Que sera sera?
George Monbiot looks ahead:
Politics is the art of shifting trouble from the living to the unborn. …
In 1791 Thomas Paine complained that “the vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies”. He was answering Edmund Burke’s contention that a declaration made by parliament in 1688 bound the people of England “for ever”. A parliament that considers only the immediate consequences of its decisions imposes the same insolent tyranny on succeeding generations. They have no means of contesting the legacy of economic crises, depleted resources and limited choices we bequeath to them.
Last updated on Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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