A Doll, A Mill, A Tulip, Tulip, Tulip, and A Wooden Shoe

A Doll, a Mill, a Tulip, Tulip, Tulip, and a Wooden Shoe

by cassandra

I have to face reality and I’m all bummed out about it. I’ve actually known it for awhile, just about when we (speaking of The Netherlands, aka. Holland) switched from the guilder to the Euro, and they then started calling it the “Eurozone.” But time has passed and things have happened and today’s headline made it all too real, The Netherlands no longer exists. The same actually goes for anyone affiliated with the European Union, even Britain, which does not have the Euro. It’s not we, the people, here, or in Greece, or Italy, who determine what happens financially and politically in our nations via democratic governments; even if they are still elected, as ours are, and not appointed by the EU as those of the above, they really have no say, they must do what the EU says, squeeze their people till it hurts and then some.

But this isn’t about the economic crisis; that is just the result of this rape of nations that the EU has become. And this isn’t about the EU either, this is about what it means to have a country and how The Netherlands is, today and right now, not one, and hasn’t really been for awhile, we’re just all pretending. I guess I have been pretending. The good news is, and let’s start with that, that even before the news item, our government had already wanted to discuss a law to permit Dutch national interest to take priority over EU interest, and they sure got a load of ammunition today. So maybe there is hope, for we may be small but we have historically had a big mouth when properly provoked. We didn’t get started on some remote continent you could only reach by boats to crush a rebellion; we got started right under the nose and rule of Spain, as in the Spanish Inquisition. That’s right, WE got rid of them.

Ah, those were the days. Being Dutch was by itself, reason enough to get you burnt at the stake, in Alva and Philip II’s lovely Spanish empire. Whereas most countries have gotten rid of their royals, some in very violent ways, the Dutch, after a brief experiment with a Republic, begged the House of Orange to come back and they’re still there. Much good it does us though; our Queen seems to be a very business-like woman *cough Royal Shell cough* and the EU keeps all the people she’s around in peaches and cream so she sees nothing wrong. She’s even opposed to the PVV and why, because it’s bad for our reputation and could lead to business boycotts *cough Royal Shell cough*.

Enough about her, even I love the house of Orange and it’s not fair to pick on her while she is grieving. I was talking about losing my country and why. A country has borders; these define it as a country, on any map. Countries also have armies, to defend those borders. They can also ally themselves, to defend each other’s borders (like NATO etc.), but it is always understood, that this doesn’t make all NATO nations one huge country with only one border. All nations have their own borders, and they are licensed to defend them against threats, foreign and domestic, that’s what makes them countries. Borders, and a government that, in one way or another, represents the people within those borders, and exists to maintain public order, including having army and police. In bad countries where you don’t want to live, the latter two are one force. Worse, they’re the judges, too.

So what happened is, we caught and convicted a terrorist, and now Jordan (one of the nicest Muslem nations you can think of, note there’s not been any revolting going on there) has asked for his extradition, since he’s wanted there for crimes, as well. And the EU has prohibited it. They told us to our faces that they and not we, determine who crosses our borders, who gets to stay, and who gets to leave. We must keep this terrorist here, maybe even set him free once he’s served his sentence; all the financial burdens fall on us, because some board we didn’t elect and don’t know, decided that the rule for all of Europe is, you WILL accept any amount of immigrants, preferably from Muslem countries, and allow Poles and Romanians to take your jobs (they are even going to be building a special hotel for them in The Hague), and you do not have any right to say no. That would be Against Their Human Rights.

Uh, excuse me, what about MY human rights? Do you know what happens, should you get a flash of insanity and want to immigrate to a Muslem nation, and arrive there seeking asylum without the proper papers or a valid proof of identity? How’s getting executed sound to you? Even if you get in, if you are not a Muslem and dare to openly not keep all Muslem prescriptions for you as non-Muslem, you will similarly find yourself abused and often also dead. Which is probably one of the reasons people do not go there unless they have business there and a plane ticket back to their non-Muslem homeland. But the point is, other nations, not in the EU, even the USA and Mexico, get to enforce their borders, any way they like. But, we don’t get to. Our courts can decide someone is an unwanted alien due to violent criminal behavior, then the EU says, we overrule your courts. Our diplomats and government can agree to hand a criminal over to another nation for due punishment, then the EU says, no, you can’t. They’re not our borders, anymore.

They sneaked this thing up on us, you know. When we were sold the bill of goods on the EU -to-come (then existing of Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxemburg, and negotiations with France and Germany, I think), the explanation was roughly as follows (and I heard this in school from a qualified teacher): It was ludicrous that we here in Holland grew tomatoes in greenhouses, using lots of energy, and then paid an import tax on tomatoes from Italy to keep the price up. We should trade with Italy, our butter for their tomatoes, and not pay import tax on either, trade of products should be free across borders. Holland, as a trader nation, was watering at the mouth at the prospect of so much trade, and indeed, Rotterdam port and office parks in the main city belt, the Randstad (Eindhoven/Rotterdam/The Hague/Utrecht/Amsterdam), have greatly expanded and benefitted.

But it’s no longer about free trade of goods; its now about free movement of people, with rules made in Brussels by people who aren’t Dutch, a few delegates, who can’t do a thing about anything, excepted. And they have and will and do tell us, who to let in, and they’ve basically made us, and Belgium, and Britain, and France, and Germany, and to a large extent Denmark and Norway as well, accept anyone who comes here and give them the red carpet treatment, or stand accused of wanting to launch another holocaust. Of being racist and bigoted and intolerant and Against Human Rights. I’m sorry, when did it become a human right to squat in someone else’s country? How shall the Muslems here, now the majority population of Rotterdam, soon to be the majority population of The Netherlands, tell you about William of Orange and the Spanish War which we won, yea! ? Will the Poles and the Romanians, traditionally Catholic, be able to tell you about how Holland gave the Reformation some teeth, way back when, and proceeded to Renaissance the heck out of the place? Anthony Leeuwenhoek? Gravezande? Rembrandt, Van Gogh, out comes the Golden Age. That’s what we called it and that’s the history and tradition that we were, once, even still when I was young. These foreigners, they don’t care; they don’t want to know; and the original population, us, we — well, if we survive, which we may not given low birth rates, we will be a voiceless minority, unable to act against an EU government that is invisible and unaccountable to us.

That these people are a disaster is obvious, you only have to look at the crisis and how it’s being managed, and how the Euro has turned out to be this big balloon that has popped. It’s truly bizarre, to see that the banks and traders have screwed up greatly, mismanaged, committed fraud, graft, and greed all over the place, and then when the bills came due, held up their hand to government, first in the USA and then in the EU countries, and got reimbursed pretty much overnight, no questions asked, no conditions placed. And then, instead of carrying on business as usual, with all that money, they all decided it was crisis time and they wanted all their debtors to pay up, as well. Interest and late fees mounted swiftly and immensely and hey Greece is bankrupt and so is Italy and the EU says that cuts in education, health care, social security are necessary or Holland will go bankrupt as well, everybody will, oh me oh my.

I want Holland out of the EU, but it’s not going to happen. People aren’t going to realize just how deep the mud is, until it’s way too late, and it’s probably already too late, the law, if passed, won’t do a thing to change EU policy on immigration. Which is, as I said, You WILL take in so many immigrants, and NO you may not prohibit workers from other countries to take jobs from Dutch people, working for less. Terrorists love it here, our jails are paradise compared to their home countries; Romanian gangs wonder the countryside, it’s getting so bad a Dutch mayor advised citizens who live in nice freestanding homes, to purchase a gun. The police do little or nothing; then again, why should they bother, if they arrest a foreigner they run the chance of having EU lawyers all over them insisting they can’t be deported or punished any sort of heavily.

I tell you this, what is left of this country without borders, here in the Eurozone, is impoverishing at a scary rate. The jobs that used to make enough money to rent or even buy a modest home, raise a family, own a car, get your kids through school, are pretty much gone, now that everything is privatized. People are hired part time on temporary contracts, and are replaced every two years because giving them another contract means they have to hire on a permanent basis, and they don’t do that any longer. Then they’d have to give raises and pensions and other perks and bennies contract workers don’t get, like paid sick leave. Anyone above 50 or so, unless they’re rare and wanted computer wizards like my husband, is worked out of his or her job, replaced with temps and contract workers, who are all young and optimistic and don’t think it will ever happen to them.

There are so many houses for sale. And get this, they seriously think (they meaning government and the realtors) that removing the mortgage interest deduction from the tax form, will get the real estate market moving again. I, on the other hand, am afraid that it’s going to cause even more pain and distress. The people my age, the Baby Boomers, who had jobs before 2006 when the outsourcing/contracting started for real, still have them, enjoying old-style labor contracts. However, their colleagues who have already retired, have seen shocking reductions in their pension payments, and shocking rises in the cost of health care, heating, and food. If they have planned well, they may have paid their mortgage; but it does them no good really, because, with so many houses for sale, the value of whatever they own is basically zero. It’s hard to get a mortgage without a steady income, which contracting isn’t. So young people aren’t buying, even if they are employed. House prices are dropping and dropping, Baby Boomers needing to sell their big family house for a small senior apartment or maybe a room in a care facility.

There’s going to be a spate of bankruptcies, and more homes for sale, and more people unable to pay the bills and getting evicted. Already we have shelters and soup lines, just like any good American city. Whereas we used to be the Netherlands, and had a Golden Age, and war with Spain. Brave soldiers died, huge sacrifices were made, to etch its borders on the map, where it has been for hundreds of years, everyone’s standard to look up to when they weren’t looking at the USA. We *invented* capitalism, for Pete’s sake. And now we have been killed by it, stealth bombed by a currency system designed to rob us, coupled by an immigration policy designed to drain us of all vestiges of national interest or common cause. Welcome citizens to the Eurozone; you will henceforth be known only by your bank account number.

I used to be Dutch. The only reason I ever had in my life, to consider a time that I might not be Dutch, was when I lived in the USA and thought that I would, for the rest of my life, and to change citizenship would have made that official. But, I didn’t, I wanted to keep that door open “just in case” and don’t you know, we ended up needing that door. It seems I got here just in time, and got the last bit of a charitable and generous and not-yet-so-privatized government, the last hurrah of a now-depleted national pride in hard work and prosperity. Schools are closing, people work much harder and longer, for less; many will lose their homes and there’s not enough social housing for them to live in, so where will they go? They won’t be able to pay their debts; so there’s another bank crisis coming. We are seeing the last of mom-and-pop outfits, as well; you think this doesn’t matter, but many garages are mom-and-pop shops, for instance. People with their own stores can’t compete with the big name franchises. And even some of those have disappeared.

So anyway. No borders, no country. Oh, and by the way, the Dutch greenhouse villages have expanded, and they still grow tomatoes there, too. We export food, and sell our only plentiful bottom resource, natural gas, to European companies at bottom bargain basement prices, to make huge profits therewith including from the, uh, us. And we pay taxes. Lots and lots. But, I do believe that if this situation persists, in about ten years, if that long, people will realize they got screwed, and they might riot. My brother says, Not until they’re hungry. I think that time will get here sooner than he thinks, as people are eating up their savings and pensions as I type this, trying to cope with job losses, the loss of assistance funding, the high costs of medicine and care, a mortgage they can no longer afford that is now more than their house is worth. They already rioted in Greece, and really, we are just one bank whim away from similar draconian government crushing the poor and needy and letting old people freeze to death, here in the northwestern Eurozone, formerly known as The Netherlands. They’ll still house and feed terrorists in the luxurious jails here though, and all the immigrants; the hotel for the Polish workers is set to be complete by 2015.