I just had a really nasty thought...

[fpb]

...an air accident such as that which beheaded Polish society yesterday would do next to nothing to Britain. It is impossible for me to feel that the country would greatly miss any of its leading politicians, bureaucrats, military commanders, etc. Perhaps a few of the private people who were on the flight - relatives of the Katyn victims, celebrities such as the woman who started the Gdansk strike of 1980, etc - and perhaps one or two of the more impressive businessmen. And the Queen, if she was there. But personally I could witness the beheading of the military, the police, the legislative, executive and judiciary powers, and the media, with complete equanimity.

My God, what kind of a country in this, in which there is not a single leading figure worthy of respect?

Comments

Re: Just out of interest...

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

I can see your viewpoint, and I respect it even if I disagree. The EU seems to have become a monster; and if you think that it is inefficient and undemocratic, then as it lies, maybe it deserves to fail (hopefully only in a bureaucratic manner - we've had quite enough European wars between 1792 and now, thank you!). This doesn't mean the concept isn't worthy, but if the execution is so terrible then maybe "hoping for failure" isn't uniformly a bad thing.

Personally, I suspect that Europe (even Western Europe) is so culturally and politically diverse that anything more than a blanket free trade and defence agreement and a common currency is asking too much.

Re: Just out of interest...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You might say the same about Italy. If you had any idea of the immense difference between Venice, Piedmont, the Rome area, Abruzzo, Naples, and Sicily (to mention only a few), you would wonder they could be together for ten minutes. And it will have been 150 years this autumn.