Global Perspectives

Extremism is in the Eye of the Beholder

Today we propose to have some light relief.  Firstly, in the US NBC12 is reporting that President Obama's podium and teleprompter have been stolen.  We kid you not.  We know that the lingering recession has resulted in all kinds of normally "safe" bits and pieces of equipment disappearing due to larcenous activity.  But this takes the cake.

NBC12 has uncovered one of those stories that makes you think: "How in the world does that happen?!"  A truck filled with President Obama's podiums and audio equipment was stolen in Henrico just days before his visit to Chesterfield.


We confirmed an investigation with the U.S. Defense Department.  There are still a lot of questions.  The biggest one being did the thieves intentionally target the President's truck or did they take advantage of a crime of opportunity and give a big "uh-oh" when they saw what was inside.  When you see President Obama speak, there is a pretty typical setup including the presidential seal on a podium, the see-thru Teleprompter and a portable sound system.

Thieves saw the truck carrying that equipment and couldn't resist the target. We're told the truck was parked at the Virginia Center Commons Courtyard Marriott in advance on Wednesday's presidential visit to Chesterfield. Sources said inside that vehicle was about $200,000 worth of sound equipment, several podiums and presidential seals, behind which only the President himself can stand.

As one wit noted, " At this time, nothing about the teleprompter thief or thieves is known, other than that police are on the lookout for anybody who can’t stop saying 'pass this jobs bill'”

Then, over to Europe, where Hans Martens who heads the leading Brussels think tank, the European Policy Centre has been commenting upon the European debt crisis and has been quoted divulging his personal plans.  He is a passionate advocate for a European federalism, which involves subborning the EU nation states into little more than regional local governments, with a strong European federal government supreme over all things European.  He sees this as the only way out of the debt crisis. 

Martens criticises as "extreme" those local national political parties opposing the ceding of national sovereignty.  He then says, if the extremists succeed,  "I will probably move to New Zealand."

What on earth does he mean, we wonder?  Does he mean that New Zealand is already the statist paradise he yearns for in Europe?  Or does he mean that New Zealand is a primitive escapist bolt-hole--the farthest away from anywhere that one can get on planet Earth?  Or both?  


Regrettably, the correct answer would probably be in the affirmative for all three.   In the political lexicon of Martens and the European Policy Centre this would make, mutatis mutandis, Auckland Mayor Len Brown a notorious extremist because he resists the supreme will of an all-competent central government.