Californians Would No More Vote To Put Themselves Under Cultural Neanderthals Than The French

If Californians could only vote whether to accept the direction of their newspapers, banks and telephone companies from cultural Neanderthals such as Chicagoans or Southerners, the result would be a foregone conclusion. We would kick these outsiders in the rear until they beat a retreat..

Of course, we would be just as quick as the French were on Sunday, and the Dutch will be on Wednesday in rejecting the proposed Constitution of the European Union, to vote down such a ridiculous proposal. We know that Chicago Tribune ownership of the L.A. Times makes no sense, and we know that the Bank of America has no business being run by corporate interests from the Deep South, and that the old Pacific Bell has no sensible reason to be owned by Texans.

It's as much of a no-brainer for Californians to put themselves under the heel of the Chicago Tribune as it was for the French people to seriously consider whether to let Germans, Poles and Romanians have a decisive say in running France or moving there in large numbers..

There was something deliciously instinctive in the French vote on Sunday. These people naturally don't want to ruin France, just as Californians don't want to ruin California.

That's really what's wrong with the whole idea of globalization. It accepts control by the lowest common denominator. It elevates the lowest over the highest, and there's no way in the long run that's going to be accepted by the people at the highest rung on the ladder. The French will never trade Chanel for hog swill.

Of course, the proposed European Union Constitution, 448 pages long, was also bureaucracy run completely out of control. But more than that it was like putting Bell Gardens in charge of Santa Monica. The people in Santa Monica, given a chance to say yes or no to that would never say yes.

So, not for the first time, French President Jacques Chirac, made a mistake. He might have gotten this through a parliament he controlled, but never through the French people. The Chandlers knew enough not to put the sale of the Times to the Tribune up to a popular vote in Los Angeles.

When the great Charles de Gaulle lost a referendum, he did the right thing: he resigned immediately. And that's what Chirac ought to do now. But he probably won't. He'll probably stagger on, although his political career is in tatters. Later Tuesday, Chirac compounded his problems by appointing the rank anti-American Dominique de Villepin as new prime minister. The Euro promptly sank further, and Chirac had dealt himself another setback.

These unnatural orders of things have to give way, even though, as someone observed in the New York Times today, the thing to be said for the European Union is that it keeps Europe out of wars. It's just that in the long run, it's impossible.. Europe is just too diverse.

And, in the long run, the Chicago Tribune won't own the biggest newspaper in Los Angeles. Either it will sell it back to local interests, or the L.A. Times will continue to sink the way it has in the last five years. What a sad thing that would be.

So the French vote reestablished the natural order, and, another good thing about it was that it also let Britain off the hook. Now, Great Britain need not pursue becoming part of Europe. It can be as distinctive as the Swiss, which, more sensibly than the British in recent years, have never even flirted with the idea of joining up with the bureaucrats in Brussels in letting the Germans run Europe.