No Government -- No Prob!
 

Fahreed Zahkaria did a segment on his Sunday Show that just blew my mind. Particularly because the "mainstream" has managed to ignore this story for this long.

Cultural divisions and basic political indecision has held Belgium "headless" for 8 months. No central govt has been seated since the election. Life goes on almost perfectly.. Maybe we wouldn't miss Congress as much as they think...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...t-2213128.html

Gee.. Maybe we SHOULD BE more like Europe after all...

They are having PARTIES and camp-outs instead of freakin out. Even with serious talk of dividing the country along French/Dutch lines.. Here's a cute byproduct of the stand-off -- a website created especially for the crisis..

http://belgiq.eu/

Two things,

If congress went away we would indeed be better off and this country is headed for a social divide and English should become the national language to help forestall this.

That would put the majority of Americans at a disadvantage;

"The Americans and the British, two friendly peoples separated by a common language" Winston Spencer Churchill.:p

If you're saying no government would mean no more Republicans.................I could go for that.

BTW. I saw that segment and I knew it wouldn't take long before we heard from you.
All I can say, and I think what Fareed was pointing out, is that it wasn't long before the country started disintegrating, and I wonder how long it would be before they start fighting over territory.

What is it with you guys and your desire to divide? To split people up and pigeonhole them in their proper ethnic slots? So happy about the whole French section, Flemish section, German section............Does it really f**k with your brain that bad when people of different backgrounds share the same space?

Dave

Nein, Non, NO! You're reading me all wrong on this one.. I'm just fascinated by the stability and resilience of their system. It's truly a political science thing. Evidently, they are so close to autonomy in the different regions, that they can still function without the Central Govt. Kinda like the original reason for the internet. Distributed routing and resources able to survive major outages and damage. We are so much more fragile than that because Washington is such a huge money launderer.

I'm a HUGE fan of multiculturalism. More so than the phoney bumper sticker kind. I loved the diversity in Cali. Chinatown, Little Juarez, my Indian neighbors with their colored lights up in July. I used to defend what the Hispanics did to improve the "bad sections" of town.. Up until the point where their NEW immigrants changed class and behaviour.. THen we had roving bands of kids walking down the middle of busy streets keying cars and gang-banging and spray-painting. That's when we started planning an escape..

That and the way the govt responded to the challenge of multiculturism with teaching Chemistry/Physics/WorldHistory in Spanish and English because they wanted to pad the teaching ranks and make EnglishSecondLanguage a perpetual employment generator. Was never about dual language proficiency. And the sanctuary city crap that ended up filling the Cali jails with illegals that should have been sent home.

In the case of Belgium, it's not a war -- they want choices.. And I'm all for that. But the realization is that it creates severe inefficiencies in govt that maybe SHOULD be solved with partitions.

Having just spent the past 3-4 days in Belgium, a couple of days each in Wallonia (French) and Flanders (Dutch speaking), I can certainly attest to the fact that the 2 sections of the country couldn't be more different in terms of not only language, but culture. It's truly like being one day in France and the other day in Holland. The Flemish people, being culturally Dutch, are as accommodating and pleasant as humanly imaginable, whereas the Wallonians are, well, French. Better food and beverages to be sure, but that French "je ne sais quoi" attitude is very apparent.

I could easily imagine that the cultural/political divide between Flanders and Wallonia is far greater than our Left/Right divide, and with that the case, the desire to split pretty high. As to the point made in the OP, nobody seemed to care one way or the other about any lack of governance.

Ah, you noticed that too.:D

We just want people in their proper place.

LMAO!!

The Belgians are just skipping the middle step to no government utopia :)

Pete

FinnBow:

You don't get the impression that the Belgique split is due to animosity or hate do you?

It just seems that the desire to fashion a comfortable local culture MAY BE in conflict with an "activist" Central Govt.

It took a dictator like Tito to hold together the Balkans under strong central govt. And we all know what happened when Communism died there. THAT was NOT a rugged robust system of governance.

Shouted, with a lisp;

"PLACES, EVERYONE! PLACES!!!":rolleyes:

Dave

LMAO!!!

'Oh no' :)

Here I was afraid it would be mis-read. What I meant was, what are all those ethnics doing here to begin with? :p

Pete

I don't think it's a hate thing. More of a mutual resentment. The Flemish are the hard working folks with the big industrial seaport (Antwerp), whereas the French Belgians pretty much control the seat of government and lack the work ethic/industriousness of their Dutch-speaking counterparts.

At my last workplace we had a team of Belgian (Walloon) software engineers in for training. I was more than happy to see the back of them, downright bloody miserable.

Must be kinda like the Quebec deal.. Ever notice how pushy those Frenchies are when they live in your country?

(Hope MerryLander don't parlez Francaise..)

What are all those ethnics doing here Pete?

They're making lunch more interesting than peanut butter/jelly on Wonder Bread everyday..

Perogies this and tamales that - jeez what's a good American to eat? Who the tarnation WANTS to eat a pig wrapped up in a blanket?

And don't get me started on the schnitzel. Just what on God's green earth is a schnitzel? And just who taught these furriners to spell?

Next thing you know those ee-tal-ee-ands will want to bring over their dough discs with sauce and cheese on them. Then here comes the French with their freedom-hating potatos. The English! Good gravy! Don't they know muffins are supposed to have chocolate chips in them??

Pete

Don't make me remind you about TEX-MEX... You're already stewed into foreign food..

BTW: Now that you're my favorite-ever cartoon character --

"what are we gonna do tomorrow Brain?"

"We're going to do the same thing we do everyday Pinkie. We're going to take over the world!"

Sorry flack, I was born in Quebec and had a good many French Canadian friends, including my late sister-in-law, rest her soul. The seperatists were summat like the tea baggers here, a lunatic fringe minority. They did have some justification considering the behaviour of some of the English Canadians. Up until WW II Quebec was pretty priest ridden but many young men got a look at the world overseas and when they came home they were not about to take crap from anyone. Later in life when I moved to Ontario I discovered that I did not think exactly the same way as other English Canadians, so I guess the milieu affected my outlook. Unfortunatel living in an all English (well American really) milieu has made my French a bit rusty.

Flac it's one of my favorite too :)

Brain: 'Are you pondering what I'm pondering?'

Pinky: "I think so, Brain, but if we covered the world in salad dressing wouldn't the aspargus feel left out?"

Rob, I worked with a French Canadian (over the phone) for years. It took years for me to figure out that he wasn't being a real ass - he was actually cracking wise! Just a different sense of humour is all.

Pete

Many jokes simply do not translate, especially when it is a play on words. BTW the best perogie I ever had was in Tel Aviv - go figure.

MerryLander:

No mystery. Lots of recent Russian immigrants to Israel == great perogies..


Pete:
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" That was a running gag between me another poster on an earlier board. No one else has a clue what we were giggling about.

Perogies ROCK! I miss the Gulash and pastries that Tili Darak used to make.

Dave

True but the owner was Polish, or rather from Poland because he is now an Israeli.:D

Tili was Hungarian, and Jewish.

I thought pirogies was the domain of the Polish. Maybe in TN the Russians have adapted them as their own. :confused:

There's a lot. Near me at 'Babushkas' Kitchen' the old Polish ladies make the big pan fried ones, my Ukrainian-ish mother-in-law makes the smaller ones boiled.

Pete

The big, pan fried ones are better.......WAY better. As in; That's how it's supposed to be done.

Dave

They've got something called the 'hunters' feast' that rocks:

Hunters Feast (Our house sampler) - One stuffed cabbage, a link of smoked kielbasa, roasted pork with sauerkraut & dumplings, one jumbo potato & cheese pierogi with grilled onion and sour cream PLUS your choice of two side dishes. (As seen on NBC-TV-3 Del's Folks) $15.99

Good for two. Meals that is, I'm not sharing :)

http://www.babushkafoods.com/northfi...nter-menu.html

Come north to disasterland and I'll treat you to it ;)

Pete

Drooooooooollllllllllllll......................... ...

But, only once, due to health conditions.

Dave