Vivan Las Cadenas

[poliphilo]

The problem with Empires is that people don't like being ruled by foreigners. The Empire may bring good governance, the opening up of new markets, all sorts of desireable things- but that's not what people really care about . People are intensely tribal. They want to have their chief be one of their own, not some great white father over the sea. They'll always prefer a bad ruler who grew up on the block to a good one who didn't.

It's not rational, it's not particularly admirable, but it's how human beings roll. I've always loved the story about how Napoleon turned up in Spain with his enlightenment values, promising to rid the Spanish people of their chains and a bunch of captured resistance fighters went to the wall- where the enlightened French soldiers were going to shoot them- shouting, "Vivan las cadenas- Long live chains."

And that's why the EU isn't going to last much longer.

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[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Bunuel featured the incident in his movie, The Phantom of Liberty, playing one of the guerrillistas himself.