European Union wins Nobel Peace Prize for uniting continent

Oberon · 10-12-12, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joea

I respectfully disagree, I think the Cold War and presence of thousands of troops from the US and USSR and loads of nuclear weapons, "tactical" as well as strategic for 40 years helped keep the peace more than anything else, though economic growth-in France called "les trentes glorieuses" meaning the 30 years of growth in that country from about 1945-75 played a role, sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses

Not sure about the stats for other countries, I still maintain MAD was more important than the EEC and EU.

As for the Nobel peace prize, it already lost all credibility with me-I just feel bad the worthy scientific awards are possibly tarnished by association.

It certainly helped, I'm not going to deny it, and we will see over the coming twenty years if a period of peace equal to that of the Cold War can be maintained without the threat of MAD. It's been twenty-three years since the wall came down, so that concrete structure put in place during the Cold War has lasted this long, and the EU has certainly plastered over the cracks in it. Now the cracks are too big to plaster over, and the whole thing is in danger of collapsing...I do wonder if we'll be able to make forty-three years of peace in Western Europe. I hope so, I really do, but if the EU falls, all bets are off.

Quote:

Yeah, but what about the British against the CESM? Once and for all, sort it out! Winner takes all.

Don't they have a bigger military than us now? Could be 1066 all over again!

Herr-Berbunch · 10-12-12, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oberon

Don't they have a bigger military than us now? Could be 1066 all over again!

As long as we don't have two battles with the Norwegians before we'll be just fine.

Skybird · 10-12-12, 08:54 AM

You might be surprised, tyrant, but formally this decision is more acceptable than many others of recent years. The Peace Nobel prize was founded to reward merits already gained in the field of military arms reduction and achieving (in a military understanding) a state of peace in the world. Many decisions of the past have ignored this fundamental premise, and hijacked the award for other purposes, for political correctness, for gender sociology, and for hopes what the awarded person would do in the future (Obama on my mind), and I do not know what else. Seen that way, the award for the EU is more in line with the original intention, than on many other opportunities in the past.

However, this does not mean I am happy. The other major actor that secured peace in Europe, and imo did more to secure the freedom of a free Europe, is NATO, whose role during the cold war can hardly be overestimated. For its cold war role as well as the time of stabilizing European relations after WWII, NATO imo was more important than the EEC.

The EEC is no more, but got mutated into the EU, which is something very different by what it plans for the future. And while the EU's role bases on the heritage of the EEC, its record is anything but flawless. It failed miserably during the Balkan wars. It supported the powertaking of militant radicalism in certain Muslim countries during the Arab Spring. The Euro already is no guarantee for peace and friendship, but has become the originator of bitter and deep-reaching rifts between European nations. And as I just have read in German comment in a newspaper, it is to be feared that the already very reality-disconnected, distant actors in the spaceship Brussels will mistake this award as a confirmation of their doings and ideological intentions, which probably is wanted by the Nobel committee which thereby once again demasks itself not as a gremium rewarding past merits, but as an actively engaging actor that wants to influence the future on behalf of what can only be called the Gutmenschentum. Such an active, policy-forming role is not what Nobel wanted, and the criticism has often been raised now against the Nobel committee, I am by far not the first.

So, I can live with this decision slightly better than with a peace Nobel prize for Obama, Theresa or Arafat or the UN itself. Which is a statement only about the relative value of one decision compared to others. From an absolute perspective, I think the prize should have been limited to the EEC and EU pre-89, and excluding the post-EU . So I see little reason to make much angry noise about this decision today - but I also will not applaud it. There have been worst decisions in the past.

Jimbuna · 10-12-12, 11:42 AM

Did someone say Europe was at peace?

Possibly in terms of open warfare but not in terms of finance, politics, mutual interests etc. etc.

Hawk66 · 10-12-12, 12:36 PM

Sorry, but I really cannot understand this EU bashing...is this a kind of sports here ? Is this a dislike of big organizations?

I also agree that without NATO there would no be free Europe today and it is a shame that a some of my countrymen have already forgotten that.

But the EU played a vital role in the unification of commerce, economics and non-security politics.

What do you expect when more than 20 countries have to find compromises, whose political leaders follow (and have to follow) national interests?

What is the alternative? Europe before WWII ? And no we cannot copy the model of this nice, lovely Switzerland; because this model does not scale!

Skybird · 10-12-12, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hawk66

Sorry, but I really cannot understand this EU bashing...is this a kind of sports here ? Is this a dislike of big organizations?

I also agree that without NATO there would no be free Europe today and it is a shame that a some of my countrymen have already forgotten that.

But the EU played a vital role in the unification of commerce, economics and non-security politics.

What do you expect when more than 20 countries have to find compromises, whose political leaders follow (and have to follow) national interests?

What is the alternative? Europe before WWII ? And no we cannot copy the model of this nice, lovely Switzerland; because this model does not scale!

It begins with that the EU is not Europe and that Europe is not the EU.

And that "Europe" always means an implicit plural. A single "European identity" never existed in the meaning of singular.

The EU is the antithesis to what you - and me - probably wishes Europe to be. And it matches formidable parallels to the power system and hierarchy structure of the former Soviet Union. Like the Federal republic of Germany today has more similiarities with the GDR than anyone can feel comfortable with.

We have a joke over here in Germany: that Merkel is Honnecker's late revenge at the "BRD" (=Bundesrepublik Deutschland=Westgermany).

I am for Europe. Thats why I am necessarily against the EU.

BTW, economic cooperation we already had with the EEC, the unification of commerce is a disaster that cripples member states more and more, and the unification of non-security policies is nsom,ethgignthey can shove deep inside their lower bottoms and serves as a foul excuse for sticking their impertinent noses deep and deeper into things that they must not be interested in and that they nevertheless want to control in the nbame of control and in order to destroy ethnic and cultural diversities of European cultures. What the EU does in this regard, in principle is not different to the ambitions of Stalinistic Russia, and Yugoslavia, or the Danube monarchy. All failed in the end, all entities fell apart in violence. It will not be different with this monster EU, I think.

The bad thing is it will be violent. The good thing is it will happen nevertheless. Force together diverse things of too great differences, and you sow the seed of future conflict. The EU - to me is a self-fullfilling prophecy. It will create right the drama that it - wrongly - claims to prevent.

dcb · 10-12-12, 03:10 PM

"The Europe that I love is a Europe of diversity, of culture, of individual nations" - Nigel Farage.
Here is a very insightful - and recent - speech of a great politician, who is not afraid to speak up his mind.

This guy is right, and the EU has turned into a big and costly bureaucracy that annihilates the idea of nations and imposes a new kind of Comecon upon small nations.

This is the same kind of "totalitarian peace" that existed in the former Soviet block before 1990.

Just ask the Greeks, Poles, Hungarians, Spanish, Portuguese or my Romanians what they think about "melting" into an artificial and supranational structure that imposes its ways to everybody, no matter the cost, a "big brother" that acts to the best political interest of big states.

The EU was a great idea while it was about independent nations working together. Now, when they want to build by force the United States of Europe, it turned into an oppressing bureaucracy and is rapidly forgetting the basics of democracy.

They could as well have awarded the Nobel to the defunct Soviet Union, for averting the wars that shattered the ex-Soviet space after its dissolution.

10-12-12, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Here is a very insightful - and recent - speech of a great politician, who is not afraid to speak up his mind.

Is that the same "I am not making this up" Nigel Farage?

10-12-12, 08:54 AM	#3
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,615 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	You might be surprised, tyrant, but formally this decision is more acceptable than many others of recent years. The Peace Nobel prize was founded to reward merits already gained in the field of military arms reduction and achieving (in a military understanding) a state of peace in the world. Many decisions of the past have ignored this fundamental premise, and hijacked the award for other purposes, for political correctness, for gender sociology, and for hopes what the awarded person would do in the future (Obama on my mind), and I do not know what else. Seen that way, the award for the EU is more in line with the original intention, than on many other opportunities in the past. However, this does not mean I am happy. The other major actor that secured peace in Europe, and imo did more to secure the freedom of a free Europe, is NATO, whose role during the cold war can hardly be overestimated. For its cold war role as well as the time of stabilizing European relations after WWII, NATO imo was more important than the EEC. The EEC is no more, but got mutated into the EU, which is something very different by what it plans for the future. And while the EU's role bases on the heritage of the EEC, its record is anything but flawless. It failed miserably during the Balkan wars. It supported the powertaking of militant radicalism in certain Muslim countries during the Arab Spring. The Euro already is no guarantee for peace and friendship, but has become the originator of bitter and deep-reaching rifts between European nations. And as I just have read in German comment in a newspaper, it is to be feared that the already very reality-disconnected, distant actors in the spaceship Brussels will mistake this award as a confirmation of their doings and ideological intentions, which probably is wanted by the Nobel committee which thereby once again demasks itself not as a gremium rewarding past merits, but as an actively engaging actor that wants to influence the future on behalf of what can only be called the Gutmenschentum. Such an active, policy-forming role is not what Nobel wanted, and the criticism has often been raised now against the Nobel committee, I am by far not the first. So, I can live with this decision slightly better than with a peace Nobel prize for Obama, Theresa or Arafat or the UN itself. Which is a statement only about the relative value of one decision compared to others. From an absolute perspective, I think the prize should have been limited to the EEC and EU pre-89, and excluding the post-EU . So I see little reason to make much angry noise about this decision today - but I also will not applaud it. There have been worst decisions in the past. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

10-12-12, 11:42 AM	#4
Jimbuna Chief of the Boat Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: 250 metres below the surface Posts: 190,525 Downloads: 63 Uploads: 13	Did someone say Europe was at peace? Possibly in terms of open warfare but not in terms of finance, politics, mutual interests etc. etc. __________________ Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. Oh my God, not again!!

10-12-12, 12:36 PM	#5
Hawk66 Commodore Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 609 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	Sorry, but I really cannot understand this EU bashing...is this a kind of sports here ? Is this a dislike of big organizations? I also agree that without NATO there would no be free Europe today and it is a shame that a some of my countrymen have already forgotten that. But the EU played a vital role in the unification of commerce, economics and non-security politics. What do you expect when more than 20 countries have to find compromises, whose political leaders follow (and have to follow) national interests? What is the alternative? Europe before WWII ? And no we cannot copy the model of this nice, lovely Switzerland; because this model does not scale!

10-12-12, 03:10 PM	#7
dcb Grey Wolf Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Bucharest, Romania Posts: 845 Downloads: 544 Uploads: 0	"The Europe that I love is a Europe of diversity, of culture, of individual nations" - Nigel Farage. Here is a very insightful - and recent - speech of a great politician, who is not afraid to speak up his mind. This guy is right, and the EU has turned into a big and costly bureaucracy that annihilates the idea of nations and imposes a new kind of Comecon upon small nations. This is the same kind of "totalitarian peace" that existed in the former Soviet block before 1990. Just ask the Greeks, Poles, Hungarians, Spanish, Portuguese or my Romanians what they think about "melting" into an artificial and supranational structure that imposes its ways to everybody, no matter the cost, a "big brother" that acts to the best political interest of big states. The EU was a great idea while it was about independent nations working together. Now, when they want to build by force the United States of Europe, it turned into an oppressing bureaucracy and is rapidly forgetting the basics of democracy. They could as well have awarded the Nobel to the defunct Soviet Union, for averting the wars that shattered the ex-Soviet space after its dissolution.