Sea Change III

Cui bono the demise of Europe? It is very difficult for this writer, who spent a total of forty-five years living in various European countries, to believe that the 2008 economic debacle, which hit America’s European allies harder than the others, has simply been an example of mindless Wall Street - or European bankster - greed.

I’m inclined to believe that the demise of a major competitor that adds insult to injury by making American workers wonder why they don’t have five- week vacations and nearly free health care suits American business in more ways than one.

The fact that the Republican party, egged on by its radical fringe, has actually caused the government to shut down because President Obama believes that once voted into law his health care system should be funded like any other government expenditure, should make even the most trusting citizen doubt the media. One Republican actually declared on television that ‘Your health care is your problem’, putting the United States on record as the only developed country in the world to flatly reject the idea of solidarity.

There was no way the United States was ever going to make the European Union willingly abandon so funda-mental a principle (enshrined, by the way, in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights). So perhaps it used an economic weapon of mass destruction, hitting two birds with one stone.