Author Archives: bobdillon33@gmail.com

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT THE STATE OF OUR WORLD.

24 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Environment, European Union., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Happiness., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Innovation., Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Refugees., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The Refugees, The world to day., World Organisations.

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(Fifteen minutes read.)

After decades of globalisation, our political systems are becoming obsolete.

Half a century has been spent building the global systems on which we all now depend.

The question is-  are they here to stay or do we need a new world system in order for it to serve the human community.

If so it must be subordinated to an equally spectacular political infrastructure, which we have not even begun to conceive.Image associée

Without political innovation, global capital and technology will rule us without any kind of democratic consultation, as naturally and indubitably as the rising oceans because any alternative to the nation-state system is a utopian impossibility.

This is the main reason we will not be able to tackle Climate change.

We have to move away from the Nation by Nation Paris Climate Promises Agreement with its new rules to a Collective World undertaking not a state by state input as there is no ecosystem immune to another.

When we discuss “politics”, we refer to what goes on inside sovereign states; everything else is “foreign affairs” or “international relations” – even in this era of global financial and technological integration we are unable to act like one.

Exhaustion, hopelessness, the dwindling effectiveness of old ways: these are the themes of politics all across the world.

In each country, the tendency is to blame “our” history, “our” populists, “our” media, “our” institutions, “our” lousy politicians.

This is understandable since the organs of modern political consciousness – public education and mass media – emerged in the 19th century from a globe-conquering ideology of unique national destinies.

However, it is becoming clearer every day – the real delusion is the belief that things can carry on as they are.

Distracted by wars, the magnification of presidential powers and the corresponding abandonment of civil rights and the rule of law.

We may all use Google and Facebook, but political life, curiously, is made of separate stuff and keeps the antique faith of borders.

All countries are today embedded in the same system, which subjects them all to the same pressures: and it is these that are squeezing and warping national political life everywhere.

The current appeal of machismo as political style, the wall-building and xenophobia, the mythology and race theory, the fantastical promises of national restoration – these are not cures, but symptoms of what is slowly revealing itself to all: Nation states everywhere are in an advanced state of political and moral decay from which they cannot individually extricate themselves.

National political authority is in decline, and, since we do not know any other sort, it feels like the end of the world.

Why is this happening?

In brief, 20th-century political structures are drowning in a 21st-century ocean of deregulated finance, autonomous technology, religious militancy and great-power rivalry.

Meanwhile, the suppressed consequences of 20th-century recklessness in the once-colonised world are erupting, cracking nations into fragments and forcing populations into post-national solidarities: roving tribal militias, ethnic and religious sub-states and super-states.

Finally, the old superpowers’ demolition of old ideas of international society – ideas of the “society of nations” that were essential to the way the new world order was envisioned after 1918 – has turned the nation-state system into a lawless gangland; and this is now producing a nihilistic backlash from the ones who have been most terrorised and despoiled.

The result?

For increasing numbers of people, our nations and the system of which they are a part now appear unable to offer a plausible, viable future. This is particularly the case as they watch financial elites – and their wealth – increasingly escaping national allegiances altogether.

Today’s failure of national political authority, after all, derives in large part from the loss of control over money flows. At the most obvious level, money is being transferred out of national space altogether, into a booming “offshore” zone. These fleeing trillions undermine national communities in real and symbolic ways. They are a cause of national decay, but they are also a result: for nation states have lost their moral aura, which is one of the reasons tax evasion has become an accepted fundament of 21st-century commerce.

The unwillingness even to acknowledge this crisis, meanwhile, is appropriately captured by the contempt for refugees that now drives so much of politics in the rich world.

In my view, it is unjust to preserve the freedom to move capital out of a place and simultaneously forbid people from following.

The ensuing vacuum can suck in firepower from all over the world, destroying conditions for life and spewing shell-shocked refugees in every direction. Nothing advertises the crisis of our nation-state system so well, in fact, as its 65 million refugees – a “new normal” far greater than the “old emergency” (in 1945) of 40 million.

After so many decades of globalisation, economics and information have successfully grown beyond the authority of national governments.

Today, the distribution of planetary wealth and resources is largely uncontested by any political mechanism – thanks to fourth Industrial technological revolution platforms with their algorithms, profit for profit sake is alive and growing while the inequality gap grows and grows.

Since 1989, barely 5% of the world’s wars have taken place between states:

National breakdown, not foreign invasion, has caused the vast majority of the 9 million war deaths in that time. Climate change will enhance those 9 million deaths and perversely might save the planet.

Even if we wanted to restore what we once had, that moment is gone.

We need to find new conceptions of citizenship. Citizenship is itself the primordial kind of injustice in the world.

It functions as an extreme form of inherited property and, like other systems in which inherited privilege is overwhelmingly determinant, it arouses little allegiance in those who inherit nothing.

97% of citizenship is inherited, which means that the essential horizons of life on this planet are already determined at birth.

National governments themselves need to be subjected to a superior tier of authority:  Oppressed national minorities must be given a legal mechanism to appeal over the heads of their own governments.

Nations must be nested in a stack of other stable, democratic structures – some smaller, some larger than they – so that turmoil at the national level does not lead to total breakdown.

The EU is the major experiment in this direction, and it is significant that the continent that invented the nation-state was also the first to move beyond it.

The EU has failed in many of its functions, principally because it has not established a truly democratic ethos. But the free movement has hugely democratised economic opportunity within the EU.

Finally.

If we as the custodians of the world are to address any of the major problems – Fresh Air, Freshwater, Clean Energy, Soil erosion, to name but a few and are unable to act as one we must put financial rewards in the path of those who do so.

Without this, our political infrastructure will continue to become more and more superfluous to actual material life.

In the process, we must also think more seriously about global redistribution: not aid, which is exceptional, but the systematic transfer of wealth from rich to poor for the improved security of all, as happens in national societies.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the state of the world"

We’re all responsible for the state of the world.

Creating this sense of ownership, connection, empathy and compassion should not be left to chance, but should be bred into all of us through the education system and how we raise our children.

In a landmark climate report last year, the United Nations last year called for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” It warned the world has only 12 years to avert a climate disaster.

“The enormity of the problem has only just dawned on quite a lot of people … Unless we sort ourselves out in the next decade or so we are dooming our children and our grandchildren to an appalling future.” David Attenborough.

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: HOW LOW WILL ENGLAND STOOP- PAY TO STAY.

21 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., Uncategorized

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(Four-minute read)

You need to note this moment in your history.

This moment when your gov’t asked EU families to pay £65 for those over 16 and £32.50 for those under 16 to stay in the UK.

“Brexitland”, is becoming really a place that I could indeed picture as a country in between Wonderland and Neverland for the absence of grown-ups.

At some point, they could live in an independent Scotland or in two Irelands reunited, both being full members of the European Union. But unfortunately, these potential solutions do not appear feasible or realistic in the short term.

Meanwhile, Brexitland and its blue-passport Brexiters will be the shame of Europe, of humanism, of its values, of its project, of its spirit, of its dream and of its fulfilments.

One more lie of the Leave campaign, which had promised that “There will we no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present.”

Not content with depriving their own British citizens of their rights as European citizens, not content with ignoring the vote of two nations (Northern Ireland and Scotland), not content with their incapacity of providing the EU citizens living in the UK with anything but uncertainty and fear about their own future, the British government has reached a new stage in indecency.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of eu citizens in the uk"

If you ever wanted to influence people and make friends this is the way to go about it. 

Around 3 million EU citizens currently living legally in the UK why not force them to pay to stay. 

To continue living in a country which has become their home. In which you contributed so much to over decades.

They “elegantly” called it the “EU Settlement Scheme”.

Tell me who would want to trade with a country that charges £32.50 for kids that are born in it to stay, based purely on the ethnicity of the parents.

The word apartheid means “apartness”

After The “Boer War leaders Louis Botha, Jan Smuts and J.B.M. Hertzog introduced Apartheid to South Africa.

In the system, the people of South Africa were divided by their race and the races were forced to live apart from each other.

Across the world, racism is influenced by the idea that one race must be superior to another.

Numerous laws were passed in the creation of the apartheid state.

Here are a few of the pillars on which it rested:

Population Registration Act, 1950.

This Act demanded that people be registered according to their racial group.

This meant that the Department of Home affairs would have a record of people according to whether they were white, coloured, black, Indian or Asian. People would then be treated differently according to their population group, and so this law formed the basis of apartheid.

Resistance to apartheid came from all circles, and not only, as is often presumed, from those who suffered the negative effects of discrimination.

EU nationals will have until 30 June 2021 to confirm their status.

I personally have had enough of their idiocy, bad faith, cowardice, and even xenophobia and racism.

Giving up any attempt to stop Brexit (or at least to avoid a no-deal) to let them keep running straight into the wall they’ve built themselves would be tempting, if it had no consequences on EU citizens and British Remainers.

The past two years and a half have been disheartening, but I still hope that Europe will build enough bridges to counter this wall. And I hope that the calls that EU citizens living in the UK will remain protected and welcome will eventually come to be.

But for such a referendum to happen, the British government should be brave, clever and lucid enough to hold it.

We were wrong to hope that EU citizens’ established rights would eventually be protected.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "who introduced apartheid system in south africa"

Shame on you for any status. Nelson Mandela will be moaning in his grave.

My advice to fellow EU citizens living in England is to offer themselves for arrest, to have your rights back and to be treated decently.

Applications will cost £65 and be half that cost for children under 16. EU citizens and their family members to obtain UK immigration status.

Update:

Just announced. You can stay for free.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S : IS BREXIT SHOWING UP A DECREPIT POLITICAL SYSTEM IN ENGLAND.

20 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit.

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(Twenty-minute read)

Without a written constitution Britain can only understand itself through the prism of the royal family and this will become more and more apparent if there is a no deal Brexit.

For better or worse I am sure long after Brexit there will be many a written appraisals both false and otherwise as to why it happened in the first place.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "picture voting poll"

The whole process is now boiling down to what value or power does a vote have in a country with a constitutional monarchy and a parliament in a system of first past the post which suppresses the true majority vote.   

Therefore the term “the government” can be used to refer to all politicians who have been appointed by the monarch. 

That means it is a country governed by a king or a queen who accepts the advice of a parliamentary and democracy which has been elected by the people.

All members of the government belong to the same political party. They are  collective responsibility. (That is, every member of the government, however junior, shares the responsibility for every policy made by the government.)

The Queen appears to have a great deal of power, in reality, she has very little.

The Prime Minister, on the other hand, appears not to have much power but in reality has a very great deal indeed.

But this is not quite true. 

The position of a British Prime Minister (PM) is in direct contrast to that of the monarch.

For the evidence of written law only, the Queen has almost absolute power, and it all seems very undemocratic.

Every autumn, at the state opening of Parliament, Elizabeth II, who became Queen in 1952, makes a speech. In it, she says what “my government” intends to do in the coming year. And indeed, it is her government – not the people’s. 

As far as the law is concerned, she can choose anybody she likes to run the government for her. 

If she gets fed up with her ministers, she can just dismiss them they are all “servants of the Crown”.

Furthermore, nothing the parliament has decided can become law until she has agreed to it.

The Queen also has a special relationship with the Prime Minister, retaining the right to appoint and also meeting with him or her on a regular basis.

There are often mentioned three roles of the monarch.

First, the monarch is the personal embodiment of the government of the country. This means that people can be as critical as they like about the real government, and can argue that it should be thrown out, without being accused of being unpatriotic.

Second, it is argued that the monarch could act as a final check on a government that was becoming dictatorial.

Third, the monarch has to play a very practical role as being a figurehead and representing the country.

The Prime Minister will talk about “requesting” a dissolution of Parliament when he or she wants to hold an election, but it would be normally impossible for the monarch to refuse this “request”.

So, in reality, the Queen cannot actually stop the government from going ahead with any of its politics.

The sovereign reigns but does not rule. 

Britain is almost alone among modern states in that it does not have ‘a written constitution’.

There are rules, regulations, principles and procedures for the running of the country – but there is no formal document that could be called the Constitution of the United Kingdom or which can be appealed to as the highest law of the land.

However, because Social media power is moving more and more to the people these rules are now changing. 

Keeping the above in mind a popular claim by many supporters of the Leave campaign is that the EU is run by ‘unelected bureaucrats’.

Part of the misunderstanding about the power of the Commission perhaps stems from a comparison with the British system of government.

How much truth is there behind that claim?

This claim mainly refers to the EU Commission: the EU’s executive body.

It is true that the Commission President and the individual Commissioners are not directly elected by the peoples of Europe. So, in that sense, we cannot “throw the scoundrels out”.

It is also true that under the provisions of the EU treaty, the Commission has the sole right to propose EU legislation, which, if passed, is then binding on all the EU member states and the citizens of these member states.

The truth is that the Commission can only propose EU laws in areas where the UK government and the House of Commons have allowed it to do so.

Unlike the British government, which commands a majority in the House of Commons, the Commission does not command an in-built majority in the EU Council or the European Parliament, and so has to build a coalition issue-by-issue. This puts the Commission in a much weaker position in the EU system than the British government in the UK system.

Finally, once invested, the Commission as a whole can be removed by a two-thirds ‘censure vote’ in the European Parliament.

Also, ‘proposing’ is not the same as ‘deciding’.

A Commission proposal only becomes law if it is approved by both a qualified majority in the EU Council (unanimity in many sensitive areas) and a simple majority in the European Parliament.

The problem in Britain is that the Commission President does not feel very democratic. But in many ways, the way the Commission is now chosen is similar to the way the UK government is formed.

Neither the British Prime Minister nor the British cabinet is ‘directly elected’.

Formally, in House of Commons elections, they do not vote on the choice for the Prime Minister, but rather vote for individual MPs from different parties.

Then, by convention, the Queen chooses the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons to form a government.

This is rather like the European Council choosing the candidate of the political group with the most seats in the European Parliament to become the Commission President.

Then, after the Prime Minister is chosen, he or she is free to choose his or her cabinet ministers. There are no hearings of individual ministerial nominees before committees of the House of Commons, and there is no formal investiture vote in the government as a whole. From this perspective, the Commissioners and the Commission are more scrutinised and more accountable than British cabinet ministers.

None of the main British parties are in the EPP (the Conservatives left the EPP in 2009), and so British voters were not able to vote for Juncker (although they could vote against him).  But, we can hardly blame the EU for the Conservatives leaving the EPP or for our media failing to cover the Commission President election campaign!

There was also very little media coverage in the UK of the campaigns between the various candidates for the Commission President, so few British people understand how the process worked (unlike in some other member states).

So, it is easy to claim that the EU is run by ‘unelected bureaucrats’, but the reality is quite a long way from that. Although, having said that, I would be one of the first to acknowledge that the EU does not feel as democratic as it could or should be.

This is perhaps more to do with the stage of development of the EU than because of the procedures that are now in place for choosing and removing the Commission, which are far more ‘democratic’ than they were 5 or 10 years ago.

So at the risk of repeating the previous post on the subject of Brexit here is in my view the main contributions.

Most if not all reasons for Brexit can be put down to social changes over the past 50 years.

The loss of empire and of world power status, a weaker sense of collective British identity (devolution as both cause and consequence), an increase in immigration, first from the newer Commonwealth countries and now from new EU states, and the growth of multiculturalism and changes in the balance of the population ( the decline of manual work, the increase in the number of women in the workforce and rising numbers of the elderly) and the Forth Industrial technological revolution exposing the have and have nots.

Resulting in Society becoming more individualistic split between the south-east versus the rest divide in terms of economic wealth and opportunity.

London has gained greatly from the globalising economy, while the north remains heavily dependent on public spending on jobs and economic activity.

Can the mess be resolved without Constitutional changes, without a Backstop, without the Union breaking up, without a general election, without a peoples vote?

It would be foolish for the government to marginalise groups and to pursue a top-down style of policy-making when faced with the truly huge task of deciding what to do about the massive amount of EU legislation that will remain in place on day one of Brexit, albeit as British law.

Interest groups, above all, know best which EU laws are working well, which are not, and which are no longer needed.

Thus, Brexit should usher in a return to governance, a return to the European Union to engage in reforms that are needed.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "picture voting poll"

To honour the Good Friday agreement an international treaty. 

There are no large trading blocks lining up to do trade deals. 

There is no such thing as a Sovereign nation in the Forth industrial revolution.  

Just think of what else you could have done with all that time and money, including the £4bn you are spending to guard against the entirely avoidable and self-inflicted calamity of a no-deal crash-out from the EU.

Surely you can already see that Brexit is doing the opposite from being Great Britain, to turning your gaze ever more inward, shrinking your horizons – and yourselves.

It remains disturbing to see the media held captive by Brexit.

If news bulletins, front pages and social media feeds were your guides, you’d think climate change had gone away, quietly resolved while we were obsessing over the Northern Ireland backstop. Not so. It barely made a ripple, but last week came word that the oceans are warming at a rate some 40% faster than previously understood.

How many episodes of this show are there going to be before you realize the capabilities of your decrepit political system?

In reality, it is of course very different. if no action is taken to change the timing of withdrawal under Article 50, Britain will go its Brexit way with no deal.

God save the Queen.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WE NEED MORE DREAMS THAN MEMORIES .

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Education, Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google, Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Innovation., Life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Politics

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(Six-minute read)

Why?

As we journey toward the undiscovered country called the future we are witnessing a world of terror, violence, greed, exploitation, pollution, and algorithm annihilation wreaking havoc in our world.

It’s no wonder in the face of such horror. that most of us feel minuscule and completely powerless.

But the world is glittering with possibility which can’t afford to wait for a generational change.

We’re clearly at a moment of great global transition and transformation as we attempt to help solve massive emerging issues we need more dreams than memories.

Help the world and the world will help you back.

In addition to globalization, technology, social changes and government policies that have all been instrumental in determining who benefits and who loses out from global economic integration in past decades we now have giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era.

These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable.

We can dream of a world rich enough to pay everyone a living wage as a birthright, of thriving human creativity, and of thrilling new ways for humans to build on and collaborate with machine intelligence but are we fooling ourselves.

There are no quick answers.

It may take a revolution in education; we may even need to rethink capitalism itself.

Certainly, we’ll need ideas to address the growing inequality that is driving so much of the anger we see in the world.

It seems clear now that millions of people around the world are rejecting a global order that they feel was foisted on them and has given them nothing.

We need to give a platform to dreamers and reformers who are thinking outside the box as the current system is in danger of breaking.

One in every nine people goes to bed hungry each night.

Up to one-third of the food produced around the world is never consumed.

Every 10 seconds, a child dies from hunger.

We are witnessing a massive shift of humanity unlike any seen before.

Today more than 68 million people around the world are displaced from their homes.

If you compare your size to the size of the universe, you almost don’t exist.Image associée

As Martin Luther King, Jr said, “We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.”

What happens to society when the focus of culture is on the self and its icon, the “selfie”?

And what happens to morality when the mantra is no longer “We’re all in this together”, but rather “I’m free to be myself”?

What happens when Google filters and Facebook friends divide us into non-communicating sects of the like-minded?

What could possibly be gained from ignoring the global view, that, the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is the sole reason that humankind’s ecological footprint is larger than Earth itself?

I would like people not to be satisfied with the current ecological footprint and try to come up with measures that really track the water, soil and all the ways we degrade ecosystems in a way that would become management metrics.

The dream of one world is not threatening, but beautiful.

Once one person does the “impossible”, thousands of people follow only because their mind starts believing it’s possible.

It means you must take the time to:

a) Define your values and guiding principles.

b) Understand your nature and individuality.

Define the experiences you want to have in life. Then, do everything you can to realize those experiences.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it.

We must start extending our sense of shared identity to all of humanity.

We’re battling here for the survival of an idea on which the world’s future depends, the idea of humanity as one connected family.

But how do we get there?

First and foremost we must start breaking the cycle of poverty.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "what does the world need more than anything"

So let’s seek out those with compelling ideas to offer here other than like clicks and abuse.

The key may be to stop framing this dream as a top-down system driven by faceless global elites who tell us all what to do, but instead as a flourishing of human possibility that’s happening right here on the ground.

Ideas can’t be contained by borders.

Most countries are in ecological deficit.

We have technologies that can inflict global harm, our very survival now depends on it.

The potential and pitfalls for digital identity must be addressed. Holding the earth

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHO CAUSED BREXIT?

17 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit.

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(Four-minute read)

NO MATTER WHAT THE END RESULT IS OF ALL THE VERBAL IN ENGLAND SURROUNDING THE RESULT OF THE IN OUR OUT REFERENDUM. THE EUROPEAN UNION CANNOT BE BLAMED FOR WHAT IS TO ARRIVE.

BACKSTOP OR NOT ENGLAND IS IN AN UNPRECEDENTED CONSTITUTIONAL CRISES WHOSE ROOTS  CAN BE FIRMLY PLACED ON THREE LADIES AND ONE WANKER.

Most people’s decision on how they would vote was made up years before the referendum was even called.

Mrs M Thatcher set the background:

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "mrs mary thatcher"

The weighing of her legacy divided the country deeply.

“I have only one thing to say: you turn if you want to; the Lady’s not for turning.

She destroyed Britain’s manufacturing industry and her policies led to mass unemployment.

The destruction of community and way of life was total. – and still does.

Mrs T May the foreground:

British Prime Minister Theresa May at Downing Street on January 16th.

Even with bribing the Unionist her extreme political weakness is underlined over the last two days.

Mrs A Foster: the playground:

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "mrs foster dup"Strangely, at about £15 a person across the UK the ten Unionists Northern Ireland, rebelled the previous day by voting against the Brexit agreement.

They have returned to the ranks, which make up the majority but at what cost?

Then Mr Farage:  Résultat de recherche d'images pour "Mr ukip"Résultat de recherche d'images pour "Mr ukip"

Love him or loathe him he fronted a racist Party financed by Mr Banks.

“We’ve not just changed British history. I’m sure that the EU project itself will now come tumbling down.  I would like to think and hope that right across the globe what we’ve done is to prove that people power can beat the establishment.

Then Fake News:

The right to quality information which is a cornerstone of our democracies.

We need to find a balanced approach between the freedom of expression, media pluralism and a citizens’ right to access diverse and reliable information. All the relevant players like online platforms or news media should play a part in the solution.

So should the people vote again.?

Could the EU survive another member leaving after Brexit?

The Eu needs to change its shift dramatically.

I don’t want to live in a corporate trade deal dominated Europe, I want an EU that respects and supports the differences between us and within our societies.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE FOR DEMOCRACY IN THIS AGE OF TECHNOLOGY.

15 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Democracy

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(Three-minute read)

These days how is the will of the people manifested and defined? Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of vote"

There are two sides to this argument.

Firstly, social movements and groups devoted to progressive issues and social change use technology to improve democracy.

The other side of the argument is that new advances in technology can be
distinguished from the media that preceded it as it is relatively cheap, easy to use, difficult to control and interactive.

Technology does not only divide the haves and the have-nots but also is important to facilitate democratic transitions by creating a more open political culture.

As a result, there is the problem re-striking a balance between state, market and societal control of IT, where the state and society emphasise the equality of access, while the market emphasises efficient development of technology and production.

As the capabilities of technology increase, so does our dependency on it.

Nowadays, we find yourself looking at our iPhone almost every ten minutes.

So what leverage does technology have on our democratic proceeds or institutions?

Without physical human interaction, we fall subject to potentially losing our sense of real connection. We’ll become desensitized, numb, and oblivious to the social cues that we would have witnessed had only the conversation been made in-person.

Is the democratic system more to do with how the app works?

Is digital technology leading us into a new dark age?

Will it be thanks to technology, politicians are no longer essential to

the formation of organized society?

Look at initiatives like Democracy. Earth, Asgardia, and Artisanopolis are envisioning new forms of society in which the people govern themselves.

These societies could have economies that are powered by Bitcoin, governing documents that are drafted through peer-to-peer networks, and decisions that are recorded via blockchains. They needn’t apply declarations written centuries ago to today’s unique landscape — they can start from the ground up.

These are the technology incubator of a new democracy.

But are technology and democracy compatible?

 Illustrative: A hacker in action. (BeeBright; iStock by Getty Images)

Social media manipulation of elections.

Politics has become far more emotional, as a result of our total

immersion in information at the cost of a more rational view of things.

Voter data mining, online polling, electronic voting booths, and, of course, twitter, facebook and emails.

All these communications have left the door wide open for misinformation to seep into the public consciousness, clouding what was already complicated and leaving many unsure of where to look for the truth…or what the truth even looks like.

Brexit being the current prime example, which is turning into a power struggle camouflaged in democracy called the will of the people.   

The average citizen will need to work even harder to separate fact from fiction on the internet over the course of the next four months of Brexit.

“We the People” online petition.  People no longer need to wait for an issue to bubble over before taking action.

It’s probably too early to reach a conclusion about the correlation between
technology and democracy but it is evident that technology can shape challenges in the political, social, military and economic environment of the political system.

In essence, if democracy is impacted by technology by way of a systematic
the application of knowledge to resources to produce goods and services, it will enhance stability and equality.

Therefore, it can shape challenges in the environment of a democratic political system.

There is no doubting as technology advances, humans will increasingly delegate responsibility to intelligent machines able to make their own decisions.

This entails considering various ways of adjusting the organisational structures that are relevant for economic productivity, political participation and cultural diversity in line with preferred social scenarios; and the cultural.

As far as technology is concerned, any definitive claim whether it is utopian or a Luddite when it comes to democracy can only succumb to technological
determinism.

Finally, the technology could in future greatly benefit society if its advancement is harmonious with national democratic imperatives and if it is intended to serve the needs of the people.

The goal for the future will be to somehow bridge the theoretical possibilities
with technological capability.

This involves creating information technologies that reduce the threat and
vulnerabilities and encourage environmentally sustainable applications of IT.

The most obvious problem is that information and communication technology companies will have little incentive to develop new products to meet the needs of people who cannot use or afford their existing services.

Thankfully, we have no shortage of ways to discuss the topic.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHAT EFFECTS IF ANY SHOULD BREXIT HAVE ON THE EUROPEAN ELECTIONS IN MARCH.

13 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., England EU Referendum IN or Out., European Union., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Reality., Social Media, The common good., The Euro, Transition period or Implication period., Unanswered Questions., What needs to change in European Union.

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( Twelve-minute read)

The Brexit referendum has and is demonstrating that the EU is not an irrevocable project.

It is now an internal power struggle while the EU _was_ an attempt to ensure peace and prosperity over the west part of the continent instead of the “costly” wars and colonial economics.

However, as the days go bye it is becoming more and more apparent that the EU is not for the people of Europe as a whole.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of european union elections"

Brexit for all its reasons is an example that is now shining a light on the forthcoming European Elections. Especially on the pros and cons of is there a future as separated national states or the Union.

Why?

Because Brexit’s main players have failed to comprehend the true significance of the European Union, bringer of peace.

Probably they intentionally refused to understand it in order to carry forth their destructive policies without qualms, hoping to reap the fruits in national elections.

But what is actually happening is that it is bringing England and their voters into a state of isolation, coupled with political and economic problems that are currently afflicting the United Kingdom it might be no longer a Union.

There is no doubting that Brexit will negatively affect the European Union, and its Member States, and its citizens, but the EU will be compensated by having gotten rid of a reluctant member that constantly hindered every effort aimed at the necessary, logical development of the integration process.

This is no fault of the in or out voters, rather it is playing out the falsehoods spread by Social media that appeal to nationalism rules & will, which in the current set up of the European Union will trump the forced solidarity of Brussels. 

No one can “force solidarity” upon you. Nor can a currency forge deeper integration. 

Only collective suicide can do so.

So are the up and coming elections going to deeper disunity than unity?

The results of the European elections will constitute the grounds for the renewal of EU institutions and of its leadership. It then remains to be seen to what extent Europeans would have a political interest in mitigating the psychological impact of this Brexit chaos on European citizens.

At the end of all this madness, what is the EU going to look like?

On May 23 to 26 the citizens of 27 Member States will be called to renew the European Parliament. Then it is the turn of the formation of the new EU Commission. A busy timetable marked by growing anti-European movements and by the possibility of citizens’ mobilization.

If England requests an extension of article 50 it will extend into the period of Europes own elections thus linking the absurd ongoing spectacle in the British Parliament- which will lead to all of us witnessing the consequences of anti-European, nationalistic propaganda based on lies and slander against the European project.

So Europe will be in a quandary.

It cannot be seen unwilling to offer an extension, nor can it risk a Brexit bush fire by an extension of  Article 50 over four months. 

The current crisis that Europeans are both observing and undergoing is nothing but the readjustment of a project that no longer serves the needs of the day properly, and therefore needs renovation.

The last thing it needs is squabbling noncooperative English second peoples referendum or general election influencing its own elections which will have more than ample pitfalls of their own. 

The Union is a rule-based union > if it is perceived to modify its rules without open democratic transparency it can only blame itself for its disintegration.

The Union might be only sixty odd years old but its history of breaking rules.

A confederation is based on trickle-down authority. The ultimate power lies in the individual states. It has no effective powers to prevent its own member states from violating its core values of respect for democracy, fundamental rights, and the rule of law.

Take Hungary, for example. Here is a member state casually flouting basic democratic norms and human rights, swiftly evolving into an authoritarian nightmare, with absolutely no meaningful consequences. The country’s parliament has not just passed a law making claims for asylum almost impossible:

Take Poland, for example. Authoritarian Poland is making an utter mockery of the EU’s stated commitment to democracy and human rights.

Defining appropriate institutions to regulate and mediate between economic and social forces is a global and not just European challenge, but its achievement may appear too far out of reach.

The EU is buffeted by multiple crises, from Brexit to the assumption of power of a Eurosceptic Italian government.

But its acceptance of its own member states succumbing to authoritarianism may prove its greatest existential threat of all.

One of the biggest problems with the EU is not how the politicians are “elected”, but how can you get rid of them when they fail to perform.

For many reasons, (addressed in previous posts) I think the EU project is fundamentally flawed.  That those who “run” the EU are not subjected to a democratic election is scandalous.

Integration is what has given Europe its strength in economic globalization, and this integration will play a huge part in Europe’s survival in the age of political globalization. They cannot be tarnished by concession to England just for the sake of the Market.

Closer integration will have to include services but also the huge market for training and skills. It will comprise an energy union, just as it will have to comprise a proper “market” for people. This market will include not just the now-endangered EU principle of free movement in the EU. It will also include its flip side, a properly regulated shared “market” for immigrants.

What seems impossible today will have to come, no matter how much nationalist sentiments stand against it.

The EU serves a purpose, and its workings and its setup will have to be adapted as this purpose changes. Again and again.

How can this be achieved?

Fundamentally, the EU either serves the needs of the day or it gets into a crisis.

A more open decision-making process might have a positive effect on public interest in democracy at the EU level but it will not unity because it is becoming more and more evident that the single market with all its rules is more important than the citizens.

The dominant dividing line of the new parliament will become a contest between politicians who want to find common EU-level solutions to current challenges and those who favour safeguarding and reaffirming national sovereignty.

So I predict a Europe in which values will be handled closer to the lowest common denominator than to the great ideals that Europe wants to stand for.

This will be a source of never-ending tension, but it will prove less costly than becoming divided over maximalist morals only to lose out in the harsh world of political globalization.

The peoples of Europe will no longer integrate because they feel love for the idea of an integrated Europe—if ever they did. Integration will come only when the pain is really massive. And it is massive only in some policy fields, not in all. And it will remain so until the European Union affords a direct opportunity to its citizens to invest in EU that brings a reward with that investment. ( See the previous Post)

The politics of fear by building electoral platforms based on liberal principles, pointing out the big challenges surrounding technology and climate change, and showing that migration is just one issue among many.

There is no real hope for EU federalists because the Union relies on a global order that the Europeans are unable to guarantee. The direction of integration is more diffuse now than in the past.

However, the quest for political order on a planet that has outgrown its merely regional structure might have the chance to make a difference.

So with the European elections this time it’s not enough to hope for a better future: this time each and every one of us must take responsibility for it too.

Artificial intelligence has been confined to the lab for so long that it is hard sometimes to recognise that it is now an actual technology that we use without thinking. The EU is right to try to harness it.

Voting, on the other hand, has not been around for a long time, it now needs more thinking than ever.

After a woeful five years, this is perhaps last chance for the EU to prove it can regain the initiative. The stakes have never been higher, and the EU needs someone who is confident, can communicate and represents the people.

The EU needs a serious person at the helm, and it cannot afford to leave the choice to an obscure process that has so far failed to find the best person for the job.

The ‘technocratic’ rhetoric of economists and central bankers convinced most people that there is no feasible alternative to (financial) market logic, to fiscal austerity, low wages, flexible labour markets and independent central banks.

This way, establishment economics has constrained (and continues to constrain) political choices, stripping electorates of their autonomy in political and moral judgement.

This is a dangerous game since the only way disenfranchised electorates can express their anger, anxiety and powerlessness is by choosing self-defined. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of european fascism"

The tragedy of Brexit powered by Farage & all doesn’t have any real solutions.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IS REALITY?

11 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, Algorithms., Reality., Technology, The Future, The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH

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(Twelve-minute disturbing read)

Dig deep enough into the fabric of reality and you are left with the above question.

The story of our recent technological development has been one of ever-increasing computational power. At some future time, we will surely begin to simulate everything, including the evolutionary history that led to where we are.

But in our increasingly digital, algorithm-driven world what is a reality.

The journey from Virtual Reality to Reality itself is looking possible. In the wake of all Artifical intelligence development, it’s not doubtful that this level of immersion will be achieved.

The illusion becomes the prevailing reality.

An algorithm-oriented way of thinking that is quickly spreading throughout all fields of natural and social sciences and percolating into every aspect of our everyday life will have an enormous impact what is a reality.

Under the conceptual metaphor of “everything as algorithms,” which means learnings from one domain could theoretically be applied to another, thus accelerating scientific and technological advances for the betterment of our world, will lead to the reality of the world disappearing.

As a result of this takeover of algorithms in all domains of our everyday life, non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves, therefore luring us in an algorithmic trap that presents the most common-denominator, homogenized experience as the best option to everyone.

However, when data is selected and coded with unchecked bias, the algorithms become biased too.

So it not hypothetical to say we will reach a point when AI will present its result as the only viable choice, the only true narrative based on data then there can be no such thing as reality.

We cannot say that reality is a fact.

Why?

Just because sufficiently many people believe in something does not make it real. As the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick put it, the reality is that which, if you stop believing in it, does not go away. Because it is in a constant state of expansion, it isn’t what it seems.

Nothing is real until it is observed, or measured. So, is really built on emptiness?

How do many possibilities become one physical reality?

Is there an external reality that exists independently of our observations creating matter as derivative from consciousness.

Why?

Because the human brain is incapable of churning out anything beyond what we put in?

However, as we are made of essentially the same genetic material and receive essentially the same sensory inputs so one’s own consciousness is all there is.,

Then the world is also subject to our collective perception. Thus we form our world together, from one infinite moment to the next.

Does reality come down to information?

What do we mean by ‘know’?”

Will superintelligence be a reality unknowable by us?

If it acquires all the knowledge of the world and us it will have fundamental ramifications for our concept of reality. The nature of reality will have two perceptual realms. Virtual reality will quite simply be able to take you places you have never gone before.

Virtual reality will become more sensory oriented in the future. Once it begins catering to the senses, like what we feel body-wise, temperature-wise, and smell, the reality factor of virtual reality becomes stronger and the virtual piece begins to fade.

By 2050, you won’t be able to tell the difference between the “real” and the “virtual” world.

Our language is subject to change so our reality is subject to change also.

More than a decade ago, the first real smartphone hit the market and made screens an essential ingredient in our lives. As a result, it has changed how we communicate, work, travel, purchase and more.

A platform shift of what is real is imminent. Do we make real, or does it make us?

No matter how intelligent we or our robots might get, neither will find the source of reality as it is in constant transition.Where-is-Augmented-and-Virtual-Reality-Technology-Headed

SOME MIGHT WILL SAY THAT REALITY IS THE CENTER OF A BLACK HOLE.

A “gravitational singularity” which in many ways represents all that we still don’t know about the universe.

Surrounding each black hole, meanwhile, is an invisible boundary known as the “event horizon” that essentially marks the point of no return.

They, however, are processes so it’s conceivable, that living matter might be able to exist within a black hole without being consigned to that harsh and eternal oblivion.

It’s almost impossible to guess what it would really be like inside a

black hole.

‘No One Really Knows’

Black holes do not seem to me to be a thing or a place but a transition.

This raises an interesting question as to the matter being spewed out to the other side of what. Einstein space-time?

The black hole/ big bang events are just another of the realities. Both have to have atoms to happen and none of us, although we like everything, are made of atoms which are 90% made up of empty space know what occupies this space.

In the end, the only place we have any chance of determining reality is where there is no temperature- vibrations – gravity- matter-energy-vacuum- atomless- lightless- timeless all totally unobservable.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S ITS TIME TO TELL THE TRUTH AS TO WHY ENGLAND IS LEAVING THE EU.

10 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., England EU Referendum IN or Out., Life., Modern Day Democracy., Norther Ireland, Northern Ireland Border., Our Common Values., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Social Media, The common good., The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH

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(Twelve-minute read)

This truth has been with us from the dawn of humanity.

The inability to share leads to most world problems.

Inequality.

With the ability to share truth and untruths through social media right now, it’s difficult to know what to trust or who to trust.

Are we seeing a return to protectionism or the redefining of capitalism, to sustainability before profit?

There is one certainty Social media is having an effect on where power and how power is used giving rise to Popolusim contra Eliatilism.

So I think it is time to be a bit more honest and plain-speaking about the circumstances that have led to Brexit.

Politics and the media are being pushed to the limit by advancements in technology and uncertainty about the future.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the truth in the future"

Misinformation is spreading.

When it comes to Brexit, we have reached the point where, to an extraordinary extent, the implementation of the 2016 referendum result trumps all else. But as we approach the departure date all statements about British politics should be assumed to include to the word “probably”

If it will happen when it will happen.

For the most part, the debate about Brexit since the 2016 referendum has been framed primarily in economic terms but it is my contention that Brexit, whether it happens or not, is now showing that the EU never was the problem. 

The problem is fixing Britain’s relationship with itself.

The irony is that the country that was least affected by the migration crisis is the one where we are now seeing the most consequential political backlash.

Those who promise that leaving the EU will deliver “control” are really promising something quite specific: a social and cultural reboot.

Of course, this is a complete impossibility. We live in a world defined by the economic, social and cultural interdependence of nation states.

Take back control” was indeed the slogan of the Leave campaign, but it was “control” with one purpose, above all others, the relationship between taxation and public spending and immigration.

A wealthy nation is essential both to the aspirations of individual households and the funding of public services. Unfortunately, England is now reaping the rewards of putting the economy before its people.

Of selling most of its assets, of investing in a world image of power when in fact its people were on the streets due to lack of social housing, were lying in hospital corridors due to lack of funding, were relying on food banks due to lack of decent wages, were running up personal debts, were educated for the market place.

These are now the gravitational centre of the whole debate:

Britain’s act of masochism in leaving the EU will create a country that is unpopular, self-hating and insecure about its identity.

There will be no game-changing trade deals.

It is better that they draw this conclusion today rather than in 2040 after a period of harsh isolation in the middle of the North Sea.

The British people (and particularly the English), who have been in search of their identity since 1945, might finally recognize that it lies not in the distant past (Empire/Commonwealth), nor in the recent past (“special relationship” with the US) but in the future.

The only sensible course, therefore, is to suspend Article 50 and request a return to the status quo ante.

This could be done following a proper constitutional process, meaning a parliamentary vote. Britain can unilaterally revoke Article 50 and therefore freeze the process of leaving the EU.

Britain can write a letter to the EU and state that it wants to freeze its withdrawal process, and that’s what it takes to get yourself off the default path towards crashing out.

However, this process cannot be used just to pause the process and regroup.

In order to pause the process and regroup, the U.K. would need to have the consent of all the other EU members.

If it were just a request to say, oh, we’ve really lost our mind, we don’t quite know what to do, it’s very unlikely that the other 27 members would say, oh, yeah, sure, fine, let’s do that.

Then we come to the Backstop re Northern Ireland;

Northern Ireland wants some legally binding assurances that the U.K. will be able to get out of it unilaterally.

The probability of EU leaders conceding this is zero. And it’s zero today. And it’s zero down the road.

The EU’s position has been very much: This is—this is not negotiable. And, frankly, they all know that you know, a number of EU members are unhappy with the terms of the withdrawal agreement. And if it were to be reopened, it would be a whole can of worms with a lot of, you know, different asks being put on the table.

So this is just not going to happen without the backstop becoming the front stop.

The priority list in continental Europe, with coming elections you know, Brexit isn’t the first thing, or the second thing, or the third thing; it’s somewhere after that.

The disasters to befall the EU27 won’t have befallen them. They will, instead, have continued to evolve their community, grow their economy, taken heed of lessons played out across the Channel, made things better.

Does any of this matter?

Because London is fine, Westminster and the BBC will say Britain is fine. This is no longer so, there is a much uglier reality and one that has little to do with GDP.

If London loses its financial clout there will be a fundamental change to the British economy that Britain now needs to cycle through before it can clarify where it wants to end up with in this Brexit process.

Brexit is both symptom and cause of a breakdown in this consensus.

This needs to be understood outside the day-to-day disasters of the Brexit process itself.

The NHS won’t have fixed itself. Nor will social care. Nor pension problem. Nor it’s out of date infrastructure.

So low and behold we now see department ministers promising funds to fix the NHS etc. However, Brexit will be a suffocating error when it comes to finding these funds. A poorer U.K. outside the EU will be less useful both as a military ally and as a diplomatic partner or as a trading partner.

There could be one unanticipated positive outcome.

The conventional politics of “left versus right” no longer apply:

The political party that can transcend party lines and speak to people across the ideological spectrum will be the rising voice in the next 10 years.

It is unlikely that either of the main political parties in England will survive in their current forms, given the pressures their internal coalitions are already under.

It does not take a nitwit that global we are witnessed the highest number of global battle deaths for 25 years, persistently high levels of terrorism, and the highest number of refugees and displaced people since World War II.

If this is not observable we are left with “the essence of bullshit: a complete lack of concern with truth” and “an indifference to how things really are.”

All one has to do is turn on your TV.  Who can tell what infringements to our civil liberties will have been introduced in the name of keeping us safe? What new walls will be built?

The important thing is not that what he says is true, but that it persuades. and by then none of us will have recourse to Europe to stave them off, either?

Luckily there is no such thing as an average human being.

Nonetheless, that fictional construct is precisely what businesses use to explain human behaviour, reducing us to mere consumers.

There are however those who navigate the currents of uncertainty and change without the need for any particular dogma or orthodoxy to guide them. These are the innovators, thinkers, misfits, activists, artists, and creators who can be found on the fringes of any walk of life, nipping at the hem of hegemonic power, disrupting the status quo, and bravely embracing the unknown.

The future belongs to these voices, not to a world where the truth has become so malleable and subjective as to be almost meaningless as a concept. 

It also belongs to those brave enough to stand up to bullshit in some of its most vaunted forms. There is some hope for this.  

The fine line between the present and the future never looked so blurry.

However, the truth has to persist unaffected, in the past, in the present and in the future.

The next victims of social media will be based on media trends.

What is left when you take away all the ads and the packaging of Brexit is the truth of the product –

Wake up England and stop being the sulking wanting to leave the room when you still have the chance to influence the creation of a Europe, whole, free and at peace.

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The UK National Debt is estimated to be £1.84 trillion.

Uk Defence spending is budgeted to be £48.3 billion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A quick examination of the numbers reveals that the world continues to spend vastly disproportionate resources on creating and containing violence compared to what it spends on peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

how you design the ballot would have a material impact on how it turned out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOK’S AT WHERE THE EUROPEAN UNION IS GOING.

07 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in European Union.

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(Five-minute read)

As you know the EU has elections this year. With England leaving, France, Spain, and especially in Italy now representing sources of insecurity, there are bigger problems in store.Image associée

The question is what will we be voting for.

So here a few of the questions that need answering in no particular order.

Because of national interests! to what end is the EU actually of use?

What does it bring in terms of increased value, more jobs, more social security, more environmental protection, more education, more competitiveness?

How do you explain the value of the EU to a skeptical citizen?

Is the Europe Union the right project for the 21st century?

After all, we’re doing this in order to build something together. But this message is constantly getting perverted so that people don’t understand how affairs in Brussels are progressing for them and for the whole continent.

Should all EU decisions require parliamentary legitimization?

Now more than ever it is important for the European Commission to have an influential voice in order to stop any unrealistic decision-making happening in Brussels – and also to ensure that the legitimate interests of nation-states aren’t lost?

Should the ECB’s oversight function of overseeing the banks be separated from its responsibility for the monetary value of the euro?

Will the currency union continue to exist?

The history of the euro currency is a history of broken rules. Efforts to rescue the currency have broken even more rules, but can the currency union survive if rules go on being broken?

Who actually does what in Brussels?

In the EU people don’t see themselves as having a common identity they see themselves to be part of a city, a town, a region, a country. I am Irish, then, I’m European. I say as Europeans, we have to hold on to our specific roots, and that’s exactly what we do.

That should not be replaced with some kind of European uniformity.

That’s also what makes Europe so attractive because we can share this diversity with each other. And this is exactly what it is needed to be explained in the national dialogue with citizens.

Why?

Because many European citizens see Europe as a place of crisis, where billions in bailout money have been distributed from the north to the south.

How do we stop spreading this pessimism?

This can only be achieved by affording European citizens a direct means of investing in Europe with a reward for doing so. ( See the previous post on European citizens bonds)

European countries are not ready for proposals for a political union.

It’s very hard to agree to a political union when important rules have been broken in the past. That showed that people didn’t want a constitution at all for the EU. As such, it’s hard to agree to a political union in Europe now. It doesn’t have the majority’s support. So for now, you have to see it as a failed idea.

However those rules, like the no-bailout clause or the stability and growth pact, formed the basis of a rudimentary political union.

Is Europe going to accept budget deficits?

National interest is still the priority. Why?

Because political elites are voting for nationally and can only prepare for re-election nationally. That means that they have to try unceasingly to pursue national interests.

If you ever want an example of this no matter what the outcome will be, Brexit will deal a severe blow not just to England but to the Union.

The UK national interests if there is no clean break is going to put constrained on the progress of the entire continent by holding the remaining members’ hostage. The EU and UK are still negotiating a deal that would guarantee an orderly departure from the bloc however there’s no clarity as to what future trade ties between the two sides will look like.

In the century of global development, a retreat to our own backyards is the opposite of what we need. Great Britain, like all EU countries, will be competing on the global stage – one in which the EU is involved economically, ecologically, and in terms of currency.

With worldwide speculation and international financial locations and immigration – England will be overwhelmed alone.

I believe people feel that something has got to change and that we must grow together. This can only be achieved with a more democratic and transparent with the EU that looks after its citizens by allowing direct investment to secure an environmental Green Europe.  (See Previous Post-re-establishing the south of Europe the renewable energy hob of the EU.)

Against this backdrop, the upcoming EU elections will be characterized by the bloc as a “moment of truth”

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