In memory of Nice

As much as I've come to abhor Europe (good job, Germany), in days like today, I stand with Europe.

However, I will still qualify this sentence, I don't stand unconditionally with the whole of Europe.

1. I don't stand with any European so-called leader; and, even today, I'll still call them "Elected Accountants", because there's absolutely nothing any of them has done in more than a decade that shows any sort of leadership competence.
2. I don't stand with any European person (here I'm including what we usually call "the people") who supports in any way, shape, or form, any divisive strategy to address a problem.

Confused about point 2? Yes, I understand. Let me elaborate.

But first, if you're grieving from the events at Nice, you may want to stop reading here. I could say I feel your pain, but that would be a lie - I've never been through anything even remotely similar, I can't begin to imagine what you're going through. I hope you can find comfort and pull through, but I have nothing to offer, other than my sympathy.

About point 2, then. I defend Portugal should leave the Euro and the EU. How can I bash "divisive"?Can we get more divisive than that?

Yes, we can (TM).

Sometime ago, Ana Gomes, a Portuguese MEP, stated a controversial opinion, by citing the European austerity as one of the causes facilitating the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. She was immediately crucified, especially by every right-wing idiot out there.

Granted, Ana Gomes is not the most articulate person you'll ever come across. And she did seem more interested in creating a sound-bite, rather than giving the subject the serious analysis it merits (which was also the case with most of the left-wing idiots who agreed with her).

However, unfortunately for all said right-wing idiots, she was right - austerity played, and still plays, an important role in all this.

Yes, I know the argument, we had attacks before 2008, before the crisis began. Our right-wing buddies repeated this until they went blue in the face, and it's quite typical of their world-view. Because, for these idiots, before 2008 everyone was having a great life. Hey, they were having a great life, so surely everyone was also having a great life, right?

Inequality didn't begin overnight. It didn't even begin in 2008. It just accelerated, but it has been going on since the 80s (I suspect the groundwork was laid out before that, but the evidence I found is still flimsy). Under the argument of "pulling people out of poverty" (meaning "getting people from $1/hour to $2/hour, whoop-dee-fucking-doo") in developing countries, we've been slowly grinding lives elsewhere.

The trickle-down bullshit has failed. The currently-discussed helicopter money bullshit will also fail. You don't need experience in Economy (or Astrology, its twin sister) to assess the high risk of failure these ideas carry. These ideas excuse the State of its functions, are akin to self-regulation, and we know how often that works.

"There is no alternative" the karma goes, "There is no money". Actually, there is. It's just getting "redistributed". Not by some modern-day Stalin, but by all the ideological heirs to Thatcher and Reagan.

This redistribution means the sentence "there is no money" is actually correct, just incomplete. Let's complete it, then, here are a few examples:

- There is no money for unemployment support.

- There is no money for public healthcare.

- There is no money for pensions.

- There is no money for special-needs education.

- There is no money for the integration of different cultures.

Oh, yes, integration is expensive. Very expensive. It demands education, social support, proximity actions. Not just on the immigrant communities; in fact, all this is especially required for the "native" (not the best word, I know) communities. Integration is a bridge - everyone must come half-way, the receiving nations must accommodate for cultural differences, up to the point these infringe on the law and individual liberties.

Again, this is expensive. And there's no money... for this. Because the private initiative doesn't give a rat's ass about this. You see, it has a terrible RoI (actually, it doesn't, but, hey, what do I know?) and there are "better" ways to invest that money. So it's up to the State to spend the money required to get these actions going.

And this is where we get to the "divisive" part. The people currently in charge of the EU (i.e., Germany) have been driving a divisive strategy, based on austerity. If you want to know how this will end, just look at Brexit. Every idiot shouting "Racism!" should probably look at the enlightened work of George Osborne, the last of a long list of creators of inequality in the UK.

This is how the EU will end - a special club for the "hard-working North", where the "lazy South" (the pigs, right?) may be tolerated and allowed to stay if it does what it's told and obeys the commands of its "betters". And these commands will, invariably, mean destroying the State, deepening inequality, and the alienation of a few more million, by throwing them into the life-grinder.

The Northern officials support this, and so do vast numbers of their people. And I don't stand with any of these persons, not even on a day like today.

So, the next time an attack like this happens, we'll find, yet again, someone from some ghetto neighborhood, unemployed, with a history of petty crime, and, faced with the questions "How was this possible? How do we prevent this?", we will answer: "Moar surveillance!" Because, hey, it's been working great, so far, right?

A final note: I couldn't finish this without a special mention to all the people whose remarkable level of competence has given a big push to this current status quo: From Blair and GW Bush to Merkel (not so much for her response to the refugees, but more by the EU's role in the Arab Spring) and Obama (our most wonderful Nobel Peace Prize), I'd say: Quite an achievement, ladies and gentlemen!