Whilst having a good root about on their website, (a girlfriend who is doing a history and politics degree means I can no longer blag my way through our occasional political disagreements! :D ) I came across this, an excellent read from the Economist, slightly satirical but with serious points.
Link (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5084664)
The comparisons made are truly startling. Although the comparison that these Greek plays are largely formulaic, and serve little more than entertainment was not made! :devil: All silliness aside, indeed it is one-sided and the author misses out many other aspects of Greek plays in order to make his point. When were plays of the tragi-comedy type meant to serve as guidelines for political systems!?
Despite this, it is a very well put across article. It does seem to ring especially true on the global policies (or lack of) of the EU. While I for one am a fan of integration and the EU as a concept, I do agree with the criticisms in this article. EU expansion has seemed to just lead to increased bickering and seperation, the introduction of the Euro seemingly doing little to increase solidarity, and the rejection of the EU constitution being a fine example. It is in the face of such problems, one wonders whether the EU wil survive.
Any organisation that regularly admits to losing 40% or so if its funding to fraud and therefore fails to have its accounts signed off for a record 11th year (they only started asking for sign off 11 years ago) will never have my respect.
Physician heal thyself before talking to me about any 'benefits' of EU membership......
TL.
You think the EU is slow? Take a look at the UN. More countries, more bickering, takes even longer and is even harder to get agreements if agreements are ever reached, (more corruption?) The more interests you bring to the table the more arguments you are going to have. You can never please everyone in a democracy, and to be honest you never should! The majority opinion is not always the sensible or long term view and sometimes a guiding hand is required. Unfortunately there is no way to be sure the guiding hand does not have alterior motives and hidden interests in a decision.
The ideal of democracy is all very nice but who exactly is an "average joe" and are his opinions swayed by a reliable source of information or a thinly veiled fantasy, sprinkled with relevant and irrelevant facts, mixed together as seen fit by our lovely media. For example the Menezes shooting. If you read the story each day/half-day for a month you'd have seen how little real information the press had. Rumour and conjecture all the way, so by the end no-one is sure if we can trust the Police. Maybe we can't, but I am far far less willing to trust knee-jerk news reports.
Sometimes I feel there should be a test, sort of like a driving test, to determine whether you can vote. And who represents those who are too busy to make it to a polling station, or who are too apathetic to bother choosing. Furthermore, who are these politicians and do we believe they really represent our best interests? Did the one or two headline policies that made up your mind in the days before an election truthfully represnt the full party and do you trust the party to follow through with it's committments or just suck up public money with endless meetings on pointless tasks? I am not a big fan of government (or similar bodies) wasteage in case you hadn't already guessed that. Does the UN really have to meet in 5* hotels in the caribbean for a week? The amount of money spent on insignificant pointless investigations pisses me off too.
rant over :mellow:
But the UN does not own any territory in its own right, and has no sovereign powers, while I'd argue that the EU is aiming for precisely that, and that is why IMHO the EU is more of a problem. There is so much potential for it, yet it is foundering under the weight of its own ineptitude.