People don't want to hear the realities; they want to indulge themselves in emotional claptrap. That's why I shout at the television during news programs, or throw a pillow at it...most people, and I'm including so called "news commentators", of every political persuasion are either woefully ignorant of history, and basic economics, and human nature, I might add, or they are incapable of the kind of logical thinking that includes trying to foresee the consequences of certain actions, or they are blinded to the logic by emotional agendas, or they are outright liars who have a personal stake in the outcome. See what a cynic I am?
As to the oil fields, it depends on the contracts that were negotiated...the entities that paid for the construction, and continue to pay for the operation and maintenance of the rigs and the flow of the oil would have to be compensated, unless Scotland wants to go the banana republic route and nationalize them. Would England and any other entities involved really countenance that? Oil is still the lifeblood...I doubt they'll let it go.
That's exactly right in my view. Where on earth does it end? I highly doubt that countries like Germany or France will allow a "Flanders" or a "Veneto" to have the same voting power that they do. These smaller units will become pawns, pawns who have absolutely no bargaining power when it comes to regulations, trade decisions, expenditures, and, ultimately, taxes. (And that's how poorer areas will be pacified ultimately.) And that's if worse doesn't happen.
Perhaps I'm jaundiced about this precisely because I'm Italian, and have been studying Italian history my entire life. Since the fall of the Empire, we have been laid waste time and again by every King from beyond the Alps with a Caesar complex and a few thousand organized troops. Why? Because of the eternal, infernal "campanilismo" of Italy: the petty squabbling and back stabbing by the Italian city states and/or regions. That's what happened during the Renaissance. The French, the risibly named "Holy Roman Empire", and the Aragonese fought over the peninsula like rabid dogs over a bone and brought it all crashing down. The result...the south under inept and corrupt foreign rulers who plundered it when they didn't ignore it, (from which we still feel the consequences) ,most of northern Italy also under foreign domination and sinking into poverty and insignificance, much of central Italy beneath the suffocating heel of the Papacy, and even the "Republic" of Venice (there's another misnomer for you) began its great decline.
No One ultimately benefited, and the suffering and destruction of all types was incalculable. We are still experiencing the consequences.
That's one of the reasons why, in my opinion, Nicolo' Machiavelli wrote "The Prince", which in my view contradicts his previous writings on politics: out of desperation at Italy's plight, he jettisoned all his republican principles, and was willing to overlook any moral turpitude if it got the job done. Unfortunately, even had illness not felled him, Cesare Borgia was not the man for the job. He cared nothing for Italy, and nor did his father...parvenue immigrants out to feather their own nests, the whole lot of them.
Nowadays they do their colonizing with their freaking Euro...the worst thing Italy has done in a long time is to adopt the Euro...its products are now too expensive on the world markets, while what it has to purchase is more expensive...Just how is that supposed to be a benefit? It benefits Germany, not Italy. And when floods of desperately poor and uneducated North Africans land on our islands, just what is the EU doing about it? How is it helping to manage the problem and distribute the burden? I'll tell you how...it lets France close the border with Italy so as to prevent all those North Africans from joining their relatives already in France and effectively forcing Italy to deal with it all alone.
Weakness attracts domination...only if you are in a position of strength can you negotiate to your own benefit.
And I highly doubt that the use of force is beyond certain European groups. Sometimes I think that Europe has been so soaked in its own blood that it willingly practices a form of amnesia. Basic human nature doesn't change. If you're a realist, you see it, and you plan and act accordingly. I don't believe all Europeans are going to beat their swords into plowshares and live peacefully together among the tulips. I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. I think some of them are going to keep their swords, and the rest will be caught holding their..uh...plowshares in their hands.
Well, now that I've finished ranting...
Sorry about that...
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Well, I can't stand high heat and humidity either. It prostrates me... I used to blame it on my father's mountain genes, because he and his whole family are the same, and it was never too hot for my mother. From what I've been reading lately, it may be that part of the blame lies in some defective protein encoding on my decidedly very north Eurasian like mtDNA, although as I said, my mother would follow the sun and bake like one of our lizards...a sweet, lovely lizard,but you get the idea.
That's why in the summers I'm either in the mountains of the entroterra, or right on our coast. The Riviera, both the French one and the Italian one, are blessed in their climate, although the rains in winter have been devastating the last couple of years.
Anyway, it hardly sounds like traveling to Italy is in your bucket list, but should you ever do it, stay away from the cities in the Pianura Padana in the summer...stay away in the winter too...there are a few good weeks in the fall and spring but that's about it, in my opinion. Either blisteringly hot and humid or cold, cloudy and humid. Hellish climate.