Too Much Noise's Journal: So much for EU dmocracy

These last two days were really a proof that democracy in the EU is still a remote goal. To have the Council trump the Parliament twice in 2 days, and going flat against the interests of EU's own citizens, is sad.

While the decision that made /. front page, about software patents is bad enough, it still has a slim enough chance to reach a forced arbitration if enough MEPs decide theis votes should have some value when it comes to EU laws. But I truly am amazed of the (sheer ineptitude of the) decision to ratify the handing over of EU citizen's private information to the US. Not only the Parliament's decision that such a move is against EU laws weighted nothing, the foreign ministers hurried up to ratify the Council's decision, so no further approval in the Parliament is needed.

So much for the EU governments looking for their people's interests. Do they really believe that the US will give a damn about the privacy of some foreigners??? when on enough recent occasions the US showed their own citizens' privacy is expendable. And sure they'll just go out of their ways to ensure that all this data is never, ever, ever misused. Not now, not in 20 years. Riiiiight!

So, as expected, money talks the loudest in politics. And if it's foreign money ... why should a politician care? their own skin comes first, apparently. This shows democracy for what it truly is in the long term - innocent people sometimes wander into politics, but they don't stay innocent for long. Yeah, I know, voting is supposed to take care of that; so if any fervent defender of democracy would care to explain to me how would he/she vote when faced with only evil choices, I'd be glad to learn about the benefits of voting[*]. Until then, I maintain that democracy is trumped by human nature.

[*] for the record - communist countries in Eastern Europe were supposed to be democratic, too - at least on paper. They did even have the all-prized hallmark of voting. Guess what - it made no difference whom one was voting for, since the results were known from the beginning. And, as the US constantly seems to remind the world, money do count in an election - money dictate how much of an audience a candidate reaches. How many people would vote for a candidate that never had enough funds to make his/her better platform known? Democracy is truly a joke when pushed too far.