Rise Of The Fourth Reich

There have been many a pundit despairing of late about the European Union and it's apparent demise. I have never been one to write the Europeans off as a people that have collapsed under their own mischievous and perhaps Machiavellian tendencies to self destruct. On the contrary, I belong to a small camp of the political commentariet that actually thinks Europa will transfigure itself into something greater that what it is today.

That does not mean, however, that it will become a force for good or that good things will come of it. Like water that retreats from the shore before a tsunami hits so Europe too will fall back before the energy of its political force becomes a tidal wave upon the shores of the nations. And so, before it can become "greater" it will have to go through a period of diminution. It's quite obvious to everyone the EU cannot proceed in its current state. Something must give. As with the tsunami analogy above, an earthquake must precede the event that causes the tsunami. For the European Union, that earthquake is the current economic/political crisis that now serves as the locomotive for change.

From Der Spiegel:

To stabilize the continent in crisis Fischer, an avid European, wants to see a resolute political body consisting of the leaders of euro-zone countries. They should, he believes, be outfitted with far-reaching authority and granted sufficient power by their parliaments back home.Fischer is thinking about a rescue plan. Not just a rescue plan for the banks, for Italy or the euro, but for everything. He envisions a fire brigade of European Union government officials, and sees it as an "avant-garde of the United States of Europe."It is, in other words, time to stop complaining. Europe can only be saved if it is completely reinvented. The financial crisis is the turning point in the history of European unification.

We live in a socialist world. Every nation on earth today has embraced a collectivist form of government and ironically enough it was Europe that the nations turned to for answers and not the United States of America over the past century. Though the United States has influenced the world, it was to Europa, that the world sought knowledge and light for their advancement and technical prowess in military, political and economic spheres of power. Even the elites in America have turned towards Europe as the model for governing its 300 million citizenry with the socialist foundations laid by FDR and the Democrat Party since 1933. But not without controversy, it is to the United States that European political elites are reaching out to as the model to save the EU in the current economic crisis.

"Neither a Frankfurt group nor a troika, and certainly not the G-20, which answers to no one, should have the right to decide what Europe's citizens should pay for and how much they should save," says Ulrike Guérot, the fiery Berlin spokeswoman of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the international think tank to which Joschka Fischer also belongs. According to Guérot, such decisions ought to be made by a strong European executive branch, "supported by a parliament for the entire euro zone."

"We must invent and establish Europe a second time," says Sigmar Gabriel, the chairman of Germany's center-left Social Democrats (SPD). It's easy enough to say this from his standpoint as leader of the opposition. But many in Merkel's party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), tend to agree -- they just don't talk openly about it. Officials at the Chancellery are also looking for concepts for the day when the crisis is over.

It's an opportunity to change the world. Why, for example, shouldn't it be possible for "the Europeans" to pull together, just as the 13 new American states did in 1787 for their constitutional convention? Then, too, the states were jostling for power and money. But, after a long struggle, they managed to constitute themselves -- under the motto "We the People" -- into a powerful, democratic, federal state that has endured to this day.

The Americans enshrined "the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence. But is that any different than the European dream of peace, freedom and prosperity? Could the words "We the People," or "We Europeans," also be chiseled into the constitution of a European federal state one day?

The original founding of the United States was based upon a constitution with enumerated powers for the Federal Government as opposed to a constitution that enshrines plenary powers that is now being constructed in the European Union. The American federal government was a government limited to what it could do, whereas; the EU federal project envisions a government with massive and wide ranging control over every aspect of life in the union including but not limited to, economic, political and military affairs both domestic and foreign. Amazingly, there is a call for "more democracy" while the edifice of dictatorship is constructed in reality:

There is no lack of bold ideas. Charles Grant, founder of the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank, has come up with a vision for a democratically united Europe in which the citizens of the various member states vote directly for European commissioners -- replacing the present system whereby they are chosen by national governments behind closed doors. Grant's model sees the EU president selecting the 10 best of the 27 citizens' picks, with the remaining 17 becoming deputies. This concept would produce a strong and democratic European government.

The idea of a single, robust Brussels government for all EU countries -- or at least for the euro zone -- is also shaping plans promoted by certain groups within the European Parliament. And most agree that citizens in any future United States of Europe must have a stronger voice and Brussels have greater powers. Which would in turn mean a transfer of sovereignty from individual countries to the European Union. (Italicized mine)

We live in amazing and dangerous times as the storm clouds gather for the next great world war. Read the rest of the der Spiegel article and I think you'll get an idea why I believe that although the European Union may shrink, will actually grow stronger and become a force to be reckoned with as the United States withdraws from the world as the global cop enforcing a world ruled by the West.