Comments by "Curious Crow" (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx) on "Truth To Power"
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It's less, about language than intent. The European Coal and Steel Community which morphed into the EEC, and the EU was about Economics. What people don't acknowledge is that the movement led by Jean Monnet was allegedly secretly supported by the CIA. Why? The Americans want there to be no more wars in Europe, and arguably strongly "encouraged" a Britain which was no longer front of the pack economically to join. And it seems Britain was resigned to doing for economic reasons. They had little choice, because having had to relinquish much of their empire, they were very much motivated to building and maintaining trade ties to allow Britain to make up for their loss. They had even considered the possibility of forming a Commonwealth trade bloc, which would have been bigger than the EEC. But geopolitics, andvarguably the inability divest itself of Imperialist priorities scuppered that plan on the racist reef of Rhodesia.
Britain broke it's promise to its African members to guarantee black majority rule in each of the black majority States at independence. Harold Wilson at the Lagos Commonwealth Office refused to send British troops to reimpised British rule after Rhodesia White minority government unilaterally declared independence, and excluded it's black citizens from politics. Wilson decided only to apply political pressure, which was of course toothless. This decision was a frost bomb in relations between the African States and Britain. So having to give up on the Commonwealth trade bloc, Britain focused on joining ECSC for its economic benefits. Yes, they appreciated the other motivations, but it was the economic ones which motivated them. And DeGalle in his own analysis thought that economically and politically Britain would be a poor fit, and so he vetoed the applications made by Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson over nearly a decade. And it was the economic benefits which were touted to the British people, because it's a truism in politics that "its the economy, stupid." It took nearly 20 years and Charles DeGaule leaving politics, for Britain to join the EEC. By that time the 1957 Treaty of Rome was a dusty document at the UN, and the EEC was predominantly economic in its focus. So your assertion about the Treaty is just not what was done in practice in the 1970s. It was only later, with the Social Charter that the EEC started evolved to become more aspirationally political, and seek to become more federal in its behaviour internally and externally. I would even argue that until the European Parliament had had its role expanded to be a fully fledged decision making body, rather than a talking shop, that the shift to being more political had been made.
So even in politics, what is written may not become a priority until decades later. And this progression could only occur when the EEC/EU was confident enough to do so. It would only then move to have it's own currency and focus more on internal and external politics as an entity. So when you hear British people argue that the EU was about trade and it's regulation, they have a point, because for quite a few decades it was mostly all about that despite the 1957 Treaty. And, it's arguable that others might wish it was still only about that. But now it's not because it's role in globalisation and global finance has geopolitical consequences since it's expansion. Where the EU will go next is hard to say. Whatever the 1957 Treaty of Rome says, none of the EU's goals can be achieved without effective economics within its borders. But now achieving that is now encompassing geopolical barriers because of the EU striving to grow its economic and political heft by it's expansion.
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One day a farmer had to go out into the pasture to check on his dairy cattle on his way enjoying the lovely view, he stepped right into a fresh, juicy cowpat. Hygiene is important in dairy, and as he was a bit away from water and disinfectant, there was nothing to do but scrape off the bulk of it, do his task, and then head for the cleaning station...
The ship of state doesn't turn on a sixpence, and the wealthy interests who pulled this bait and switch aren't going to give up trying to convince everyone that fresh cowpat smell is really Chanel No. 5. Cows aren't going to stop dropping cowpats anytime soon either. So what to do? Pretend you can jump in your poop loaded wellies to the cleaning station? Put nappies on cows? Agree manure smells like Chanel No 5 as the flies get high? or patiently do your job and clean your boots ASAP? Anyone claiming other than the last choice is not a competent or credible person, because they lack basic common sense. Any anyone expecting the farmer to do anything else is mistaken. The more fantasy farmers we listen to, the less well the farm is run, and everyone and everything stays covered in poop.
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Once British Steel was sold, their fate was sealed. Brexit occurred years before that happened, and arguably selling it to Tata just drove the coffin nails home. The problem is demand for steel in the UK was not enough to support production at Port Talbot. That isn't surprising as industry accounts for far, far less GDP than Services in the UK. And the Tories had no interest in industrial policy. Moreover, it's hard to justify as the Chinese are flooding markets with their product. So Port Talbot works was doomed. There's no turning the clock back. But what we do need to return to is a more mixed economy where we have more industry. But, the problem is that government is cash strapped, and the political will to do it is AWOL. If we can't even keep our public services going, how can we find money to subsidise industry? We need to return to an economy less dependent on extracting value, to one where investing in industry is far greater than it is now. So we can vote for Tories or Reform, and we have to educate our leaders not to listen only to multimillionaires. Yep, it's going to be a long and hard journey. Right now we need a defence industry resurgence, but the money has to come from somewhere.
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