{"id":15682,"date":"2014-01-07T09:40:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T14:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=15682"},"modified":"2014-01-07T09:46:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T14:46:54","slug":"death-by-a-thousand-cuts-the-silent-assassination-of-european-democracy-by-don-quijones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2014\/01\/07\/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-the-silent-assassination-of-european-democracy-by-don-quijones\/","title":{"rendered":"Death By A Thousand Cuts: The Silent Assassination Of European Democracy By Don Quijones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Naked Capitalism<\/em> has featured the article <a title=\"Naked Capitalism post\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/2014\/01\/death-thousand-cuts-silent-assassination-european-democracy.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Death By A Thousand Cuts: The Silent Assassination Of European Democracy<\/strong><\/a> By Don Quijones.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As is gradually dawning on more and more people across the old continent, the European Union is riddled with fatal flaws and defects. Chief among them is the single currency which, rather than serving as the Union\u2019s springboard to global dominance, could well be its ultimate undoing.<\/p>\n<p>Another huge problem with the EU is its acute lack of transparency. Staggering as it may seem, in the last 20 years the Union has not passed a single audit. Indeed, so opaque is the state of its finances that in 2002 Marta Andreasen, the first ever professional accountant to serve as the Commission\u2019s Chief Accountant, refused to sign off the organization\u2019s 2001 accounts, citing concerns that the EU\u2019s accounting system was \u201copen to fraud.\u201d After taking her concerns public, Andreasen was suspended and then later sacked by the Commission.<\/p>\n<p>However, by far the EU\u2019s greatest \u2014 and certainly most dangerous \u2014 structural flaw is its gaping democratic deficit. To paraphrase Nigel Farage, the stridently anti-EU British MEP, not only is the EU undemocratic, it is fundamentally anti-democratic.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\nThe inevitable result is that decisions that viscerally affect the lives of 500 million voters are now taken by anonymous, unaccountable bureaucrats rather than politicians responsible to their voters. As Obourne points out, \u201cby a hideous paradox the European Union, set up as a way of avoiding a return to fascism in the post-war epoch, has since mutated into a way of avoiding democracy itself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>How much of the 1930s\/1940s experience are we going to repeat?\u00a0 If we have a second dip recession, will WW III follow?<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, this topic did not appear in the 155 answers to the question <a title=\"Edge question of the year for 2013\" href=\"http:\/\/edge.org\/responses\/what-should-we-be-worried-about\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>2013 : WHAT *SHOULD* WE BE WORRIED ABOUT?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Naked Capitalism has featured the article Death By A Thousand Cuts: The Silent Assassination Of European Democracy By Don Quijones. As is gradually dawning on more and more people across the old continent, the European Union is riddled with fatal flaws and defects. Chief among them is the single currency which, rather than serving as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15682"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15685,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15682\/revisions\/15685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}