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THE DELINQUENT STATE. Low educational levels or absence of ethics ? A study by Michael C. Mifsud. Europe can now be seen for what it is, in all its disorderly fiasco. A pretentious super state that only managed to exaggerate the faults of its individual members can hardly be brought to task without insisting that lessons be learnt. Lessons learnt by all concerned in the delusion. Being dismissive of reality - that of the chaotic state of the finances of many of its members will not wish it away. The political conflagrations of its members in the last year and of recent note, denotes something is just not going to go away despite the sugary pills put forward by European representatives in this respect. What we have heard and continue to do so, in the daily grind of the media is an amazing political mirage conditioned against the light of a horizon oasis that we all know, at heart, is not there. At member state level, the degree of ignorance and the tendency to sweep failings under the carpet rather than alert the curiosity of the electorate, is disquieting. All television debates garnering contributors, posing as experts on the question of fixing deficits and creating employment know no more than what they have read in the press that day. Their vacuous expressions with inane comments that go over the questions but not the answers are incredibly amateurish. Additionally, the absence of minds from across the countries of Europe reflect a political isolation bordering on racism. And what is worse, when foreign contributors are invited in for an outside comment, the manipulation of their time and the misguided do`s and don´ts ensure that no harm is done to the public image or anything said that could give the national trademark a cloudy smear. But then this is how it has always been with neodemocratic states doing their balancing acts.As a result, a musical chair situation pretends to solve and then replant doubts the following day. The electorate has responded with a red hot anger that was predictable to most except the bureaucrats and politicians waggling the strings. Sometimes, arguments are contrived to reflect entertainment rather than vital contribution to both lay and political audiences. For the serious students of economic structures and successful formulas as simple as import and export balances, such puerile interchanges are frustrating but then they stand very little chance of being able to be a member of those boring, selected few who seem to be the same in anything to do with public forum and debate. Today, almost two years into the crisis point, with 24 hours solutions still bandied by these experts and politicians, the situation is being seen, at last, as deceptive and grim. This has done little for the morale of the various Nations involved, but at least at the expense of the credibility of their lying politicians. Corruption at almost all quarters of the highest levels became evident, fairly recently, but the very educational standards and levels of intelligence of those on board national and local governments, have come to the fore. The Hidden Reality. A state of affairs caused by ignorance and greed has left little for those end contributors - the average man in the street who is now in a dazed and confused state if not busy running around rubbish containers for food to eat or things to sell. We are talking about countries that lectured the world on the strength of their banking systems and the quality of their Welfare only to find there was nothing there in the first place. The former comprising mainly of invisable holes and the latter incapable of sustaining even the most basic rights of the average Northern European welfare facilities. Dreams of competitive nationhood in the Southern and weaker countries of Europe have been shattered and today the blatant chauvanism that was there, has been replaced by an equally disagreeable portent of doom. It is a sad case of affairs. It means the loss of a dream for many millions – of a sense of insecurity and for a growing many, of interest in life itself. Increasing numbers of people take to suicide rather than face the loss of the home that the bank takes so crudely and despicably, despite being the culprits with their false claims and wantonly spent glossy marketing techniques. All carried out in the face of the local, National and Supranational Governments that ripped every household apart with taxes and demands that would have been classified as criminal in private enterprise. In fact, the banking system itself has broken every rule, including misrepresentation of its own products and stupidly supported soaring property prices. And why when central bank controls can modify the demand ? Greed . and the simple objective of share boosting margins and self remunerations that turned shareholders into guinea pigs. Europe has lived its pathetic dream by default and heavily will it pay for it. Despite the cries of the few Cassandras rooted in dismal recognition of the corruption, neglect and waste of those left to the strings of the purse, the gravy train hidden by party political smoke, managed to span the decades without as much as a token plea for moderation. A whimper at least, by those guardians who now appear to have been looking the other way, would have been gratifying for the future baby holders. But alas, it was not there and it still speaks volume by its absence and probably, continued flight towards the edge in peversive pursuit of their own false ideals. It is a frightening realisation of what many have suspected all along – that Europe was born of such stuff as dreams are made of by people who chose their own fellow travellers to carry out something as half baked as an army of bureaucrats posing as a central government without public mandate or accessible source of protection and control. With some States that is what its citizens really needed and sought. Cardboard Advisors. Ever growing suspicions of potential backhanders in the placement of professional advisors,by local, National and European political institutions are coming to light in recent cutbacks. Many are family and friends and most, politically correct assignees whose fees immediately inspire distrust. The in house leaks and finger pointing which are bringing it all to light may well reflect broken promises brought on by lack of formal paperwork. The most unlikely people from the most ill fitting backgrounds with little or no specialized experience were suddenly propelled to ridiculously highly paid European and member state institutional positions – almost as if they seriously needed to be put away somewhere. Occasionally their need to make public proclamations have highlighted what appears to be no more than a very basic understanding of professional requirements based on factual, independent study. In fact,very expensive puppets. As a result, the sharp interchanges caught by candid cameras on occasions in the EEC buildings between these and Heads of State or their Ministers, took on new meanings in what can be interpreted as indiscretions not caught in time. It may also be a question of the blind, in some cases, leading the blind. Faded leaders in European corridors. A curious feature of this super nation of unelected governors, is the appearance on its stage people who were no great exponents of statesmanship in their own countries and who now found themselves on superior leadership platforms pontificating to democratically bred citizens unused and perhaps bemused, by such unlikely influence. It takes little else to know who they are, but suffice it to say that the vacuum that surrounds them is born of the indifference raised by their lack of public accountability. Nominations by default constitute a serious lack of understanding of the olde democracies of Europe and what hurts really, is the added cost. But then how else can such an ill defined entity like Europe, forever avoiding sovereign recognition,be taken seriously when it emerges with a horrendously top heaven administration that appears to represent no one but its own elite ? The delincuent state has just about gone far enough before the inevitable climbdown. The sense of inside and outside the European citadel has been ever present and is a dualistic concept which puts the European citizen in somewhat of a quandary. On the one hand the nation that promised everything from standards to security by the simple token of joining it does not provide a direct access for personal grievances and retribution and on the other the member state authorities break every known ethical rule at increasing cost to the electorate without as much as granting it the benefit of an improved and safer existance. In fact, member states on the whole were all too willing to press the European identity whilst winking with sceptical crudity at those who could not see beyond the subsidies and loans. The average European national could be trapped in a disguised dictatorship without making the slightest difference to the sterile relationship with Euopean Barons. In fact one would suspect that they would actually find it amusing. To pay through the nose for an added authority and be deprived of superior, justice, welfare and social concern, is too much for the average national citizen to bear. It represents a fraudulent state of affairs. It means paying for something not readily available. It means for most in the wrong country,a useless membership guaranteed to obliterate the last vestiges of comfort and support by stronger and more lethal local bureaucracy out for blood. Why the whole thing therefore has not toppled over way back, is the real mystery. Europe must however not be lightly dismissed as something that generations throughout the millenia have been unable, for racial and ideological reasons, to put together meaningfully. In fact, perhaps from that point of view, the first few chapters of the message in the early seventies was originally well and truly sold. Most members of the present complex, actually viewed it with great hope for future comforts and indeed wealth. So much so that even now in the midst of what can only be called a social economic disaster, or even perhaps a denial of heritage, many still gaze vacantly at what they think will be resolved “ by Europe” itself. Even uniquely delincuent and less than democratic states which have scorned European goodwill, look over their shady shoulders for continued support, unwilling to face guilt or admit their ugly practices. And thereby hangs a tail, for the European concept, has, for many who have never seen so much money so readily available, been taken as an excuse to fleece the only ones who always pay the price for such follies – the average man in the street and the small unwary, unprepared investor. Europe´s “directors” can be blamed directly for that pitfall and perhaps it cannot see why, because of the white collar worker nature of the bulk of its management force looking straight ahead at their computer screens and personal ambitions. The spending carrot. The bureaucrat spends whatever becomes available in a string of immediate committments which need to have something else to get on with as soon as one is dealt with. It is the nature of the animal. Anything else is divisive and if there is something bureaucrats do not like its hassle or contradiction. Revision and control appears to belong to a different class of people. There is very little room in those rarefied atmospheres for business sense and lively competition. Ingenuity engendered effective management(and control)belongs to those whose own monies are at stake. In fact, leaving expenditure to committees of such people without an outside entrepreneurial factor controlling and conditioning the process is tantamount to negligence. Even more so, when consideration has to be taken of the fact that the very people who make up the “controlling forces” are representatives of those potentially beneficiary states it needs little imagination to see where their loyalties will lie. This increasingly obvious and perhaps one of the most repulsive aspects of nationals within positions of high favour in the corridors of Europe. Many politicians see these quangos as useful strings and often unfairly criticize and perhaps chastise them when they do not play the ball game they demand. Like Beckett, it could all become a bit of an embarrassment and certainly not of interest to the general whole. In fact, it has been increasingly obvious and very relevant in public remarks made by at least one newly appointed Chief Minister, that “milking Europe” had its champions.The words used, contained “champion borrower” and plenty of backslapping. Viewing the results of such foolhardiness today in the face of wanton corruption and waste, Europe would rank highly among those delincuent states by default. With its low level of financial transparency reflecting a visual albeit unintentional arrogance, the few cohesive elements are further deteriorated. Someone somewhere did not tell the administrators that people who were emerging from nothing with little to share or enjoy could not be trusted to invest in anything that did not have any other shape or form than their own personal and immediate needs. Like a carbon copy of the assault on the New World, very little was actually likely to filter through to the starving, refuse eating, masses of today. It is amazing however, that it was obvious to the general electorate that the reasons for participation on the part of the bulk of its membership was for the promised handouts which they had no intention of ever handing back. It is for this reason that time extensions form part of the policies utilised to scrape the bottom of the wilting barrel. But it is in Europe itself - in its loose management (rather than power), where the real failure lies. The question of application of strict disciplines, in exchange, only found the light of day in the present fracas with Greece which in any case is, as always, merely playing for time. But what of the structure of Europe itself and the hideous cost of its seemingly endlessly horizontal management ? Is this sort of expense, to only few contributing states, really fair and is the apathy of its long suffering citizens a conditioned response? Perhaps where delinquency applies to States, negligence applies to its citizens. What should have been a relatively simple debating Council of well chosen experts of the highest quality of ethical values and intelligence, became from the outset, a morasse of committees of expensive technocrats devoid of any sentiment other than to carve out niches for themselves at party political and institutional levels. It bears little thinking about. It is amazing that only, after a considerable number of years and use, did the term “cohesive funds” among others, become sufficiently familiar to the above average intelligent member of the communities to react on seeing them unsupervised and squandered. No self respecting, educated member of the community would have ever imagined that they came with no supervision. The results would have been predictable and public outcry not to mention the increasingly useless press, would have raised the alarm. In some countries business development funds were actually spent on Ministerial whims and in one acute case – drugs for a head of employment! A request for funding of a brothel by a mayor also enters the picture, but then thesw sort of situationa found echoes in many of the recipient states. Europe susequently became a bureaucratic version of survival of the fittest - a new strata of social function marginalising the rich and poor, the failures and successes, the workers and layabouts as it merely fed on the European handouts and became an invisible Oligarchy now coming to light. If private funds had been handled in this manner and the collection system even remotely associated with such blunt disregard to responsibilities, all their managers would have gone to jail. The delinquent state incorporates, abuse of privilege, irresponsibility, obtaining monies under false pretenses, deviation of funds, money laundering, knowingly hiding facts etc etc. but then of course the apathetic electorate has no stomach for a fight with the Goliath that can use its own money, willy nilly, to prove them wrong. Constitutions are a peculiar thing when it comes to bragging about defence of human rights they cannot uphold but then there is nothing peculiar about those who believe the State is the measure of right and the people it controls, most probably always wrong. Perhaps these constitutions should contain enough small print at least,warning users with respect to the flexible translation of its contents and the damage it can do to health?
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politics, europe, abuse of privilege, corruption, economics, european dream, taxation, unemployment,
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