The same thing, Mookie. You choose the perspective. You just have to, you'll become mad otherwise. Whether the perspective is good or bad is debatable, but people who are demanding history without a perspective are like me demanding physics to reverse the gravity so I'll have easier time picking apples from the higher branches of the tree. And they exist. Mind boggles. :-?


Not to mention that "Europe" hasn't been, is not and despite of the scaremongers most likely won't anytime soon effectively become one single nation. I, for example, find it funny to get categorized in the Europe that got saved from the Nazis in WW2, when in fact my countrymen were being shot at by American and British manufactured planes when fighting the Soviets. Though granted they were using American and British manufactured planes to do the same to their enemies.

Not to mention the swedes or the swiss as they don't fit either.
So instead lets mention Spain and Portugal, who saved them from the nazis ?
Are they not in europe or does their fascist regimes make it a bit more complicated?

We save our self, since we have a long tradition of "deseranscanço" (sorry can not translate this).
The fascist regimes of the Portugal and Spain were unique in same way, with similarities and differences with the fascist regimes.
The "Salazarism" can be put in the same bag as all the right-wing dictatorships but was very different Italian, German and even Spanish one. Salazar was a able international politician, that manage to get along with the devil and god in a manner of speaking.
The Azores matter caught the allies of guard. And we had our way of crazy things, the country mourn the death of a great german statist, Hitler (because he had that connotation here), with flags at half post and a few days after we celebrate the victory day and the end of war in Europe!:huh:
Of course that the soviet flag was not allowed to be show in that festivity...

You didn't saved us. You helped us. A lot.

If we take into account that if the war lasted a year longer my grandfather would have been killed I can say you saved me. Bu nation wise it was American help. A joint operation by the Allies and Resistance movements

With the recession, cold weather extending into Spring and soaring energy prices, many people in Britain are financially close to breaking point.

I'm not worried though, I'm moving to Cyprus next week.

Underlines the point nicely. You're Irish. I'm a Finn. We are both supposed to be Europeans, yet on national level I have much more in common with, say, the Russians than with the Irish. Yet we are somehow both supposed to be the same because one size fits all? :doh:

I don't adhere to the belief that we "saved" Europe but to play the Devils advocate for a moment one might make the argument that participating or not, helping the enemy or not, their defeat saved you from eventual subjugation by a power bent on world domination.

Welcome to the melting pot.

Yep, and thanks for the help.

Did you know that one of the SOE operatives Allied leaders used to communicate and with and supply the Yugoslav resistance was Christopher Lee (Saruman himself) and he frequently visited Slovenia and Croatia because of the war memories

The example I brought up is just one issue in the bigger problem that keeps popping up on this forum too: it's too simple to say "Euro this" and "Euro that" and there is no "Euros versus [insert group]". I don't consider anyone here better or worse because he happens to be from the same continent as I am. I'm not "Euro". It's about as silly to say that "The Africans" this or that. Europe is not a nation or a single entity.

I would argue that in the eyes of the rest of the world you pretty much are one entity. I do understand what you're saying though. I get the same feeling when people refer to us as "You Americans".

Well you guys are Americans, right? :O:

No arguments there, especially since that's what we are officially trying to become with the EU. But if you look at the history, that's not the case. To suddenly try to lump multiple nations, people, cultures and especially their pasts into "European history" and call them "Euros" is absurd. No sensible people would give up something as important to their identity as their history.

We can take and are indeed taking a more global perspective to it, sure, but in the end the basic components of "European history" are still Finnish history, German history, Polish history, Swedish history, Irish history...the list goes on. You don't see people lumping the history of all the North American nations into the "American history" either and wondering why the United States has such a huge problems with the drug cartels, since hey, Mexico is on the same continent so it's almost the same.


Yeah, I try to avoid that myself specifically because I find it equally silly to lump, what, 315 million people into just one group and know that the states have their own identities. The fact still remains that the United States is a nation and based on what I've observed, you are far more prone to talking about "us" than the people from Europe are.

Yep and darn proud of it! :salute:

If the EU crisis has achieved anything, then to illustrate to the world how deep the differences and the rifts over here are, the differences in lifestyles, political culture, mentalities, methods of understanding economy and business. And hoe easily people understand the EU to be a magic fountain that popurs down honey and money on everybody, while nobody cares for that the oeny is coming from somebody else, at his cost.

We are not one entity called Europe, not at all. The term "Europe" always and necessarily must imply the plural. There is little or nothing that links the Fin to the Maltese, the German to the Cypriot, the Polish to the Maltese. Different life styles. Different identities. Different - well, different everythings.

What politicians say - who cares for them anymore anyway. For them, denying realities that they do not like is part of their most favourite hobby.

Internatonally, diplomatically the EU is not seen as one actor, to, but a kindergarden speaking with many voices and some EU operetta stars yelling louder than all others. Chinese, Indians, Russians and even Obama bypass the EU representatives on internationall conferences sometimes, and make their talks without even giving the EU clowns a note on the meeting. So much for taking the Europeans as a serious entity. :)

I believe in separation. It is working nice in keeping peace, for it avoids the conflicts rising from enforced integration and crowding together different people that do not match well. Were there are separate camps, their is awareness and tolerance for differences without any need to defend oneself against the claims by the other that one must do like he does. Where there are different camps,l their blossoms trade. There is value-capital generated. Wealth not basing on debts and redistribution, but basing on products and goods. Local differences and leaving them different if they want, is great. It has the greatest chance of all scenarios to secure peace.

The EU wants to centelaise control, and deny differences, and force together what does not match well together, and making everybody available to every foreigner from somewhere else. That does not only cause economic havoc, as we see, it also turns the whole continent into a pressure cooker. In some places the emergency valves are already whistling and fuming. Ignore it some more time, and the whole damn thing will explode. Bon Appetit.