16 July 2005

Summertime Rolls

Okay, so I’ve got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first? Well, I can't hear you, so I’m gonna assume you said the bad news. If you didn’t, well, skip down past the next paragraph and then scroll back up later; I’ll let you know when it’s safe.
The bad news is that there isn’t enough money in the University’s fall budget to pay for my position, which means that, contrary to expectations, I will not be coming back to work at the library on August 13. That’s a bit of a blow. I’ll have to start looking for work again, which I sincerely hate. But, that’s life under capitalism.
The good news is that the job I have, the research job I told you about a few days ago, has just gotten far less odious. You’ll remember my problem here, I expect: I was using the Congressional Record, which at Marshall is stored in the Government Documents library. GovDocs closes at 4:30, so in order to spend a decent time each day researching, I had to get up much earlier than I’m used to (I don’t usually get up ‘til about 2:00, and sometimes later). Plus, the CR is all on microfilm, and a few hours of reading microfilm will melt yer brain for ya. Finally, there aren’t any computers in GovDocs (besides the OPACs, which are for finding materials, not typing on), so I had to take all my notes by notes by hand. As a general rule, the only thing I ever write out by hand is my signature on a bar tab; and if they’d take a rubber stamp, I wouldn’t even do that. My handwriting is only barely legible, even to me. And (perhaps because I’m out of practice) writing for more than a few minutes gives me terrible cramps in my hand and wrist.
Never fear for your long-suffering Ogre, however, for relief turned out to be right around the next corner: I found that the main library has the Congressional Quarterly. This very excellent publication goes into detail on each piece of legislation that comes up before Congress, and includes the roll-call votes on each issue.
Why is this so wonderful, you ask? Well, it takes care of all three major problems with having to go to GovDocs. First, the main library stays open ‘til 8:00 during summer, and is attached to the study center, which is open 24 hours. The CQ volumes are reference books, so I can’t check them out, but I can take them into the study center with me. So, forget getting up early. As long as I get to the library before eight, I can carry whichever volume of the CQ I’m using over to there and work all night if I like. Thus I avoid most people, and can easily slip outside for smoke breaks. Last night I worked ‘til 5:00 AM, and probably got more work done than I did the first two weeks combined. Piece of cake.
Second, the CQ is in book form. I can read books for hours without any problem. Anything that lets me avoid microfilm is good news. Plus, it’s much easier to check various sections within the same book than it is to do the same on microfilm, as you might have guessed. Using a hardcopy for research streamlines operations immeasurably. Did I mention how much I got done last night?
Third, the study center is chock full of computers. I haven’t taken a single handwritten note since I’ve moved over here. My wrists and fingers are so happy. And I type much faster than I write. Also, if all my notes had been hand-written, I would have had to type them all up before I could have given them to the filmmakers. Being able to type them as I go further streamlines the process. Once again, got a lot done last night. Have you gathered that yet?
So, there’s the good news. I can do twice, maybe even three times the work over here that I could over there, and I’m happier doing it. And all that being said, them amongst ya as skipped the bad news can go back up top now.
* * * * * * *
So it’s summertime. It took a long time to get warm here in Huntington, but we seem to have settled in to the summertime groove at last. I’m changing my habits along with the seasons, as I always do. Wintertime Ogre has been put away (he sticks around through the spring, although he wears less clothing) and Summertime Ogre, Happy Sunshine Ogre, Ogre aestate, is rolling.
The principal difference in summer is that I spend less time in bars. This is obvious right now, of course, but even if I was still going to Hank’s I’d be there less. I’d spend a lot of time taking walks at night, sitting in the park or the Quad drinking and reading and thinking, and would kind of wander in and out of Hank’s to see what everyone was up to occasionally. I use bars to escape the afternoon sun in summer, but at night I wanna be out and about, not chained to a barstool.
I think also that part of the reason I spend less time over summer in bars, and more outside, drinking store-bought alcohol and spending little or no money, is that summer, historically, has been kind of a dry time for me financially. When I was young, summer was when the wanderlust was strongest, and I couldn’t bear to stay in any one place for long. As a result, I rarely had steady work in summer, and being warm kind of evokes a reflex in my soul that revolts against spending money.
Of course, for the last few years I’ve been pretty sedentary and have had steady jobs: working in bars, and working at the library. But my library job vanishes over the summer, and then I come back in the fall (well, until this year, anyway). Now, the library paid enough to cover my bills, so the money I made at the bar was mine to do whatever I wanted with. I built up a decent pile of savings. I bought maybe ten or twelve new books a month, along with two or three records and a couple of Rotten Cotton T-shirts. I ate good food as much as possible, and drank quality liquor almost without exception, and so forth. But in summer that bar money had to go to the rent and electric and phone, so I lived a little less large.
This summer, of course, is going to be more cash-strapped than usual, ‘cause there’s no bar job at all (the pay doing research pales in comparison) and there isn’t a library at the end of the tunnel. But that’s okay. As long as the bills get paid and I can drink a bottle of wine in the park, I’m happy.
* * * * * * *
Tastes change in summer, as well. I listen to different music in hot weather, certainly. I listen to Jane’s Addiction all the time (named this post in their honor, actually), and Zombie (my generic name for the combined Rob Zombie/White Zombie catalog) as well, but I dig it more when it’s hot. And some things, like Creedence Clearwater Revival and Steve Miller and the Beach Boys, I listen to only in summer.
Creedence, in particular, is pure summertime music. Growing up in Richmond (if you grew up without air conditioning, anyway) meant being outside on a lot of days when the temperature was an even 100º and the humidity was at around 85-90%. In those circumstances you grab a lawn chair, sit in the shade of a big tree or a decent front porch with a great big sweet tea or a whiskey rocks (depending on age and habits). You read a good book or talk to a close friend, and listen to Creedence while you wait for the rain.
And in a Richmond summer, the rain is coming. It rains just about every day in summer there, which is the only mercy granted us. Dry days are uncommon enough that you use them to remember when something happened (“It was Tuesday or Wednesday, I think… remember that day last week when it didn’t rain?”). And we get storms coming in off the ocean; serious all-day eight-hour storms that folks in Huntington or Dayton or St. Louis or whatever have little experience of, storms where you can hear the roar of the rain's approach before it gets to you, where you walk out into the street and see the wall of water rushing towards you.
Anyway, yeah, in a Richmond summer you spend a lot of time waiting for the rain, and Creedence and a good book are perfect pastimes while you wait. I read different things in summer than in winter, too. Flannery O’Connor is a favorite summer read. Every summer I do a bunch of her short stories, and maybe The Violent Bear It Away or something like that. She suits me, because she writes the way I talk, or writes in my voice, or whatever the fancy term is that literary people use. I mean, I read her out loud to myself, and it sounds so perfect and natural. I really enjoy that. A little Flannery every summer is a treat I look forward to, but I never read her in cold weather.
This summer I’m devoting to the classics (I was gonna devote it to French cooking, but I can’t afford the ingredients). I just finished David Copperfield (usually a cold-weather book, but I made an exception). I’ve been reading lots of John Steinbeck, another summertime author. I just checked out For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Sun Also Rises to satisfy my Hemingway jones, and I’m in the process of reading Don Quixote, which I’ve heard called the first modern novel (I have no opinion on the veracity of this statement; I include it to fill space).
I don’t know if you’ve ever read Don Quixote. This is my first time, and I’m the first person to check this out of the library since Daddy Bush was in the White House, so apparently it doesn’t fly off the shelves anymore. Anyway, I didn’t know much about it really, but I thought I did. It isn’t at all what I expected.
In the first place, I assumed it would be the tale of the gradual descent-into-madness of a Spanish nobleman. But no, he’s crazy as shit on the first page and is out carrying his crazy to the world by page four or so.
In the second place, I expected it to be serious. I mean, I know the whole tilting at windmills thing is kinda goofy, but I thought the tone of the book would be serious. But no, Cervantes wrote a comedy here, consciously and conspicuously. It’s full of little jokes and dry humor and ridiculous situations, sometimes to the point where you think you’re reading the script of a Monty Python routine. Not at all what I expected. You don’t think of people from long ago being really funny, at least not intentionally. But Cervantes is, and his novel is a damn good summertime read.
* * * * * * *
The other thing that changes in summer is my drinking. I don’t drink any less, but what I drink changes.
Those of you who know me (or read this thing regularly) know that the overwhelming majority of my alcohol intake comes in the form of whiskey, single-malt scotch when I can afford it, preferably Glenlivet, always on the rocks. When I’m broke (and sometimes when I’m not) I’m not above cheap old blended whiskeys, which are passable if mixed with water, and can cool you down considerably when it’s ugly hot. Whiskey makes up probably a good 70-75% of what I drink, no matter the weather.
Outside of that, rum and wine probably combine for about another 15-20%. Wine I drink more in hot weather, and rum less. I drink almost no beer; if you see me drinking beer, it means I’m broke or sick (beer’s good for curing hangovers, heartburn, and upset stomachs). When I do drink beer, it’s Rolling Rock, or if I’m in a backwater hole-in-the-wall that doesn’t carry that, High Life or Honey Brown. But mostly it’s whiskey, wine, and rum. To all practical purposes, I don’t drink anything else.
Certainly, I’m not a vodka drinker. I’ve discovered over the years that, whereas whiskey makes me loose and jolly, and wine makes me philosophical, and rum makes me kinda giddy and boisterous, vodka makes me mean as hell. I don’t know why, but I can’t drink much of it without getting vicious. I could tell you some stories about me drinking vodka that would curl your toes; maybe that’ll be a subject for a later post. I do love Katy’s White Russians, but I usually start with those and then have a beer or two while she closes up. My vodka intake is strictly limited.
But in hot weather, again, you make exceptions. Most of the vodka I do drink, I drink in summer. Nothing is better when you’re hot and worn out than a vodka and 7-Up with a slice of lime. In hot weather I actually keep a bottle of cheap vodka in my apartment in case of emergencies. I won’t drink very many of them, maybe two, before moving on to something else; but those two drinks are profoundly refreshing, and I’d hate to be without them when it’s hot.
* * * * * * *
The extra summer wine consumption probably contributes to another change in my behavior. I become much more political in hot weather. Like I say, wine makes me philosophical, but being me, I’m not really into metaphysics or linguistics. Philosophy, to me, is political and economic. My heroes aren’t Kant and Aristotle, they’re John Stuart Mill and J.J. Rousseau, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, and of course John Rawls, though I wish he was a bit less cumbersome. My philosophy, my whole belief pattern, is about justice and beauty, the only two things in the whole world that really matter.
So, I get philosophical in hot weather, and I get caught up in politics much more than in the winter (not that I ignore politics then, either). One particular manifestation of this is my continuing dream to write a volume of my own, a coherent political philosophy. I study this subject a lot, you see, and though most political philosophies have something worthwhile to offer, each on its own leaves me, to varying degrees, unsatisfied. I’m generally leftist, but philosophies of both left and right leave much to be desired. It’s my opinion that we desperately need a new way of looking at the world, our relation to it, and our relation to each other. Some kind of synthesis, you know? I don’t know where that new system is gonna come from, but I suppose (in my more arrogant moments) that it might as well come from me.
There’s a small problem with this, though, which is that, as a younger man, I didn’t really believe anything in particular. I was more of a devil’s advocate; whatever anyone else believed, I tried to tear down. So I would go from arguing, say, pro-choice principles in the afternoon to a hard-core pro-life stance over dinner. On Monday I wanted the death penalty abolished, but on Tuesday I would talk of "thinning the herd." The result is that, though I have now come to believe in the truth of certain positions, I understand both sides of most issues (though some things just strike me as obvious bullshit, or demonstrably and unarguably correct), and when I try to express my larger beliefs in words, I end up with a whole passel of asides and exceptions and caveats.
This is a problem, because I want to systematize what I believe into a simple, straightforward manifesto. But, you know, even if you’re sure what you want to say (and again, in some cases I’m not), it’s really hard to organize thoughts on a subject that big in a way that they’ll make sense. It’s an enormous project. Every summer I start it afresh, and every winter finds it still undone. I probably never will finish, but it’s a nice dream.
* * * * * * *
So, that’s summer. Different books, different music, different drinks, different settings, different outlooks. It’s funny how much the weather affects us, being the rational and dominant species that we are. No matter how smart we get, no matter how much control we exert over the natural world, the world still exerts a considerable control over us, doesn’t it? We may be the kingfish on this planet, but ultimately we’re still very small fish in a VERY big pond. That’s always a comfort to me, really.
Humans seem so terribly small and weak to me, and I tend so much to contempt for most of them, that the idea of the world itself being so much greater than us, the knowledge that she’ll be here still long after we’re gone, is very cheering to me; and nothing (outside of the odd earthquake or tsunami) demonstrates her power over us better than the change of seasons. I revel, especially in summer, in belonging to her. Tell me, how different is your life now than it was in January, or will be in November? How much does the world itself affect your tastes and desires and pleasures?
* * * * * * *
"For we are held by more than the force of gravity to the earth. It is the entity from which we are sprung, and that into which we are dissolved in time. It is the calendar of life as we know it, from the time of origin. Human evolution, like a vagrant moment in geologic time, is there, deep in the comprehensive earth. The blood of the whole human race is invested in it. We are moored there, rooted as surely, as deeply as are the ancient redwoods or bristlecones."
--N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain
"…the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we shall ever need—if only we had the eyes to see."
--Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

05 July 2005

The Star-Spangled Banner

So, it’s super-patriot time, the Fourth of July, and everybody’s celebrating the nation’s birthday. Me, I don’t celebrate holidays, except that every year on Labor Day and Memorial Day I raise a glass to those who struggled and died for my benefit. A solemn moment, and then back to the business of living.
For the most part, holidays are a terrible inconvenience to me. Everything is closed period or closes early. Liquor stores in particular have a bad habit of closing up on holidays. Many businesses can't be bothered to open up, though; and the libraries are shut, which means no internet access for me. Plus, many holidays are an excuse for amateurs to go out drinking, a complaint I levied in an earlier post. I hate having those people around.
Thanksgiving is probably my least favorite holiday, because it’s so phony from the ground up, and always has been. I promise I’ll write a lengthy screed about that come November. Also, because I’m me, I tend to dislike any holiday with religious overtones. So Christmas and Easter are definitely out, and Thanksgiving and Halloween (speaking of non-Christian religious folks here) definitely have their share of religious posturing going on. Compared to these holidays, the Fourth is okay, I suppose. But I still have my problems with it.
I’ve never understood why we celebrate July 4th as the nation’s birthday, anyways. I mean, all that happened on the Fourth was that we proclaimed our independence. Do you know what that proclamation amounted to? Not shit. We had a war to fight, and until that was won, the Declaration was just a bit of paper. It was like a twelve-year-old telling his parents “You’re not the boss of me!” Say it all you want, kid, but Mom and Dad are still in charge.
I don’t understand why we don’t celebrate October 19th, which is when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, effectively ending the war and guaranteeing independence. How about June 21st, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify our Constitution, thereby making it the legal basis for our government? Or March 4th, when it officially went into effect? Any of these, in my opinion, would be a better choice for a national birthday.
You can stretch this argument further, of course. I’m one of those people who believe that the United States didn’t really become a nation until after the Civil War (before that we were a bunch of small, semi-independent political units; since, we’ve been one nation with the preponderance of power vested in the central government). So, why not April 9th, the date of Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, as a national birthday?
I don’t want to get into this too deeply, because really the argument can’t be won. The Fourth has become too large a part of our national consciousness now to change it, and I don’t suppose any particular purpose would be served by doing it anyway. People remember things the way they want to remember them. And I’ve got something more important I wanna argue about, anyway.
* * * * * * *
You might have gathered from reading these posts that I tend a bit to the left of the political spectrum. I know I don’t spend a lot of time discussing politics here, but I do occasionally, and I expect my slant comes through. I don’t think I’m unreasonable, as most people (both left and right) are, but some of my views are pretty radical, given the generally conservative drift of public discourse in our country today.
The problem with being on the left when the people running the media are on the right is that you get characterized a lot by views that you don’t actually hold. This is pervasive, and I hear it all the time. I can't tell you how many people, on realizing that I'm a leftist, attribute beliefs to me that aren't mine. One of the big things I hear is that, because I opposed the war in Iraq and think the President is kinda goofy and have a lot of fondness in my heart for France and Germany, I hate my country.
Let me say right now that nothing could be further from the truth. I love my country very much. Sure, I pick on it a lot, but I pick on my family a lot, too, and no one tries to tell me I hate my mom or my siblings. The fact is, our country is an easy target sometimes. We can be silly and simple-minded and shallow, and sometimes we can be mean and spiteful, and when those times come, I think it’s irresponsible not to talk about it and try to do something about it. I don’t hate my country at all; I love it so much that I want it to be perfect, and I want to push it towards perfection. I’m not just gonna sit here and watch our great traditions destroyed, our core beliefs trampled, without saying something. That’s what loving your country really means: not silence, but speech (both critical and laudatory). Stop whispering, start shouting!
* * * * * * *
Now, all that being said, there is one thing I really hate about my country. I hope I don’t offend too many people by saying this, but…I can’t stand “The Star Spangled Banner.” My God, what a clunker. Whose bright idea was it to make song that not one in ten Americans can sound good singing into the National Anthem? I mean, really. Even professionals routinely flub it before ballgames. It’s embarrassing. Plus, there’s no real ebb and flow to the lyrics. They just aren’t that memorable. Here’s a fun classroom activity: take an informal poll among your friends. I bet less than half can remember all the words even to the first verse, and if you can find ANYONE who knows all four verses off the top of his head, I’ll buy the both of you a drink.
If you do know all four verses, well, that’s kinda sad, but also you’ll note that there’s a problem that comes farther along in the song. The whole fourth verse is dedicated to praising "the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation." Now, given all the trouble we’ve had lately about “In God We Trust” (or, as Key puts it, "In God is our trust") and “One Nation, Under God,” and whether we can have the Ten Commandments in courthouses, this seems maybe a little too controversial to me. And don’t get me wrong; I’m a man who loves his daily dose of controversy. Still, since this is our national anthem and, presumably, is supposed to represent all of us, wouldn’t a song that didn’t reference the divine creator be a better choice? I know that Daddy Bush thinks that atheists aren’t citizens, but the Constitution doesn’t back him up on that, so I think we’ll have to have a less religious anthem for our intentionally secular society.
Finally, it isn’t even an American song. Francis Scott Key was American, born in Maryland, but he only wrote the words. The music is from an old English drinking song. Now, aside from wondering how a bunch of drunks stumbling around the London docks could manage such a difficult song, doesn’t it seem strange that the music to our National Anthem should have been written by some anonymous Englishman?
One thing you’ve got to give to our anthem is that it sure sounds grand being done by an orchestra or a martial band. But given all these other problems (unsingable melody, unmemorable lyrics, overt religious references, and lack of domestic pedigree), I figure its grandeur isn’t enough to save it. Personally, I’ve always liked “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” for your more somber occasions, but lyrically it has the same problems as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord..." I don't think so. Anyway, it’s not gonna be easy to come up with an anthem that sounds good for ordinary folk to sing, but is grand enough for state occasions.
Fear not, I have a solution: have two anthems! The Nazis did, after all. Not that I’m pulling for the Nazis, you understand. But, while they kept “Deutschland Über Alles” as the “official” national anthem, they also used the “Horst Wessell Song” as an informal, or subsidiary, anthem; something to sing when they were hanging around in bars in occupied territory, getting drunk and feeling patriotic. Just because they were evil super-conservatives doesn’t mean that all their ideas were bad, and this was a good one.
For fancy occasions, our hypothetical orchestra could play Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” as good a piece of music as our nation has ever produced. Very stirring, simple and gentle but strong and phenomenally beautiful; plus it was a favorite of my Dad’s (personal note, sorry). It can be the “official” national anthem. Imagine the President walking out before a crowd of foreign dignitaries with that lonesome, noble opening trumpet line, echoing the American spirit of individuality, evoking the wide-open spaces that made us who we are…not a dry eye in the house, right?
It isn’t good enough to stand as an anthem in and of itself, though, because it has no lyrics. You can’t sing along. I don’t like to think of 30,000 people at a baseball game standing to hum the National Anthem.
So, for our ordinary, everyday, regular-folks-having-fun-and-loving-their-country National Anthem, we’ll use Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” It’s a real simple song; I’m guessing most of us learned it in elementary school. Any idiot with a larynx can sing it.
And it’s all-American. Woody Guthrie was probably our greatest songwriter, certainly on the short list. As Bum Phillips used to say of Earl Campbell, “He may not be in a class by himself, but whatever class he’s in, it don’t take long to call the roll.” Nobody’s more American than Woody; he’s a national treasure. You can’t go wrong using one of his songs for the Anthem.
And this song really is for all of us. I mean, the "Star-Spangled Banner" doesn’t say much about us as a country, does it? Outside of that whole “land of the free and home of the brave” stuff, but that’s a little bit too general for my taste. Besides, every nation probably considers itself “the home of the brave,” though they might not use those exact words; and if you think the societies we regard as totalitarian don’t delude themselves that they have freedom, you haven’t paid enough attention to foreign news agencies. Nobody’s gonna stand up and call his country “the land of the coerced and the home of the cowed.” We need something that speaks to our unique position in the political and social history of the world.
Woody describes our great nation as only someone as well-traveled as he was can do it. Oceans and mountains, fields and highways, the big sky and deserts and beaches. And he talks about ordinary folks, about people standing in line at the relief office (it’s a Depression-ear song, after all), wondering if their country still hears them, if they still belong. All of us feel that way sometimes, don’t we? Don’t we all sometimes feel a little bit lost in America? Woody isn’t afraid of that, and we shouldn’t be, either. It serves as a reminder that, while martial glory is all very nice, it isn’t all we’re about; we’re about forming a more perfect union. It's too easy to forget that.
I think it’d sound real good before ballgames and rock ‘n roll shows, a hell of a lot better than thousands of people butchering the "Star-Spangled Banner" does, anyway. These days I hit “mute” when the National Anthem comes on before a game. It would nice to have an anthem I’d feel good singing along with.

01 July 2005

Avoiding the Center in Europe

[This is from a discussion I had with Dave, my libertarian friend in Maryland, about the proposed European Constitution. I put it here as a draft and forgot to publish it, but here it is, a month late; this all happened during the legal and familial difficulties of late June, and the date I assigned it (July 1st) is essentially arbitrary. Anyway, I thought my reply was pretty good, and I hated to waste it. The first part is Dave’s message to me. The second part is the text of a USA Today article he forwarded me (sorry, don’t have the issue listed anymore…Dave, if you have it, would you append a comment citing it?). And the third part is my response. Feel free to discuss, if there’s anyone out there besides us who gives a good goddamn about European politics.]
* * * * * * *
Dave wrote:
"On the topic of France and the European Union [we had been discussing this previously], this piece is from USA Today. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I just don't see how they can take such a diverse collection of cultures and try to meld them together as a makeshift "country." People have different priorities in different places. That's what the left doesn't understand about trying to centralize a government for a large expanse of land and people/cultures..."
* * * * * * *
The USA Today wrote:
Before the Netherlands rejected a new European constitution Wednesday, something out of the ordinary happened: Voters held hundreds of debates about it in town halls and coffeehouses.
A similar raging discussion preceded France's resounding "no" vote three days earlier - with a more in-your-face French flavor. In a typical scene, finger-jabbing sheep farmer Jose Bove told gathered crowds that "200 years after the (French revolution's storming of the) Bastille, the people of the left today are going to wreck this constitution!"
With their votes, the French and Dutch people did indeed shatter the proposed constitution. They sent another message as well: Europe is not dead; it is being democratic. And that's important, too.
The constitution had to be ratified by each of the European Union's 25 members before it could take effect. Nine countries had ratified it so far.
The constitution was an effort to give Europe, already an economic powerhouse, more unified political and military clout. It would have committed members to common policies of defense, asylum and immigration, and to stewardship under a single president. And it would have simplified decision-making that has gotten impossibly cumbersome as the union has expanded.
But instead of the rubber stamp that leaders expected, the two referendums morphed into a popular debate over where Europe is headed. The European Union has been taking in former Soviet satellites at breakneck speed, changing its character. Protesters said Europe's leaders have lost touch with regular people. Gripes, though, are the specialty of the "Old" Europe rather than that of the new members emerging from a repressive, Soviet-dominated past.
Europe isn't going to die for want of adopting the 191-page constitution, but it will be weaker and will operate under old rules. For the USA, that's a mixed outcome. It undermines joint approaches on terrorism and other issues with trans-Atlantic allies. On the other hand, it makes Europe less of a political competitor. The French, in particular, had wanted EU power to be a counterweight to the United States in the world.
Naysayers expressed a range of concerns. French workers feared losing their social safety net. For the Dutch, a chief issue was whether Muslim Turkey should be admitted. But the fears had a common link. Politicians failed to explain clearly how the constitution would benefit average people. They will now have to listen and come up with a Plan B, possibly a streamlined version.
The process forward will be slow, painful and humbling. It is called democracy.
* * * * * * *
My Reply:
I kept this piece overnight to think about it a bit. I didn't want to give you a flippant answer to it, because I've been following the story closely as it developed (as I must, given my major and my interests). I've been a little distracted by what's happening in Belarus, but I've been making an effort to keep up with the EC.
I myself am torn on the refusal of the French to ratify the constitution, and the way the Danes followed them. It is certainly a setback to the forces who want to unify Europe, although (as both this article and the people pushing ratification say) it certainly demonstrates that democracy is alive and well on the continent.
It's a mistake (and probably a characteristic one) on your part to ascribe this defeat to leftists who "don't understand." For example, the quote from this story that "the people of the left today are going to wreck this constitution!" could be interpreted as a promise or a threat; the fact that the guy made reference to the Bastille implies that he himself was a leftist celebrating the death of the measure.
In actual point of fact, the move towards a Constitution was very much a centrist effort, or it could never have gotten off the ground (witness the effort W has had convincing America to privatize Social Security, even with a secure majority in both houses: something this big can't be pushed through by one side of the political spectrum; it requires cooperation). The principal difficulty faced by pro-Constitution advocates has been from the fringes of both left and right. And frankly, both have valid points of view.
The left in Europe fears the loss of the social safety net. Yes, that thing which American rightists so hate and fear, people in France and Denmark were willing to fight to protect. This, I'm afraid, is a valid concern. Also, the left fears that, for example, Tony Blair could drag the EU into wars that the European majority believes to be illegal or unethical (you'll have to ask yourself where they got that idea). The new EU Constitution is very much a laissez-faire document, calling for steep decreases in social programs; and it expands itself tacitly but tellingly into the military arena by calling for a joint Euro foreign policy.
The French don't want to have to spend their entire lives working, the way Americans do. They think it might be nice to actually live their lives. The Dutch believe, rightly or wrongly, that they will end up paying for French and German excesses, while being stuck with budget policies that don't reflect the priorities of their people. And neither country wants to get their boys sent away to die the next time a US President feels the old imperialist itch (and whether that's true or not, that's what both conservative and liberal Europeans believe is happening).
The far right is concerned about the loss of sovereignty. This, too, is probably legitimate. As you say, a central government in Brussels isn't likely to care too much about problems in Ipswich. On the other hand, that's why the EC allows for a federal system. But federal systems can work both ways, both with and against the common interest or any sense of justice or decency, as our own has proved. A federalist system can work, but you really gotta keep an eye on it; and little people do have reason to fear it.
Probably both sides are making too much of their concerns. Still, they need to voice them. And frankly, having read the European Constitution (have you? If you were an International Affairs major you would have), I can understand them. But to automatically say that this is a brushback of the left is disingenuous. I like to think of it as a crying out in the wilderness, an attempt by the true believers of both right and left to make themselves heard in this artificial-consensus, play-to-the-soccer-moms world (and though Europe isn't as bad about this as we are, our superficial politics have surfaced over there; they're our least attractive export). Don't forget that one of the leading opponents of the EC in Denmark was the Socialist party; and that the French Socialists refrained from advertising prior to the referendum because their party was so deeply divided.
If you're interested in my personal opinion, I am (of course) an internationalist. I tend to see nationalistic arguments as weak on their face; at the same time, I think that the paper as drawn up has serious deficiencies. In short: I want a European Constitution. I am simply not sure that I want this one. Having said that,
I remain, as always,
your own,
OgreVI
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P.S.--Incidentally, I'm kinda proud of the French. There have been doubts about the Constitution for some time, but several nations have already ratified it. There was a feeling that every country was afraid to be the one to shoot it down. Give the French credit for courage; they didn't care what anyone else thought. They thought it was a bad idea, and they fucking killed it. Good for them.