Saturday, April 09, 2011

Just who is running this democracy

There are countries where the military has assumed control of the government and imposed itself on the citizenry, in some cases for decades. eg Burma, Libya.
We do things differently here in our democracy called Australia.
Or so I thought till 'Kate' revealed that some of her fellow cadets at a ADF training facility had videotaped her having sex and broadcast it. That's not a violation of democracy; just Kate and maybe women in general, but the Defence Force's subsequent actions were. They apparently tried to keep the Minister (that's our representative in the Parliament by the way) in the dark and said no law had been broken, there was nothing could be done, apart from giving the men involved a couple of days off their leave and making Kate front up to trial on an unrelated minor matter the next day.
The Minister rightly saw red and told them they were somewhere between "insensitive" and "stupid". Restrained of him in my opinion. They were both at least.
The ADF seems to think that because Ministers come and go with governments they can thumb their noses at any attempt to pry into their archaic procedures and practices.
But they fail to see that the constant factor here is we, the citizens of this democracy, who resent a bunch of boys with toys telling us that we have no place in interferring with what they do and how they do it.
If the Generals and Admirals and other cowboys of the ADF can't get the message that Australia is a modern democracy with modern values then maybe it's time for some early retirements.
Or maybe they'd like to take over the running of the country entirely. What’s their position on a Carbon Tax?