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EU Commissioner Reveals He Will Ignore Any Rejection of ACTA
Dupple tips a story at Techdirt about comments from EU commissioner Karel De Gucht, who made some discouraging remarks to the EU International Trade committee about the opposition to ACTA: "If you decide for a negative vote before the European Court rules, let me tell you that the Commission will nonetheless continue to pursue the current procedure before the Court, as we are entitled to do. A negative vote will not stop the proceedings before the Court of Justice. ... If the Court questions the conformity of the agreement with the Treaties we will assess at that stage how this can be addressed." De Gucht also spoke about proposing clarifications to ACTA if Parliament declined to ratify it, which, as Techdirt points out, doesn't make much sense: "Remember that ACTA is now signed, and cannot be altered; so De Gucht is instead trying to fob off European politicians with this vague idea of 'clarifications' — as if more vagueness could somehow rectify the underlying problems of an already dangerously-vague treaty."
As an American: at least he's honest about it. My politicians just issue bald-faced lies.
EU nations to citizens: "We voted against it, what more coupld we do?"
EU nations to RIAA: "Ok, it's passed, pay up."
ACTA will be ratified in some form because it will be resubmitted again and again till the lobbyiest succeed. This happened before with the EU constitution, it will happen with ACTA and it will happen in the future for many more treaties/laws.
is anyone surprised?
the amount of power held by those that ACTA favors outweighs the amount of power held by those against.
rulers gonna rule. who'd have thunk it?
(I'm not in favor of ACTA, not even close; but I don't really hold up much hope when this much greed is involved, mixed with this much 'can-do' power to pull it off.)
this is a people problem. a scalability one. do our governments 'work' for us anymore? in the modern times, with mass communication now possible, are any of our systems really working? it does not seem so!
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This is the type of thing when you have something resembling a country, but that is not in essence a country, which has non of the protections or checks and balances that a state should actually have.
Democracy at the EU level, kind of a joke.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Democracy has never counted in the EU because the majority of the people of Europe have never wanted a bloated, centralised state where bureaucrats in Brussels tell them what to do.
When EU citizens vote wrong, they're forced to vote again and again until they give the right answer.
It's become crystal clear over the years that it is everyone's moral imperative to ignore copyright law.
That is the only way we, as a society, are going to conquer the science-and-arts-crippling concept known as "intellectual property" and move forward as a civilization.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
do they ever really stand up for The People and say, "no matter what we're going to do X even if you say no"?
Sometimes a popularly elected government comes into power and both promises and honestly intends to act against business interests, sure.
That's called a "rogue state" and we have CIA drone strikes to deal with them.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
How do they keep getting elected? What other choice do we have? When all sides of the issue are bought and paid for by the same people, what, seriously, what choices do we have? It's not that they don't represent us, it's that they represent where the money is coming from.
Think about it - to a politician, $1 = 1 voice. So, I have around 10,000 in savings. If I give all of that, my voice becomes stronger than my neighbor's, regardless of where I stand. I can influence media, I can influence protests, I can send letters. My neighbor can't do any of that, because he's just trying to make it to supper tonight.
From their point of view, the politicians are representing The People. It's just that the money involved is so freaking skewed that The People are no longer represented fairly in these initial steps. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if (in the US at least) our representatives are truly at a loss as to why their approval rating is so low. I hope I did a good job of explaining my views on that. It's hard to get into words sometimes.
I know that none of that may transfer into this instance in the EU, but I believe that the same rules apply there. Money = power, power = money. The commissioner probably sees the interests groups with the most money, and probably believes that they represent the general public's views.
Or he's just a dick. One or the other.
It should be considered treason : therefore punishable by death.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
And the problem with this is what, exactly?
When someone says, "Any fool can see