Sunday, February 28, 2010

It’s Rapidly Becoming the Earth’s Colostomy Bag

Like with undecipherable proclamations on the economy, one wonders why they make these announcements at all when you know it isn’t supposed to reveal anything, and only REDUCE confidence.

The same goes for propaganda er communication by transnational super-government:

Communicating Europe begins at home, says Reding

The EU's commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, Viviane Reding, reassured her staff that the European Commission will remain in the driving seat in communicating Europe but not without citizens, sources told EurActiv after an in-house presentation
In-house communication, among select citizens, of course, being the “public”, which unlike the target of the effort doesn’t need to be communicated to. Yet, reading through it, one can only get more confused as to just what it is that the subject of the communication is about, (which if it to start first ‘at home’ makes you wonder what the rest of the world will be subjected to.)
In a letter sent to director-generals responsible for employment and social affairs, justice and communication, seen by EurActiv, Reding asked the bosses to think of 10 concrete new legislative measures and/or concrete policies to improve citizens' awareness of their rights in a tangible way.
See? Listening to the people begins with the bosses! So I guess it’s death to the bosses!, and long live the bosses!, if one can make any sense of that one.

It is about communicating to the voting European public what their role is as citizens, and what community laws they should activate. Today Europe, tomorrow the world, I suppose... that is, if they take the verbal bullying to be that effective as to be able to encompass Asia minor, South America, and the like.
It is a tough but inevitable call, and might be the only way to increase the time that national media devote to European politics, which is currently outpaced by US politics, one expert said.
Possibly because it seems a lot less like Kabuki theater, and when the polity speak, unctuous as most of it is, they’re actually saying something concrete, not just shoveling out fantastical outlines of things they will never do to make themselves sound generous, or engage in vapid non-communication about not bailing out train-wreck governments when they really are.

The reason US politics seems more interesting to Europeans than European politics itself is because it does seem genuinely responsive, and not the knock-knock joke of predictable reactions between union leader cronies and NGO cornies.

But don’t worry, managing the script and feather-bedding aren’t the ONLY thing on their minds. They’re worried that they can’t featherbed or might lose control of the script.
After Commission President José Manuel Barroso decided to regroup communication with citizenship and considering the greater institutional overhaul sparked by the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, staffers felt increasingly nervous about the fate of the communication department.

In her first internal speech, Reding dissipated doubts and bolstered spirits when she said on Friday that communication will remain a strategic priority for every department of the EU executive.
It has that sentimental air of times past, I’m sure:
But as well educated as we are, a very significant part of our population is still uncertain and awkward politically. One might think that as a nation of poets and philosophers, artists and inventors, we would also take the political lead among the nations that we undoubtedly hold culturally. That unfortunately has not been true up until now. Very many Germans even today lack reliable political instincts. Their political will and sense of direction is inadequate. We have to admit this, whether we like it or not. We cannot go into the reasons for this situation here, but can mention a few key points. Germany's earlier fragmentation into small states was a fatal blow to any unified political course, for German popular nationalism, and for all political training in the direction of a single goal,
Singers and poets all, alas – but united in a new purpose by communication of what the people’s will should be by an enabling entity, as if they could not manage this feat of communicating to their government and elected representatives on their own. Therefore what is to be communicated should first be communicated TO them in the form of what has to appear to be a ‘listening tour’.

What crap. They might not know how to write their MEP in large numbers yet on the strength of their own individual opinions, but they should be able to figure that much out on their own. After all, they know how to strike and riot on queue, they should be able to dial a telephone on their own steam without coaching.

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