Saturday, November 20, 2010

Hoping to Milk it Until Retirement, Were We?

Icelanders to the EU: keep it real.

Icelandic minister wants to finish EU talks in two months

Iceland officially started face-to-face negotiations with officials of the European Commission on Monday (15 November), but the country's justice minister is already calling for the talks to be concluded swiftly in two months followed by a snap referendum to bring closure to the issue.
Which is a real novelty to the who Empire building exercise.
Describing how the EU bid "fits into the dreams of the old colonial powers powers of Europe," he asked in the article: "Is this democracy? Tough questions arise. What are 300,000 people [the population of Iceland is 320,000] against the empire with a thick wallet?"
Strangely enough, that’s one contry that the vampire squid can’t really tacitly threaten with economic “alienation of affection”, as would be the case of anyone bordering the core EU would. They wouldn’t have to make a choice every nascent Roman province did before absorption: could they survive on the margins of an entity that would exclude from the arrangements it made with its’ pre-Borg-assimilation neighbors and trading partners. Pantalooned boffins with scrolls of rule to be read aloud to the local peasantry might as well show up, and they wouldn’t think to use the term.

Strangely enough, you don’t get hyperventilation over this blatant and naked empire making, but rather a population that are fond of referring (with a “my porridge is too cold” sneer) to the US as an empire.

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