Aceticon

Well, for merely commissioners that moved from the commission to those positions, the first example that comes to my mind is the head of the EU Commission during the 2008 Crash and it's aftermath, who went to Goldman Sachs afterwards and is still there today as a non-executive president.

During his time in the Commission they were very pro-Finance in the way they handled the aftermath of the Crash with him personally pushing frequently for measures were EU money was used to unconditionally helped the interests of large Financial Industry companies, and Goldman Sachs is one of the largest companies and massively benefited from, amongst other things, near-defaulting Greek Treasuries being bought from the private sector by the EU, which subsequently forced the Greeks into Austerity to as much as possible pay those Treasuries.

There's even a scandal with him were, whilst working at Goldman Sachs, he broke the EU rules on lobbying by using his access card to EU buildings - which he was entitled to have as an ex-Head of the Commission - to simply enter into those buildings and waltz over to the offices of sitting EU officials to lobby for Goldman Sachs. The EU ended up revoking his access privileges, the first and only time that has happened for an ex-EU Commissioner.

Legally there are no Corrupt EU Commissioners. To be deemed Corrupt there would have to be actual evidence of Corruption (such as recordings of meetings were they explicitly promised to use their power in a certain way, in exchange for some form of payment, which normally only the Police has powers to obtain), them being subsequently charged and a Court Of Law convicting them for the crime of Corruption.

None of them was ever just investigated for Corruption, much less convicted so pointing fingers at any one of the them explicitly and saying that they're Corrupt would be Libel, which in my country (which by the way, is pretty Corrupt, with actual ex-government members convicted of Corruption) is an actual Crime prosecuted by the local Prosecution Office, not merely a civil lawsuit for damages.

So if I was to name names, I would be putting my head of the block for the Crime of Libel. Obviously I'm not going to do that.

What there is are various coincidences of EU Commissioners which acted in very positive ways towards certain industries and then after leaving the Commission went to work for those Industries making a lot of money, even thought they had no background in them (never before had worked in said Industries, no Educational training for said Industries).

Since the police never investigates it, all there are are such coincidences of commissioners ending up in gold plated gigs in the industries they helped whilst they were commissioners.

I'm not going to put my head of the nose for you by naming names (I'm not a Legal expert so don't want to risk committing the Crime of Libel by doing so). I suggest you start by looking into were the EU commissioners during the 2008 Crash (during which the commission was very pro-Finance) ended up working afterwards.

That's because Fascism is the natural end state of unfettered Capitalism as monopolies and cartels form naturally under it over time for most things and capital (which in Capitalism is Power) increasingly concentration, thus Corruption in Politics explodes which in turn accelerates monopoly and cartel formation and thus capital concentration in a vicious cycle.

However homophobia is not an inherent problem of Capitalism, it's an inherent problem of what Capitalism innevitably leads to if it's not stopped.

(All of this IMHO).

I'm sure he's happy to fuck all Apple customers for money if he thinks he can get away with it, which strictly speaking would make him Pansexual.

True.

That is however a pretty hard and time consuming change, so to me it makes sense that in the meanwhile we take steps to reduce the harm caused by the system still in place, not least by cracking down hard on Corruption and Conflicts Of Interest and closing the legal loopholes that allow certain politicians to stay within the Law whilst purposefully using today the power they have been delegated to do favors for others who have promised them monetary payback for it tomorrow.

If you're drowning now you don't put all your hopes on the ship that might be coming but isn't even visible yet.

Sounds like the problem is lack of enforcement of the existing laws rather than the existing laws being bad.

To provide an extreme example, just because there's a wave of murders doesn't mean murder should be made legal.

I believe the EU Parliament has to approve this so they can block it, and that's elected by Proportional Vote and we all have MEPs there who, unlike national parliamentarians in countries without Proportional Vote (which are most of them) have to worry more about the public opinion in their nation turning against them.

So if this shit ever makes its way to the EU Parliament (were the EU Commission will try to make it pass quietly), contact your country's MEPs and show you're well aware of it.

Whilst I do not agree with the spirit of the message of the previous poster, I must point out that specifically the EU Comission - from were this came - is not elected but nominated, and the nomination is one big horse trading shit show several levels removed from voters, were everybody but the head of it is chosen by the Council Of Ministers (which only represents EU National Governments , not National Parliaments) so the whole thing is maybe slightly more "democratic" than nominations for the Chinese Politburo.

(If there is one thing that needs changing in the EU political structures, it's the crooked, rotten shit show that's the EU Commission).

That said, the EU Parliament which can stop most of this shit, is elected and it's even via Proportional Vote so there is no mathematical rigging at all to make some votes count more than others (unlike in First Past The Post Power Duopoly countries like the US or Britain) and hence voting in the EU Election does matter.

Looks like somebody has been promised by one or more large Tech firms a very highly paid non-executive board membership, millionaire speech circuit engagement or gold plated "consulting" gig when their time in the Commission is over...

Mind you, by now that kind of exchange of "favours" is tradition for the members of the EU Commission.

Well that, how that is not reliable and requires specific knowledge to do, how most people don't know how to do it because it's not at all advertised and how all that is an anti-feature negative to customers and which doesn't at all need to be there.

But yeah, I definitelly tend to ramble on and on (and on, and on, and on ...).

In most of Europe if your were trying to conserve things, that would mean you wanted to preserve Universal Healthcare, Unions, Public Education, Public Transportation, the Social Safety Net and even the Environment.

That would put you to the left of even the local Neoliberals (which themselves are usually to the left of both US parties).

Real conservatives even in Europe have been overtaken on the right by the "we need to change things" Neoliberal wave of the last 4 decades and especially in Europe were the established structures were far more rights-based and pro-people than the US, most of that wave of change has been to destroy all those rights-based pro-people things.

Are you saying that "I will help these guys fuck you against your will with no lube but not directly do it myself" isn't a moderate position?