by: 8872   2007-06-22 01:08  

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