Anotherwards; EU is good cop, US is bad cop. Until the capitalistic system destroys itself and it is on its way to doing that; and a new system emerges-the EU and the US will always be under the influence of the multinationals etc.
The film Network contains a scene from Paddy Chayefsky's script where Ned Beatty is playing the multinational CEO which owns the network and he is speaking to Peter Finch who plays the anchorman gone wild and surmising it states ' There are no such things as countries which control the world. Its only companies'. The script was written in the early 1970's and if anything, the corporates have even increased their domination over governments.
So please you EU proponents; please get off your high horse and realize we are all screwed until we can take away the levers of power from those whose only concern is profit and forge a new system which guarantees social justice as the priority and the individual's freedom to coexist with each other.
That is why I wrote elsewhere:
It also took me a while to understand the paradox (to me at least) that you are pro-Europe, and pro-EU, and even pro-Lisbon...and yet you also fear that most of your leaders (who are also pro-EU) are irredeemably corrupt vassals of NATO -- so corrupt that they cannot even speak legitimately on issues of human rights. Won't these same leaders, or their colleagues drawn from Europe's bureaucracy, be responsible for implementing Lisbon (or whatever variation or subsection of Lisbon that eventually passes)? This takes some getting used to. I suppose the genius of the Lisbon treaty is, the language is so vague and general (except where it is technical and obscure), it becomes an empty vessel into which anyone and everyone can pour their ideals and aspirations.
This takes some getting used to.
I suppose the genius of the Lisbon treaty is, the language is so vague and general (except where it is technical and obscure), it becomes an empty vessel into which anyone and everyone can pour their ideals and aspirations.
My politics are heterodox, but if I had to label them, I suppose neo-con would do. So, 'An American in London' and I probably have zero in common politically, yet we both have a similar instinct about the EU (or at least, the current implementation and its variants).
While there is of course some democratic input, the essence of the EU superstate is a technocracy. Don't bureaucracies tend towards slow, carefully managed change? Isn't that, by definition, conservative? I just don't see a technocracy leading the kind of revolution that seems to be expected of it.
Or, if the Eurocracy does lead a revolution, I don't understand why anyone expects it will create the kind of revolution that is in the interest of "the people", or what would cause it to give power back to "the people" once the status quo has been swept away.
Maybe we Americans just don't understand? __ I am the most conservative Unitarian-Universalist you will ever meet.
On that note, and why did the US scrap the Articles of Confederation? When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
I agree that the Maastricht EU is neither a superstate nor a Confederation. I think it is fair to say that Rome, or Lisbon, would be a superstate, roughly analogous to my federal government. My complaint is not that Europe is building a superstate, rather, that the superstate will be too technocratic, and not democratic enough.
Does that make sense or am I still misunderstanding something?
We scrapped the US Articles of Confederation because we wanted a stronger union of the states. Which is certainly a legitimate thing for Europe's people and countries to do, if you so choose. Keep in mind I am not against a pan-European political entity of some sort, and really, the decision isn't up to me. I just don't understand the appeal of the particular type of entity that is currently at issue.
My main problem with the current EU entities (existing and proposed) are that they are inelegant and (in spite of the fetish for a thing called 'transparency') too opaque. Informed consent requires that the operation be explained to the patient in terms that he or she can understand, without specialist training in medicine. The same principle should apply to decisions about dramatic and not-easily-reversible changes in systems of government.
(Well I have other complaints about technocracy vs. democracy but this is the main question I'm interested in at the moment)
Both the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, could be understood by anyone who was literate. Of course, most Americans weren't literate at the time, but the principle still stood, that you didn't have to have any specialist training, in order to understand the government you were voting to create, or to evaluate whether its ongoing performance remained faithful to the Articles or the Constitution.
I just do not believe the same can be said about Rome/Lisbon, or even Maastricht/Nice/etc. But at least Maastricht is more modest in scope that Rome/Lisbon. __ I am the most conservative Unitarian-Universalist you will ever meet.
I think it is fair to say that Rome, or Lisbon, would be a superstate, roughly analogous to my federal government.
My complaint is not that Europe is building a superstate, rather, that the superstate will be too technocratic, and not democratic enough.
We scrapped the US Articles of Confederation because we wanted a stronger union of the states.
My main problem with the current EU entities (existing and proposed) are that they are inelegant and (in spite of the fetish for a thing called 'transparency') too opaque.
Informed consent requires that the operation be explained to the patient in terms that he or she can understand, without specialist training in medicine. The same principle should apply to decisions about dramatic and not-easily-reversible changes in systems of government.
Both the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, could be understood by anyone who was literate. Of course, most Americans weren't literate at the time, but the principle still stood, that you didn't have to have any specialist training, in order to understand the government you were voting to create, or to evaluate whether its ongoing performance remained faithful to the Articles or the Constitution. I just do not believe the same can be said about Rome/Lisbon, or even Maastricht/Nice/etc. But at least Maastricht is more modest in scope that Rome/Lisbon.
I just do not believe the same can be said about Rome/Lisbon, or even Maastricht/Nice/etc. But at least Maastricht is more modest in scope that Rome/Lisbon.
By the way, the current treaty is the Treaty of Nice, Maastricht was superseded (amended) twice, by Amsterdam and Nice. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
