There is no question that the deepening integration of the European Union has brought about huge centralization of power in Brussels — and a corresponding diminution of the powers of national, state, and local governments over remits they once governed. And there is little question that the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Council, and other EU institutions are dominated by socialists, Greens, and other “progressives” — and have been from the start. The Socialist Group was one of the first political party groupings to form in 1953 in the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which evolved into the European Economic Community (EEC), which evolved into the European Community (EC), which evolved into the European Union (EU). The Common Assembly evolved into the European Parliament. The Socialist Group, which has gone through multiple name changes, has been the largest bloc in the European Parliament throughout most of that history. It is currently the second largest; together with the Greens and collectivists in the other parties, they still represent the dominant ideology, regardless of the labels. European Commission President Barroso is emblematic of the statist pedigree and mentality that is all too prevalent throughout the EU institutions. As a student leader, he was a militant Maoist, a radical in the mold of terrorist-cum-professor Bill Ayers (in words if not in deeds). As president of the EU Commission, he has continued the Soviet-style authoritarian and secretive rule of that institution, ignoring and defying the calls for transparency and representation that he claims to uphold and that the EU claims to revere. This is a style of governance that fits President Obama perfectly, since, as evidenced by his words and actions, he clearly adheres to a communitarian/socialist ideology and believes he is entitled to ignore Congress and legislate by executive order. (Not that he is completely unique in this; his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — and others before them — also shared this autocratic tendency.) All this being open knowledge, how plausible is it that Barroso’s EU deputation and Obama’s U.S. contingent will together craft a TTIP that is anything other than a socialist-tilted program that mimics the autocratic EU? We have already seen the official categories of issues that this “trade” agreement purports to deal with, and to say that it is exceedingly broad is to sin by understatement. This list alone (which we will go over, forthwith) betokens the type of transnational meddling and intrusion in national and local matters that have been the cause of so much concern throughout the EU about the “Brussels dictatorship.” Neither the American public, nor our elected representatives in Congress, have had access to the secretive negotiation process or the negotiated texts. As with NAFTA and ObamaCare, we will be handed a hopelessly complex and incomprehensible hodgepodge of hundreds (or thousands) of pages, with additional side agreements, amendments, understandings, clarifications, addendums, etc., and then we’ll be subjected to a high-pressure campaign to pass this concoction so as not to jeopardize our opportunities to participate in the supposed bonanzas it offers. Remember Nancy Pelosi’s infamous ObamaCare argument: “We have to pass it so we can find out what’s in it.” Expect more of the same when TTIP is finally unveiled.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 05:48:09 +0000