Posted on 09/14/2004 12:39:32 PM PDT by Pikamax
Art show sees Europe as 'new Roman Empire' By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels (Filed: 14/09/2004)
The European Union is poised to overtake America to become the premier superpower, according to an EU exhibition launched yesterday in the heart of Brussels.
The pop-art collage mounted in a tent outside the European Commission narrates 50 years of EU history and projects events into the future in an unusually frank display of European ambition.
Segments sketched across 80 yards of canvas predict that the 21st century will be the "European Century" as the EU pushes its borders deep into Eurasia, North Africa, and the Middle East and comes to dominate world affairs through its vast "legal and moral reach".
Under the heading the "Roman Empire returns", it says the EU will be renamed "The Union" once it grows to 50 states over the next three decades.
The United Nations headquarters will be moved to Gibraltar as the EU defends the international order against the "American onslaught".
The euro will break the "overbearing monopoly of the dollar" by 2010 as China and India switch their reserves to punish America for its "stratospheric deficit".
Casting the United States as the villain of modern times, it says: "The lonely superpower can bribe, bully or impose its will almost anywhere in the world, but when its back is turned, its policy is weakened."
Entitled "The Image of Europe", the display is not a formal expression of EU policy but it captures views that can be heard every day in the corridors and canteens of the Union's institutions.
The exhibit was co-ordinated by the European Commission and sponsored by the European Council. The EU's Dutch presidency said yesterday it was designed to narrow Europe's "iconographic deficit" by conjuring up forceful images.
Well, I guess that makes the US the Turks...
... I'm trying so hard not to laugh... oh, screw it.
BWAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!
And they are inviting the Huns to come live with them.
Oh, yes. I recall Gibbon chronicling how the Romans subdued three continents with an irresistible army of diplomats and lawyers.
Sorry, kids, "we'll be in charge because we deserve it" doesn't cut it in the hard, old world. But nice try.
So the Euro-trash wish. Yeah their real stable. After all they have done such a terrific job in policing their own back yard in Bosnia, Kosovo and Croatia.
Segments sketched across 80 yards of canvas predict that the 21st century will be the "European Century" as the EU pushes its borders deep into Eurasia, North Africa, and the Middle East and comes to dominate world affairs through its vast "legal and moral reach".This is post-modern version of gathering in the Hagia Sophia and praying for the angels to save you.
In the days of the Empire's decline, the proletarian class of Rome neither earned wages or owned property.
Rome was ruled and owned by a caste of wealthy landowners and all the actual work was done by foreigner servants imported from abroad.
The average Roman citizen, although poor, considered himself to be above work. Since this idle group of losers had little to do except complain and riot when left to their own devices, the upper classes famously gave them "bread and circuses" - free food and games at the coliseum - in order to pacify and distract them.
In today's Europe there are, of course, a caste of superrich and a caste of foreign servants. And there is an enormous middle class that believes itself to be above working, works as little as possible and this class is ready to riot or strike at a moment's notice. So the masters give them the welfare state for free food and football for circuses.
Between socialism, isolationism, and a rapidly growing Middle Eastern population, I think Europe's in for real problems in this century.
Along with the US, the real players of the future will be on the Pacific Rim.
Julius Caesar is turning over in his grave right about now.
"All Gaul is divided into three parts; Antiamericium, Appeasementium, and Arrogantium."
France is the enemy - France has always been the enemy.
Like that's going to happen.
the innovation which will drive leadership in this world will come from the US, and from Asia, in no way Europe.
It is likely that the WWW will destroy the EU socialist mindset if the Ayrabs don't do it first.
The US will still be standing tall in fifty years, (of course estaremos hablando espanol -- but one has to ask whether they would prefer to meld with the culture of mohammed and osama bin laden or the culture of cervantes, neruda and ortega-y-gasset. the melding will occur regardless of our desires in this matter.)
This goes hand in hand with the prophecies in the book of Daniel and in Revelations.
That's exactly why I'm an isolationist and a nationalist. The euros have become like spoiled children. We give them everything and they want more. We should and need to withdraw from all peace keeping operations, cut foreign aid, withdraw troops from germany, and withdraw from NATO. Let the world go to hell for a few years and that will make the appreciate us. If we continue to do everything for them, they will continue to be ungrateful.
It doesn't matter though, Europe will be a province of the Grand Caliphate by 2050 if not sooner at the rate they are going. And the kicker is we will probably have to go Crusade (again, if you count WWII) to save this aspiring New Rome, just like that last New Rome needed saving from the Muhammadans.
This isn't surprising. I've always thought that Europeans have always yearned for the return of the Roman Empire ever since that empire fell. That accounts for the Holy Roman Empire, the Tsars and Kaisers (caesars), and the Reichs and various other empires, etc., along with their current efforts.
:)
Pride before the fall.
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