expect government properly, competently and seriously
In the 2017 book, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign, the author, Jonathan Allen, relates that as the election returns came in and results piled up against the Democrats, former President Bill Clinton settled on the comment that, “It’s just like Brexit” meaning mostly that the result was 1) unexpected and 2) American voting trends followed voting trends in Great Britain.
This week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is watching his government officials resign and when his officials resign, they give a press statement on why.
On Monday, the Honorable Rishi Sunak, MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer (more or less the Secretary of Treasury in the US) resigned and stated that:
“The public expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously.“
From which it can be understood that Mr. Sunak feels that the current government in Great Britain fails at all three.
Maybe the US again will follow GB just like Brexit.
Maybe we will all stand up and demand that our government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously.
Gun control?
Control the guns?
Inflation?
Gas prices?
Real immigration reform?
Cost of living?
Cost of a place to live?
We got real problems and we have a government who cannot play well in a sandbox at recess.
Seriously!
Right now I don’t care which party is in charge just so long as they manage to grow up and conduct government properly, competently and seriously.
Anyone who can say that they will going forward gets my vote.
I have got to get off this political commentary track and back to the beach and words.
This is not what I intended this blog to be.
Maybe if I ignore that lack of proper attitude, competence and seriousness in our Government I will be better off.
Why do I feel that is what they folks in Government are counting on?
laughter, singing rang again, all the sounds of the earth were like music
Adapted from James Thurber’s Further Fable, “The Bears and the Monkeys.”
I have used this fable of Mr. Thurber’s before.
I will most likely use again and if I don’t use it again, I will read it again and most likely often.
The fable is an analogy on the red scare of the McCarthy era when folks were afraid to think for themselves and wake up to find out they were accused of being a communist.
It was better to let someone else do the thinking for you than risk being labeled being part of the red threat or a pinko commie sympathiser.
So they thinking went according to the monkeys.
When I first read this probably 50 years ago when I was a kid, I think I was able to grasp the meaning that folks do not want anyone telling them what to.
Maybe I was thinking along the lines of Mr. Lincoln’s “as I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”
I thought the story noble in its’ irony.
I read it today not in with humor but with horror.
I read it today and feel that the irony now goes over most folks heads.
I read the line, “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” and I hear folks yelling, “YESSIR, THAT’S IT!”.
As Mr. Twain wrote in Huckleberry Finn, “Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”
BOY Howdy 😦
I still somehow have hope.
Maybe its more I want to refuse to be hope-less.
But I do hope that one day folks will break the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and begin playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And folk’s laughter and gaiety will ring through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing begin singing again, and all the sounds of the earth will be like music.
The Bears and the Monkeys.
In a deep forest there lived many bears. They spent the winter sleeping, and the summer playing leap-bear and stealing honey and buns from nearby cottages. One day a fast-talking monkey named Glib showed up and told them that their way of life was bad for bears. “You are prisoners of pastime,” he said, “addicted to leap-bear, and slaves of honey and buns.”
The bears were impressed and frightened as Glib went on talking. “Your forebears have done this to you,” he said. Glib was so glib, glibber than the glibbest monkey they had ever seen before, that the bears believed he must know more than they knew, or than anybody else. But when he left, to tell other species what was the matter with them, the bears reverted to their fun and games and their theft of buns and honey.
Their decadence made them bright of eye, light of heart, and quick of paw, and they had a wonderful time, living as bears had always lived, until one day two of Glib’s successors appeared, named Monkey Say and Monkey Do. They were even glibber than Glib, and they brought many presents and smiled all the time. “We have come to liberate you from freedom,” they said. “This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.”
So each bear was made to wear a collar, and the collars were linked together with chains, and Monkey Do put a ring in the lead bear’s nose, and a chain on the lead bear’s ring. “Now you are free to do what I tell you to do,” said Monkey Do.
“Now you are free to say what I want you to say,” said Monkey Say. “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” For a long time the bears submitted to the New Liberation, and chanted the slogan the monkeys had taught them: “Why stand on your own two feet when you can stand on ours?”
Then one day they broke the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and began playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And their laughter and gaiety rang through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing began singing again, and all the sounds of the earth were like music.
MORAL: It is better to have the ring of freedom in your ears than in your nose.
when a man is afraid base fear is always stronger than respect always
Before there was House of Cards with Francis Underwood messing around with the United States, there was House of Cards with Francis Urquhart messing around with Great Britain.
According to wikipedia, Francis Ewan Urquhart is a fictional character created by British politician and author Michael Dobbs. Urquhart is the main character in Dobbs’s House of Cards trilogy of novels and television series: House of Cards, To Play the King and The Final Cut.
House of Cards follows Urquhart, a Conservative and the government chief whip with roots in the Scottish aristocracy, as he manoeuvres himself through blackmail, manipulation and murder to the post of Prime Minister. To Play the King sees Prime Minister Urquhart clash with the newly crowned King of the United Kingdom over disagreements regarding social justice. By the time of The Final Cut, Urquhart has been in power for 11 years, and refuses to relinquish his position until he has beaten Margaret Thatcher’s record as longest serving post-war Prime Minister
It was Francis Urquhart who said:
“It’s not respect but fear that motivates a man; that’s how empires are built and revolutions begin. It is the secret of great men. When a man is afraid you will crush him, utterly destroy him, his respect will always follow. Base fear is intoxicating, overwhelming, liberating. Always stronger than respect. Always.”
but old truths will out as citizens also want to be governed well
Based on the amalgamation of words in the article, Hillary Clinton is right: the age of the showman leader has damaged politics, by Will Hutton in the Guardian on Sunday, June 5, 2022.
Mr. Hutton, in a commentary on politics in the United States, uses combinations of multi-syllable words and sentence construction makes me take my hat off and yell, SALUTE!
The paragraphs of the article in questions read thusly:
Political leadership in the 2020s needs to be recast, but old truths will out. Alternative reality may have allowed performative politics to trump content for a period, but for all the collective appetite to be entertained, citizens also want to be governed well. That means a firm grasp of what does and doesn’t work and how matters can be improved.
That in turn requires a viable political philosophy backed by evidence and turned into a programme that can be consistently applied across government, taking on power, privilege and vested interest where it is plainly necessary.
It’s palpably not what we have, but it’s obviously what we need and the wheels are already spinning to deliver it
And, readers of this blog will know that from time to time I struggle with the weight of effort of producing a daily Haiku and any thoughts I may have about the words and time that went in the Haiku that day.
This daily schedule of missing a day can bring on a personal mental paralysis wherein writing these entries becomes impossible.
I learned to deal with this by not dealing with it and let it go.
Then when I look at my register of entries and see blank days with no post, I will grab a topic or book or poem for a source and produce a series of Haiku to fill in those blank dates.
This is one of the great benefits of this effort being my blog and my blog, my rules.
It IS cricket because I say it is.
It is ‘according to Hoyle’ because I say it is.
Thus I have this series of haiku based on this article and the Mr. Hutton’s word choices.
I should also mention that this ‘lack of output’ coincided with a trip up to see our son and being away from a computer keyboard for a long weekend and I am playing catch-up.
reality for all the collective appetite to be entertained
Based on the amalgamation of words in the article, Hillary Clinton is right: the age of the showman leader has damaged politics, by Will Hutton in the Guardian on Sunday, June 5, 2022.
Mr. Hutton, in a commentary on politics in the United States, uses combinations of multi-syllable words and sentence construction makes me take my hat off and yell, SALUTE!
The paragraphs of the article in questions read thusly:
Political leadership in the 2020s needs to be recast, but old truths will out. Alternative reality may have allowed performative politics to trump content for a period, but for all the collective appetite to be entertained, citizens also want to be governed well. That means a firm grasp of what does and doesn’t work and how matters can be improved.
That in turn requires a viable political philosophy backed by evidence and turned into a programme that can be consistently applied across government, taking on power, privilege and vested interest where it is plainly necessary.
It’s palpably not what we have, but it’s obviously what we need and the wheels are already spinning to deliver it
And, readers of this blog will know that from time to time I struggle with the weight of effort of producing a daily Haiku and any thoughts I may have about the words and time that went in the Haiku that day.
This daily schedule of missing a day can bring on a personal mental paralysis wherein writing these entries becomes impossible.
I learned to deal with this by not dealing with it and let it go.
Then when I look at my register of entries and see blank days with no post, I will grab a topic or book or poem for a source and produce a series of Haiku to fill in those blank dates.
This is one of the great benefits of this effort being my blog and my blog, my rules.
It IS cricket because I say it is.
It is ‘according to Hoyle’ because I say it is.
Thus I have this series of haiku based on this article and the Mr. Hutton’s word choices.
I should also mention that this ‘lack of output’ coincided with a trip up to see our son and being away from a computer keyboard for a long weekend and I am playing catch-up.
No Haiku For You 