> [WS:] I'd rather stick with the
> imperfect "sell-out" center-left like the British,
> Irish and other Euro labour parties and liberal
> democracts than with the pie-in-the sky "true" lefties
> seeking heaven on earth.
Well, that's your prerogative. But after living amongst them for long enough to see that they are now only slightly to the left of the US Democrats, and are unprincipled enough to allow themselves to be pulled to the right any time they think the wind is blowing in that direction, I have no more interest in supporting them than I would supporting their American counterparts. I think (and sorry if I'm wrong about this; haven't had time to read the list much lately) that you've said you still vote for Democrats, so maybe that points up an unbridgeable gulf between our perspectives on this issue anyway.
> By contrast, the "true" left has at best NOTHING to
> show if one counts generously, and quite a dismal
> track record if one wants to pin the Stalinist,
> Maoist, and Pol-Potist attrocities as well as minor
> criminal activities of the Bader-Meinhoff gang or the
> Red Army Faction thugs on it.
Actually, an interesting thing is that many of the old Stalinists are now formally aligned to the centre-left rather than the far left - a good example being the Irish Labour Party which is now completely dominated by the 'Sticky' wing (ex-Workers' Party, whose leader is still facing extradition charges to the US arising from an alleged counterfeiting operation in cahoots with the North Koreans). If I'm not mistaken most of the old Stalinist European parties are aligned with the British and Irish Labour parties in the Euro Parliament's Socialist grouping, as opposed to its further-left GUE/NGL grouping.
> And one more thing - pardon my harsh reaction, but any
> criticim of the EU coming from an English speaking
> country is likely to be disingenuous, a thinly veiled
> expression of Anglo-Saxon insularism cum jingoism -
For your information, the country I am in is not an Anglo-Saxon country. And those within this country that are inclined toward Anglo-Saxonism in any respect are, by and large, Europhiles.