Please watch: "How Facebook targeted advertisements track you online, offline and where they sell your private data" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sFl2qGedFQ -~-~~-~~~-~~-~- Follow me: https://twitter.com/The_HatedOne_ https://www.reddit.com/user/The_HatedOne/ https://www.minds.com/The_HatedOne Help us fight for our digital rights: https://act.eff.org/ How authoritarian is the European Union? The idea that the European Union might actually deeply authoritarian transnational organization may come as a slanderous statement. But in reality, the structure of the European Union is fundamentally undemocratic. There is no room for democratic representation, its mechanisms are too complicated, decision making is conducted by unelected groups, and the laws are too powerful and abrogative across the board. In my analysis, I am trying to make a case why the European Union is actually an authoritarian organization. Democratic deficit of the European Union The idea of democracy stems from the principle of localization – that is you can only be represented to a certain level of geographical coverage. In the ancient Greece, it was small city-states the size of today’s small towns. After that, the establishment of democracy turned nation-wide, but the most successful projects still relied on great ability of as local representatives as possible to keep check on the central government. That’s why modern democratic countries are split electable districts, regions, cantons, departments… only local population can know the best who they are voting for. The legislative power in the European Union is shared between the Parliament and the Council, none of which can propose a legislative initiative. In other words, the only directly elected body that the people are normally supposed to be represented by cannot make laws of its own. What a great way to start. Laws are only proposed by the European Commission, which acts as the government of the EU. To be fair, European Parliament does have a right to politely ask the Commission to make a law. But it can’t dictate anything to the executive branch. But what’s more interesting is that a minority of Western states outnumber the rest of the Union in the number seats. For example, you could count Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain and Netherlands and you would already have 392 votes, a simple majority in the parliament of 747 members. This is troubling, because whenever it comes to voting on for example economic issues where each state should have an equal state, this coalition tends to vote commonly so that they silence the majority of other states. Even after UK leaves the EU, you just add Sweden and Belgium and you still get 384 votes, a comfortable majority. Democracy has to have a geographical limit. You can’t have global or continental democracy The furthest you can go is state, but even that is divided into smaller governing areas with local constituencies. For ordinary people with daily problems, it’s hard to follow their own domestic politics, not to even get know politics of other countries that can create laws on top of their state legislature. That’s why the voters’ turnout at the European Parliamentary elections are so ridiculously low. People don’t see the European Union as their legitimate government. It is hard to keep the political establishment of your local country in check, not to mention making sense of the politics of foreign nations you have nothing in common with. Sources Members of European Parliament by country and political affiliation http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/crosstable.html Legislative procedure in the European Union http://www.europarl.europa.eu/external/appendix/legislativeprocedure/europarl_ordinarylegislativeprocedure_howitworks_en.pdf European Commission https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-commission_en Council of the European Union (European Council) http://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-council_en On democratic deficit http://www.economist.com/node/21555927 http://euanddemocracy.ideasoneurope.eu/2017/04/06/eu-democratic-deficit-recurring-unaddressed-problem/ Credits Music: Hitman, Undaunted by Incompetech Wish You Were Here by Joakim Karud The footage and images featured in the video were for critical analysis, commentary and parody, which are protected under the Fair Use laws of the United States Copyright act of 1976.

• published: 23 Jun 2017
• views: 7725