How do you stop a new EU treaty?

[Bereta_Eder]

Definitely. On the subject of movies (where there is traditionally a plethora of american products and an underepresentation of other countries) I'm pleased to see a spectacular turn around from "Hollywood" these last years and I'm speaking commercially.

But I'm a bit sceptical at EU or state for that matter funding of films. While this is in fact being done in some cases I am against it for the most part.

If someone has something to say, he can say it. And the people will judge if it concerns them or not. I'm againgst funding of projects that only the director, his mom and his dog will see and that will concern noone else and that will be funded by my tax money. If he has something to say, the people will reward him. And if he wants state money, he better be prepared to be able to "talk" to a very large audiance.

[Az]

Good. Maybe THAT will give the West some help in the upcoming changes.

( Reading Clash of Civilizations, now )

[VetLegion]

Azazel, the book is terribly flawed.

While I was reading it I thought it pretty convincing, but when it got to the chapter about war in Bosnia and the rest of Balkans it became totaly wrong. This wasn't a religious war here, 'twas plain old 19th century nationalism based imperialism practiced by small Balkan countries. A mess, but not related to civilizations or religion.

I'm sure you will find inacuracies and oversimplifications too, when it gets to the mid east part of his theory.

I would say it was a good book but now, three of so years after I read it, I don't recall a single good thing about it. So it is a crap book

[Spiffor]

One should read the Clash of Civilizations with one thing in mind:
Although Huntington seems pretty sure of what he says when you read the book, he has actually no other pretention than to develop a framework to analyse upcoming conflicts. He does not predict any conflict, and he does not think the civilisational aspect will be the only aspect of war in the future. He talks only about the civilizational aspect because it's his theory of course

So, read the book because there are interesting things, but don't believe it is a Bible. Even Huntigton doesn't believe it.

[Kuciwalker]

Why are those government so uptight over preserving "culture". Isn't, say, French culture by definition what French people do?

The US has no government culture-preserving initiatives. It's not the government's job. If people wanted to watch French movies, let them. Heck, we let people watch anime and stuff. We don't care that it's Japanese. If people like it, why not make it American too?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by skywalker
Why are those government so uptight over preserving "culture". Isn't, say, French culture by definition what French people do?

Not only. French culture is also a heritage. It isn't necessary to reflect it in the everyday, but we can't allow the heritage to go down the drain nonetheless.
Besides, my main beef with the cultural "exchange" with the US is not the American culture per se: about every other pop culture I've seen sucks as much. My beef is with the pace of said "exchange", which doesn't allow us to integrate new elements properly.

[IoT]

One of the problems with the EU as it is currently constituted is corruption:

http://www.spectrezine.org/europe/Meijer2.htm

...

From Commission documents it appears that the fraud going on at Eurostat had been known about for some time. Over a number of years, Commission officials have sounded the alarm bell over irregularities. The response, however, has repeatedly been to state that nothing was wrong, while the officials involved suffered as a consequence harassment from their superiors. The irregularities at Eurostat turn out to be much more widespread than the Commission admits. Years ago Commission officials had already brought the institution’s attention, internally, to a number of problems: multiple conflicts of interest, falsification of documents, over-billing, unregistered labour, and the failure to follow up charges of fraud. These problems are, moreover, not confined to Eurostat. Officials within the Commission have reported comparable irregularities elsewhere, such as in the official European publications office, while it appears that internal reports concerning other Commission services have also pointed to serious errors committed by high officials, reports which were not followed up.

...

REMINDER: The whole Jacques Santer commission resigned on mass because of corruption.


What I find particularly disturbing are the posters who airily state that the EU power elite know better than the masses and that the masses should be grateful that they are sorting all the problems out for them and that the ordinary citizen is too stupid to understand whats going on. If the pols are unable to make thier case in a clear enough manner for the public to understand they are not doing thier job properly.

[Az]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Azazel, the book is terribly flawed.

While I was reading it I thought it pretty convincing, but when it got to the chapter about war in Bosnia and the rest of Balkans it became totaly wrong. This wasn't a religious war here, 'twas plain old 19th century nationalism based imperialism practiced by small Balkan countries. A mess, but not related to civilizations or religion.

I'm sure you will find inacuracies and oversimplifications too, when it gets to the mid east part of his theory.

I would say it was a good book but now, three of so years after I read it, I don't recall a single good thing about it. So it is a crap book

He didn't say that it was a purely religious war, you should re-read.

So far, world events follow his logic, though his predictions about the future conflicts aren't correct.

Although Huntington seems pretty sure of what he says when you read the book, he has actually no other pretention than to develop a framework to analyse upcoming conflicts. He does not predict any conflict, and he does not think the civilisational aspect will be the only aspect of war in the future. He talks only about the civilizational aspect because it's his theory of course

EXACTLY.
He does say though that it will be the crucial aspect in the near and medium future, and admits himself that though his predictions about the future aren't necessarily correct, the real events will follow the same logic. ( and they do ).