For half a century the ruling class of Europe has owned the project of European unification. Nobody bothered to ask the voters. But now they have made a mistake. Purely as a gesture, France, Holland and Britain scheduled popular referenda on the EU Constitution. The entire political and media establishment explained how a new Holocaust would follow if the referendum didn't pass. Jacques Chirac told the French that a "Yes" vote would be a punch in the nose for Uncle Sam, show up the Brits, and keep the wolf of capitalism from the door.

Surprise! A New Media has risen in Europe, and made the case against the grotesque EU Constitution. And the voters have said "No."

There's only one problem. For the EU,  "No" really means "Yes," or "Maybe," or "We'll Get Back To You Later." Like the famous New York Post headline during the Ford Administration, the message from the elites is "EU to Voters: Drop Dead!"

Right after the French "No" vote, Jacques Chirac said that the EU project would keep moving along: the EU foreign service is forging ahead, EU military centralization will continue to undermine NATO, France and Germany will still want to raise taxes in Ireland and Poland to keep them from out—competing their bloated welfare economies, and the EU propaganda machine will keep whipping up feelings against the "Anglo—Saxon model" (also called free markets).

Just to make his position really clear, Chirac appointed Dominique de Villepin as his new Prime Minister. Monsieur de Villepin is a Napoleonic fantasy—monger who is dedicated to creating a French—controlled Europe, to bring down American power in the world. De Villepin enjoyed shafting Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq invasion, by leaking forged documents suggesting that Niger had sold yellow cake uranium to Saddam. When Powell told the Security Council about the documents, the French immediately leaked news stories that "European intelligence agencies" doubted their authenticity. That's because the French forged them all by themselves.

De Villepin is the most anti—American politician in France. He recently published a new book called "The Seagull and the Shark" ———  guess who is the seagull, and who is the shark? You're right.

Europe's ruling class cannot give up the EU superstate for one big reason:
hundreds of thousands of their careers are at stake. For thirty years Brussels has been a favorite employer for French enarques (graduates of the political training institutes of France). The Brussels bureaucracy has been stacked. As Daniel Hannan, a British Member of the (bogus) European Parliament has written, "The French governing class is the chief beneficiary of the European Union." 

That's why France is the biggest cheerleader for  European unification ——— not because the people wanted it, but because it promised fat salaries to tens of thousands of French bureaucrats and politicians. In fact, the EU is nothing but Super—France, the fantasy superstate the French elites have always lusted for.

What about the voters?  The New Media are now spreading in Europe. The Netherlands, which just overwhelmingly rejected the EU Constitution, has some 500,000 blogs, which played a major role in the No vote. There are striking parallels to the US. In Europe the Left had a media monopoly just as it did in the United States ——— but even more so because of government—controlled media like the BBC. With blogs rising by the thousands, Europe may be seeing the first signs of a new class war, not between capitalists and workers, but between the people and the state. The vote against the statist Constitution may be a first sign. But just as the liberal elite in America  will resist the New Media to the bitter end, socialists in Europe will fight for their entrenched power.

Europe's ruling class has been amazingly irresponsible. They have been unwilling even to talk about regulating immigration from Islamic countries, even though the people have known for years that many Muslims will take generations to adopt Western culture. The elites have allowed France and Germany to wallow in a welfare culture, even though millions of hard—working Europeans live in poverty because of over—the—top taxation ——— some of the EU states consume up to 70 percent of GDP.   Europe's rulers have spread the fantasy that Europe can live in peace and freedom without ever having to pay the price of defending itself. Lying and misgovernment is endemic to the European ruling class.

Europe is what hard core American liberals would like to see everywhere, a completely bureaucratized state from the cradle to the grave. Because British Labour represents the social welfare elites, Tony Blair may now renege on his promised referendum for Britain. German and Belgian politicians never even bothered to ask their people. They just passed the EU Constitution by a party vote of professional politicians. The politicians simply voted to abolish their own countries witout asking the people.

Americans rarely see how stratified European society really is. Low income Americans can expect to rise steadily during their lives, changing jobs every three or five years as opportunities open up.  By contrast, most Europeans are corralled early in life into classes defined by their school test scores, like the ancient Mandarin bureaucracy. In France, the ruling class consists of those who have graduated from the elite state universities for bureaucrats and politicians. The European Union is therefore simply the product of bureaucratic expansionism. Even the British Foreign Service is being undermined, by promising its mandarins new and better—paying jobs in the EU foreign service. The EU undermines every member country by bribery and threats.

A few decades ago every child in Europe was still forced to take the Baccalaureate exam at age eleven, to be corralled along a rigid career path for the rest of their lives. The highest scorers would go to an academic high school and college; the second group to a terminal high school; third and fourth went for low level and blue collar training. The test determined one's whole life. It was hard to change one's life after age eleven. While the system has now loosened up somewhat, the bureaucratic state still begins to exercise control early in life, and keeping control right to the end.  When old people in the Netherlands are subtly encouraged to commit suicide using state—provided euthenasia, they are simply at the logical conclusion of a long bureaucratic walk through life.

As Ronald Reagan said, many governments have a people; what is different about the US is that the people have a government. In Europe the people do not have a government yet. The vote against the grotesque EU Constitution may be a first step to genuine people power. But this is only a very early step. If the European New Media can be kept free from political control, there is hope for the future. Europe's bureaucracy is never shy about grabbing power, though, so we might well see efforts to regulate or stop the new voices from being heard on the other side of the Atlantic.

James Lewis is a frequent contributor.