Hey City Zen!

Dear Ross Douthat, you need to get out more often. Your column comes from such a constrained lens of XX-century, American, religious, self-righteousness that all I can think of is Graham Green and his quiet American. In what country do you live that you can claim that Europe has a democracy deficit vis a vis the US? The US legislative body systematically votes against the opinion of its vast majority, ranging from reasonable gun control to health care, passing through net neutrality, government surveillance and many others---least of which is electing a president who lost the popular vote by a lot and a severely gerrymandered congress! What about the rights of minorities within a democracy? Have you heard of #blacklivesmatter and the disproportionate number of African-Americans on death row (how religious is death penalty, by the way?), or the unemployment and otherwise horrible conditions of Native Americans? On Europe: the Euro is certainly a bad invention as implemented, but it could be improved. We should not scrape a Union that has brought unprecedented peace to the continent because religious conservatives feel threatened by a secular society---especially one that works quite well in practice, as demonstrated by fact-based (not opinion-based) health, life-expectancy, education tests, and democracy indices---all higher than the US (21st below most EU countries in democracy index, from the Economist, not a leftist, pro-European outfit, by the way). Both sides of the North Atlantic have problems as well as successes. Shallow analysis in support of Populists who only point to the downsides and not the many demonstrable upsides, is "Innocence", which, as Greene put it best, “is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”

Labels: #EU, #USA

In the European Union (EU) no airline or airport security could remove and "re-accommodate" Dr. Dao from an airplane he boarded on a paying ticket---much less forcibly remove and abuse him as United and the Chicago Airport security did. In the EU all overbooking situations must be resolved prior to check-in---let alone boarding. This is called consumer protection, something successive US administrations (Republican and Democratic alike) have abandoned due to corporate lobbying, while furthermore allowing monopolistic mergers and establishing noncompetitive subsidies for US air carriers (e.g. requiring that state and federal employees fly only on US carriers). There is no point in being outraged about this situation; what we (including the media editorial boards) must demand is regulation to protect consumers and a government that enforces existing anti-monopoly and competitive laws with the consumer in mind, not just corporate interests. As the EU regulations demonstrate, it is quite possible to have such consumer protections in a capitalist and democratic society. By the way, what we call lobbying in the US is called corruption elsewhere (see South Korea and Brazil). It leads the to the society the US has become: only the rich can expect first-World health-care, education, and basic consumer respect.

Labels: #Airlines, #Consumer, #Corruption, #EU, #USA

The most rewarding observation of the Eurocup win in Portugal was seeing people of all races (I have no idea about their religion or lack thereof) celebrating with portuguese flags all over Lisbon. I absolutely love it that the winning goal was scored by Eder, born in Portuguese-speaking Guiné and raised in Coimbra---home to one of the three oldest universities in World. In contrast to other European countries, where immigrants amplify hatred of the host-never-home country with every passing generation, the Portuguese homeland is more naturally global and easily adopted. Instead of Molenbeek, Bobigny and Rotterdam Zuid, we throw Globailes, creating genuine afro-brazilian-portuguese music. No wonder the Aga Khan established the formal Seat of the Ismaili Imamat in Portugal, that our prime-minister is of Indian heritage, and that we have a habit of attracting people like Gulbenkian here.

It also becomes ever more clear that as a part of the current version of the European Union, we will always be seen as EuroPIGS, a disrespected, southern nation who must be disciplined and moralized at every chance. It does not matter that Europe is only an important economic power because Portugal and Spain went out there establishing the first global empires, which, by the way, funded the wars that stopped the Ottoman empire from conquering all of central Europe. It does not matter that our present linguistic cultural identity has a planetary footprint. As long as even the educated elites like Mr. Schäuble who rule the EU think of us as PIGS, we will be the olive-pickers and vacation caterers who do not know how to take care of our finances. Yes, Mr. Schäuble, the europe-in-the-image-of-germany "europeanist", does not think twice of throwing entire countries to the lions, to hide the weak finances of Deutsche bank. What a towering European figure! Instead of dealing with extremist and racist governments in Hungary, Poland and others, these educated fellows prefer to sanction Portugal and Spain for minor deficit "infractions"---rather, for first following then slightly relaxing the systematically wrong economic diktats of the factless austeritarians^*... If anything, the people issuing those diktats (the Eurogroup and the IMF) should be sued and sanctioned on international courts for imposing failed policies after a shock, failing to see or act on huge problems in the banking system, and otherwise bringing about a nightmare for people and businesses. Naturally, France, doing exactly the same thing, escapes the sanctions, because, well, C'est lá France! Bien sûr! Some are more equal than others, and we have to be "intelligent" in the application of rules, in the wonderful EU double-speak.

I am not sure how, but we must get more respect by disentangling a little from this abusive marriage. Maybe time to see more of our family; Starting to think that better to have one Isabel dos Santos, with the lack of transparency she brings, than a hundred Schäubles, Dijsselbloems and Junkers... We need at least to get some counseling.



^* An austeritarian is an authoritative austerian (see also).

Labels: #EU, #Europe, #Lusofonia