Stalinist Attack on Democratic Politics

Lars Lokke Rasmussen is the 2nd most powerful man in Denmark (number three from left, with Kalashnikov), second in command to the prime minister Fogh Rasmussen. As minister of the Interior he is responsible for carrying out one of the biggest reforms of the administrative structure in Denmark ever, the abolition of the county councils and a reduction of the number of municipal areas. Instead of the counties the parliament set up 5 regions responsible for public health. They have no power to impose taxes, though. They're only expected to do the dirty work of saving on the public purse for health.

The great man is now threatening this grand structure that was built up with so much toil. It displeases him that the regions have not invested in enough cancer radiation equipment: "If it doesn't work, the next logical step is a state run health service", he tells the stunned Danish press. In Lars Lokke's opinion the regions should have purchased 10 more radiation machines than have actually been bought. This is exactly like the way the central planning authority in the Soviet Union, worked. Straight orders were sent down, and regional units had to carry them out. The only difference: In the Soviet Union orders were given to bureaucrats. Lars Lokke is shameful enough to pass such orders on to democratically elected politicians!

Lars Lokke seems to forget that the reason for setting up these region councils in the first place was to create scapegoats to blame when the waiting lists are not cleared. If state health is instituted the national politicians will get into the firing line of blame for continued waiting lists to hospital treatment. Therefore we all know he's only bluffing. But this kind of advanced fun is not "funny" to the victims of the big laugh!

The regions have barely been in operation for 1 1/2 months, and now they may have to go, Lars Lokke declares. This is equal to some of Stalin's worst scams!

The region councils have democratically elected politicians, voted into office by the population in the regions! Will the region politicians get time to clear their desks before being removed from office?
And this is said by a man who is officially in favour of decentralising power from the state. According to the official ideas of the Liberal Party Venstre where Lars Lokke is the leader of the pack, devolution is necessary to make people responsible and motivated to take part in the running of society. What happened to this grand idea? You wonder, if power has gone to his head so much he knocked his wisecrack bone!

Or perhaps he was harmed when he took part in another practical joke, that is when he worked with the Mujahedin (Osama?) in Afghanistan in the 1980's, fighting to rid the world of evil communism. Now he is fighting democratically elected politicians in Denmark.