[tdf-moderators] Fwd: A Strategy to Stem the European Calamity

Hi Florian,

Could you please unsubscribe the following user from our list?

We cannot continue in this way, receiving such kind of messages.

Thank you

Ciao
--
Valter
*Open Source is better!*
KDE: www.kde.org
Kubuntu: www.kubuntu.org
LibreOffice: www.libreoffice.org
Android? Yes!
 ---------- Messaggio inoltrato ----------
Da: "Anthony St. John" <gmenxs@tin.it>
Data: 09/nov/2011 09:38
Oggetto: A Strategy to Stem the European Calamity
A: <departmentofhomelandsecurity@govdelivery.com>
Cc: "Ubaldo Lanari" <ublanari@tin.it>, "Umberto Cecchi" <
umbertocecchi@libero.it>, "Umberto Galimberti" <
umbertogalimberti@repubblica.it>, "UnitedNations" <inquiries@un.org>,
"UniversitàFirenzeLettereFilosofia" <lettere@adm.unifi.it>, "Uri Avnery" <
info@gush-shalom.org>, <users@it.libreoffice.org>, "VaioHelpDesk" <
clubvaioaccountmigration@nascom.be>, "Valentina Izzolino" <
valentinaizzolino@yahoo.it>, "Valentina Schenbari" <gambeinspalla@libero.it>,
"Valter Mura" <valtermura@gmail.com>, "VanityFair" <vfmail@vf.com>, "Vanni
Borgioli" <mangiapiombo@hotmail.com>, "Vera Beckamp" <veraepiero@libero.it>,
"Vicky Bennett" <Vicky.bennett@turner.com>, "Victor Laptev" <
victor.laptev@dipacademy.ru>, "Victor Saxon" <V.Saxon@vedomosti.ru>,
"Vittoria Franco" <vittoria@vittoriafranco.it>, "Vittoria Murro" <
vittomurro@yahoo.it>, "Vittorio Volterra" <v-volterra@libero.it>, "Vittorio
Zincone" <vittorio.zincone@gmail.com>, "Voxon" <info@voxon.net>, "Abdel
Bari Atwan" <abatwan@googlemail.com>, "W N Herbert" <w.n.herbert@ncl.ac.uk>,
"WallStreetJournal" <maria@wsjreport.com>, "Wanda Lattes" <wlattes@alice.it>,
"Wesley Clark" <info@rodm.com>, "William Blum" <bblum6@aol.com>, "William
Cohen" <wcohen@cohengroup.net>, "William K Black" <umkc.economists@gmail.com>,
"Wolfgang Lengert" <wolfgang.lengert@esa.int>, "Wolfgang Munchau" <
wolfgang.munchau@ft.com>, "WQXR" <listenerservices@wqxr.org>, "Xavier L
Telly-Wambwa" <telly2552000@yahoo.com>, "Yahoo! UK & Ireland Sports" <
uk-sports@cc.yahoo-inc.com>, "Yolanda Cervera" <laxoli@gmail.com>,
"YourViews" <yourviews@cnn.com>, "Zailiang Tang" <zailiang.tang@siemens.com>,
<zhelp@zcommunications.org>, "Ziff Davis Enterprise" <
replybc@ziffdavisenterprise.com>, "Zog" <zog@ilsole24ore.it>, "Zuccato" <
federico@zuccato.com>




9 November MMXI

With my compliments...

Cordially...

ASJ




*A Strategy to Stem the European Calamity*









*This essay is dedicated to three fun-loving youngsters,*

*Lucio, Fabiola & Fiamma,*

*with the wish that they, in their world,*

*will not suffer the brutal stupidity*

*all of us have been subjected to...*









I harbor no delusions that what I am about to relate to you in this essay,
my dear reader, will be taken into any consideration—that it will even be
read by any one other than yourself. Notwithstanding, I am obliged to pen
it for “posterity.” If digested, it will be considered “Politically
Incorrect” by many. I relish that thought. The endeavor is divided into two
parts: ( A ) a scathing attack on the chicaneries I witness every day in
Italy; and, ( B ) a proposition that I hope will be thought of as an
intelligent beginning towards a partial solution to the self-destructive
muddle Europe now finds itself immersed in.

I find it *de rigueur *to flog The Boot—the European sovereignty I know
best. (Italy and Greece are not the only PIIGS [Portugal, Ireland, Italy,
Greece & Spain] falling apart at their seams in Europe—but we have to admit
Italians and Greeks do it best! *N'est pas? *In fact, Italy does *it *six
times *better *than Greece!) I regret this. But Italy needs a swift kick.
This Mediterranean regime is a child playing with fire. It thinks itself
clever when, in fact, it is more often than not ludicrous. Henry Kissinger
stated that Italians were victims of a unique, peculiar form of stupidity:
their presumptuous *furbizia *(cunning, shrewdness). An example of this
would be the following: In Italian newspapers, when Italian-Americans are
honored in the DisUnited States, they will be cited for their Italian
heritage. But when Italian-Americans rob banks in the DUS, they are
referred to as Americans. Perhaps it was Schopenhauer who best hit the nail
on the Italian personality head: “The most demonstrable character trait of
the Italians is a perfect impudence. This consists in not feeling too
unequal for whatever task—from where comes their presumptuousness and gall;
and, in not feeling too superior for any cause—from where comes their
meanness.” And *nasty* Italians can be. Listen to what an Italian
journalist has to say about his compatriots: “I have learnt that in Italy
you must speak well about everyone. When you say something bad about a
person, an uproar breaks out. The capacity to multiply hate by those
individuals whom have been spoken badly about is infinite. I don't hate,
and I don't want to be hated. I don't want to circulate malevolence. I live
in a nation of professional haters.”

Let us try to understand Italy—that enormous burden for the European Union
and its very self! It is the UE's third largest economy and its number one
corrupt bon ton (www.Transparency.org). The perverted Italian economy is a
can of worms that no one dares to open—for which no one wants to follow the
trail to the can opener. This wedge, this “brain power” is surely not
anymore decent enough to satisfy even the megalomaniac phantasies of
Vatican, Inc, organized crime someones, and the Italian oligarchic caste
system, this triumvirate of old farts, which has lead Italy deeper into The
Black Hole of Greed, Corruption & Stupidity. Ignorance is not always bliss,
Your Excellency! (Please, please...will someone enlighten me? How is it
possible that Mario Draghi, president of the *Banca d'Italia *[The Bank of
Italy], the most corrupt and mismanaged financial institution in Europe,
has come to be the president of the European Central Bank? Vatican, Inc
funny business? God works in strange ways, you say? Is it possible that no
one else in Europe—they in the know—hankers to be “prez” of the ECB because
they ken that the euro is bound to go out of business? That an Italian—the
Italians and Greeks have been the least supportive of the euro—will be left
holding the empty euro bag? So appropriate, I say!) *Il Principe, *Gianni
Agnelli, himself proclaimed that Italy was worse than a banana republic!
Please read Alen Mattich's editorial in the *Wall Street Journal *(11
October 2011) in which he accuses both Greece and Italy of cheating,
“cooking their books,” in order to qualify, in 1997, for entry into the
European Union. *Sono tremendi!*

Would I be being Politically Incorrect if I implied that Europe poses a
terror to the world more epochal than Iraq and Afghanistan combined? Would
I be being PI if I implied that European nations, at their throats for more
than two thousand years, out-doing themselves in the last century by
slaughtering an estimated two hundred million combatants and civilians,
might not be primed to assume an orientation of leadership congruent with
the realness of this our world? Would I be being PI if I implied that the
European continent is a hornet's nest, The Black Hole, *par excellence,* of
Greed, Corruption & Stupidity? Would I be being PI if I implied that the
debased Greece and Italy are blackmailing the rest of the members of the
European Union knowing only too well what the consequences would be if they
both defaulted? Would I be being PI if I implied that Europe is running out
of economic and political zip, and has been doing so for well-nigh thirty
years? Would I be being PI if I implied that Greece and Italy might have
been brought to the precipice of nonpayment by banksters to ensure the
dissolution of the European Union? Would I be being PI if I implied that
there exists a probability that the north of Europe and the south of Europe
will be fragmented into two hostile groups of nations doomed to bring about
an overturn or usurpation in European political affairs? Are we on the road
to World War III? Not an explosion but an implosion?







A





Authority is admired more in Italy than it is meted out expeditiously and
justly. That gap is excruciating for Italians. Italians are among the most
ignorant European citizens...The level of schooling amid those 25-64 years
of age is amongst the lowest in Europe...Only twenty-five percent of the
Italian population has an elementary school diploma...One of every five
fifteen-year-old boys or girls cannot read...Ten percent of the Italians
have a university degree...Five percent of the people between the ages of
16 and 65 are considered *extremely* unlettered...Sixty-six percent of the
Italians are labeled either high or medium illiterate...Only 38 persons out
of 100 read at least one book a year...Italy lacks public
libraries...Italians have little faith in others—mostly Italians
themselves...Italian teachers are the lowest paid...Italy is Europe's
leader of individuals lacking functional literary skills...Guess who spends
the least on university education?...What country believes more than any
others in Europe that Science does more harm than good?...Six of every ten
young adults in Italy live with their parents because they are unemployed
or cannot afford to buy a home...What European body politic spends a bit
more than Greece on research and development?...What nation has won, *per
capita*, the least amount of Nobel prizes?...Who leads Europe in the
absolute poverty classification?...The Italians have one of the lowest mean
incomes...One of the lowest foreign-born populations...There are more guns *per
capita* in Rome than in New York...Greece and Italy have one very
interesting statistic to share: They evade taxes more than any other nation
in Europe...Italy's government leads in public ownership and involvement in
business operations...Its wages are amongst the lowest...It leads in fatal
work injuries...The Greeks and Italians work more than any other country in
Europe but produce less...The racist Italians are world leaders in stomach
cancer (slow food?) and diabetes...They top the high employment and meager
work opportunities' list (Why saturate Libya with bombs when unemployed
Italians could be dropped into this African nation possessing such an
enormous potential?)...With the highest number of police personnel...They
are the least courteous in Europe...In the anti-Semite Italy, you'll find
the highest number of car thefts...In 2011, there were 644 personal
transport accidents in Italy during which drivers, after killing 95 and
maiming the others, escaped the scene of the accident without offering aid
to those individuals they had hit and run over...Where are all those
police?...Italians are the least charitable...Champions of Hypocrisy (Gian
Franco Funari)...Only the Greeks are more corrupt than the Italians...Italy
suffers the highest number of robbery victims...They head the list in
having the least amount of living space...The Italians use pesticides with
abandon...Mammals are threatened appreciably in Italy...The Boot has more
passenger cars than any other European nation...Twenty percent of the
Italian population is over 65 years of age...If you see a Greek or Italian
woman with tears in her eyes, ask her how many times she was slugged by her
boyfriend or husband last night...Women in Italy are lowest in the database
of their nation's leaders...Antepenultimate in the number of members in
their Parliament...Endmost in number in the work force...After the couch
potatoes in the DisUnited States and the DisUnited Kingdom, Italians lead
the world in watching television...Italians are drugged on legal drugs,
illegal drugs, television and their medieval history...They are so obsessed
with “Look,” they scan over the intrinsic values of life...Italians are on
the way to extinction...How is it possible that a nation with a tradition
of two thousand years, The Cradle of Western Civilization, could arrive at
the impasse it exists in now? Not even knowing how to regenerate its own
race?...*Are we to seriously believe that this conglomeration of negative
factors—Italy holds the world record for negative achievements—is up to
competing with the vicious French and German economies, much less the
global community? Obviously not!*





B





Europe might survive destitute of Greece. But a Greek plus Italian
insolvency is the dream of revanchists and Sun Tzu aficionados, and the
demise of the two would necessarily import an enormous financial asymmetry
that would reap unsought global repercussions. At face value, there exists
no intelligent motive to discard Greece and Italy. This European shame—this
sixth and smallest continent except Australia is not short on
disgrace!—would make the European community more of a laughing stock than
it already is. Tens of millions of Italians “console” themselves with the
fact that many other European countries *suffer *what they *suffer.* It is
demonstrable that Greece and Italy must be towed not only into line, they
have to be channeled into a fail-safe harbor where they might recuperate
from their childish proliferation of degeneracy and dissipation and
commence to be sound of mind and body—once again a model for the world and
a source of pride for all members of the European Union.

But in what manner? The answer is uncomplicated. So much so that all
reading this essay will chime in saying “Why didn't I think of that
before?” (I know why!). Europe has to bolt away from itself, from its
essence. Which is? The heart and soul of Europe is an incongruous
compounding of violence and treachery and exaltation and righteousness. No
will deny, apart from Europeans themselves, that the pro-con scales of
justice and good sense are considerably weighed *against *these profiteers
of history and culture. They have done just too much to prove that their
instincts are very often contrary to their self-professed ideals so much
recorded in the Old World's literature, philosophy and religious doctrine.
To escape from this eternal brainwashing will be both liberating and fun
loving. But first...

What occludes the European continent from bettering itself and what is
crucial to the letting-go of horribly rigid holds on itself, is the notion
of nationalism—that naughty word that brings immediately to mind the Past
of Europe, so frequently deliberately neglected, so often tossed casually
into the bin of forgetfulness with expectation of elimination. The History
of Europe is a bloodbath intermingled with scarce moments of heartsease
before the next carnage. Each European nation possesses an impression of
itself which is determined by its relation to another European country
often defined in terms of superiority (physical and mental) or inferiority
(corporeal and intellectual). When members of the European Union
congregate, whether for business or pleasure, they view each other not in a
spirit of concord, but with the observation, often suspicious, of what
their relationships together were in the Past. In this ambiance of
historical fragmentation and political and economic incoherence, it is
exceedingly problematic to join hands not only in a spirit of sodality, it
is still further sticky to hone ideas, profitable resolutions which would
tender to the European Union the metier and integrity it requires—not just
the mere semblance of it being so.

A coalescence, in real terms, of European nations is not longer an option.
To live on Europeans have no choice but to unify and do so in every sense
of the word. Monetary abidance is not sufficient. Political and social
cooperation must forge progressively, radically altering the mire of
slothful bureaucracies that impede a successful amalgamation of all
European Union members—citizens who, at this date, care to remain fixed at
home having no real intention to dislocate across their boundaries to live
in harmony with other European nationals.

To encourage this movement of individuals from one country to another
within the confines of the EU, a very serious inventory, a stocktaking of
each nation's qualities and shortcomings must be tabulated. Honest
assessments of a member country's true intellectual and commercial value
must be grouped and then contrasted with the other associate commonwealths.
If one sovereignty is lacking one quality, another could tender an offer to
help. If the Italian railway system is deficient, the Germans or French
could step up to aid Italy. Italy, on the other hand, might provide the
expertise needed by the Germans or French in a field the Italian people are
competent. So on and so forth... This sharing would invigorate people to go
beyond their own borders to seek employment in another part of the EU. With
a valid employment opportunity available and waiting for a worker, the
motive to apply would obviously be a great deal more captivating. The
process would “mix the *minestrone*” of European peoples, and solidify the
integrity of the EU making it more competitive and dynamic.

If the European Union fails to commingle, there are two trends—already in
motion—which might lead to very dire consequences:





1

Europe might become the economic playground of China as so predicted

by Professor Martin Jacques in his thought-provoking

*When China Rules the World:*

*The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and*

*the End of the Western World,*

(Allen Lane: An imprint of Penguin Books; London, 2009)

or,





2



Europe might risk a disintegration of itself into regions ruled by

organized crime consortia and vagabonding gangs as so prognosticated

by Alain Minc in his piquant

*Le Nouveau Moyen **Â**ge,*

(Êditions Gallimard; Paris, 1993)









Have a nice nightmare,



Western Civilization I

(Europe)

&

Western Civilization II!!!

(The DisUnited States of Northamerica)









*









Authored by Anthony St. John

Calenzano, Italy

October, MMXI

www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior

The author wishes to express his deepest appreciation to *City, *an Italian

complimentary daily handout, the Italian *Istituto Nazionale di Statistica,
*and,

above all, to Professor Peter Baldwin, professor of History,

University of California, Los Angeles, and author of

*The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America & Europe Are Alike*

*An Essay in Numbers *

(Oxford University Press; London & New York, 2009)

without whose exhaustive statistical information on Italy

this essay would have proved to be the less persuasive.

It is hoped that Professor Baldwin will not wake up one morning

in his Californian home and find the head of a dead horse in his bed; or,

if he is visiting Tuscany, it is trusted he will not find the caput of a
wild boar.









* * *
 ------------------------------
Anthony St. John
Casella Postale 38
50041 CALENZANO FI
Italia
Voice & Fax: 0558873228
Cellphone: 3356047381
Blog: www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior

-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to moderators+help@documentfoundation.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/moderators/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted