Lilac Colored Glasses

Disclaimer: I know at least one person reading this is English and for the record, I have an English friend in real life, so please, I hope those two people (or any other sane English citizens) don’t take offense to what I’m about to say. It is, for the most part, aimed at British media, not individual people.

In case you weren’t aware, the European Union decided to have a president. The function of the EU president is pretty much that of mediator between heads of state in the EU. He should be a person who is adept in the art of compromise. The three front runners for this position were Holland’s Jan Balkenende, Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy and… wait for it… The U.K.’s Tony Blair.

Yeah, that’s right, W.’s little lapdog. The guy who lied right along with the rest of the American right wing by saying that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and sent British soldiers to the desert to die in a war that was based on a lie.

I can’t honestly tell you much about Balkenende other than that he said he didn’t want the office of EU president but then quietly rallied for it. As far as Van Rompuy, this man is well known in Belgium as an intelligent, financially savvy, poetic politician who basically took up the mantle of prime minister in Belgium against his own wishes when Yves Leterme dropped the ball during the Fortis bank crisis last December. Tony Blair is… well, I imagine you all know Tony Blair. the sad thing is America portrays him as a good guy just because he was “on our side” when it came to sending troops to Iraq.

Half of our own country wasn’t “on our side” when it came to sending troops to Iraq. So Tony is about as good a guy as, um…W.
And anyone who knows me at all should know that to me that puts Tony somewhere above the Bubonic plague but just below a pus-encrusted pond scum sandwich.

Moving on…

The past few days the news here in Belgium started picking up something interesting.

The British media had started slinging mud at Van Rompuy, and Belgium in general. I believe the initial headline was: “Britain ruled by a Belgian? You must be joking.”

The media (including the BBC) went on to criticize Van Rompuy’s name, Belgian beer, roads and pretty much anything else they could come up with an excuse to criticize. Which Belgium found interesting because their take on the EU presidency was that it could be achance for England to become a closer part of the EU as a whole. You know…work together as an economic community…compromise and do the whole give and take thing (when it comes to the U.K.’s involvement in the EU they currently take what they like and give as little as possible). Apparently, in the meantime, England deluded themselves into believing that the president of the EU would be some sort of ruling force. So, like, what England? Where you trying to conquer Europe? Cause those glory days died back about the time that America kicked your sorry asses in the Revolutionary War.

Yeah, that’s right.

You’re offended by being “ruled” (ruled meaning, in reality, being mediated in any disagreements between yourselves and other countries in the EU) by a Belgian? But you weren’t offended by your Prime Minister shoving his nose up the ass of the leader of the country that bent you over and jammed your tea bags right back where they belonged? Wow. I mean. Seriously. And the best part is, the party that Blair was rubbing up on all that time? Right wing America? They’ll be the first ones to tell you how lame you are. They’ll be happy to remind you that you’d be part of the Third Reich right now if it wasn’t for the good ol’ boys coming in and cleaning up your European mess for you.

And you really think Blair would be a good neutral mediator? When the first thing his country did was try to run a smear campaign against the opposition? When his response to a war situation was to order troops into battle more than any other Prime Minister in British history? I’m sorry, but I’m just totally flabbergasted at the nerve of the British press. It amazes me that there is this expectation that England would be good at ruling anything.

England has been America’s bitch since September 1783. You’d think they’d've learned to lose gracefully by now.

As of this evening Herman Van Rompuy is the first President of the European Union.
I guess we’ll see how well England can handle being “ruled” by Belgium.