European election 2009

A thought to take with you when you go out and vote for the European parliament: Last Saturday I read an interesting column by the Dutch writer Bas Heijne (through Google Translate) on the topic of Europe's state of affair (in Dutch). His argument can be summarized with the following quote, while referring to Rüdiger Safranski, from his column (translated):As global processes get more closely intertwined, things get ever more complex, so complex that they are intellectually too hard to understand. You have no overview, and yet you are forced to take a position.The message I distilled was (yes my mind works in mysterious ways): vote for parties that focus on future direction, not the processes that are needed to get there. Don't vote for parties that are only focussed on changing the process (e.g. "the European parliament should be more democratic", "we should vote for the leader of the parliament", "retreat from the EU"). Instead vote for parties that a…