Friday, June 20, 2008

How apt

Today the streets of Brussels are filled with the dash and din of smoke-windowed limosines. Outriders, sirens and flashing lights.

One of these cacophonous processions sped past me this morning, a trail of black wheeled, shiny importance. But what was the sign in the windows of the cars that carry our political betters to their latest discussion on how to ignore the people?

This...


Now I am sure that the word cortege has a different inference in French, but it seems to me that it sums up what is going on here, the death of democracy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't want to burst your bubble but democracy is usually associated with some form of majority rule. So thanks ireland, we heard your no, but the democratic will of 18+ countries should be respected...

Gawain Towler said...

Another key aspect and the one that is being traduced as we speak is the equable application of the rule of law.

Anonymous said...

There are many kinds of Democracy. Most of the former communist countries in Europe claimed to be democracies, the German Democratic Republic for example.

I like the tolerant kind, in which 18 nations decide not to stomp on one that doesn't agree with them.

I know how annoying these things can be for the majority, who feel unjustly held back. But on such occasions we go back to the drafting table and come up with something we can all agree to.

Slow, dull, inefficient it may be. But we will get there in the end, we will still be friends, and we will still be free.

After all, 'no' doesn't mean 'never'.

Anonymous said...

And those 18+ countries have also asked their citizens whether or not they want to give up their national sovereignty haven't they anonymous coward? No, they haven't have they? And denying the populace a vote on their very sovereignty is pretty much the antithesis of democracy as far as I can see.

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