Some sobering thoughts here. I think sometimes that those of us who have strong political views and/or contribute regularly to blogs tend to forget that there are a large number of people out there who just frankly are not interested in politics. They really don’t care who is in charge or what they are doing, except in rare circumstances where they notice a sharp difference in their weekly take home pay or how much their home loan costs each month. You will never persuade them otherwise, they see no value in taking an interest in a system to which they feel they have no connection. The political disconnected see politicians as elitist, self-serving, arrogant show ponies who are only interested in them for a few weeks every three years and for the rest of the time ignore them completely. How can you argue with that, it is often true!
How do we reconnect the disconnected? By producing politicians with mana and dignity. Politicians that do rather than act, that inspire rather than belittle. People like politicians they can identify with, but the image must be natural, not contrived. New Zealanders deplore politicians that do not appear genuine or do not speak the truth. “White man speak with forked tongue”. The challenge for our political system is to produce more people who can be true leaders, not followers and true heroes, not basking in other people’s glory.
I hope it will happen in my time.
timely as
Bit unfair to lump sex workers alongside bad politicians. I can’t see how political ignorance is a cause of prostitution either.
However, I do like Brecht’s “The Ballard of Sexual Dependency” in that it does identify that no man (or very few) can resist their own sexual urges, and it can be the cause of their undoing as happens to “Mack the Knife” in “The Three Penny Opera.” However, Brecht does blame women in the lyrics rather than Mack’s own behavior.
“Now there’s a man, the living tool of Satan
He charges forth while others are debating
Conniving, cocky knave with all the trimmings
I know one thing will trim him down — women.
In women he meets deep authority,
In them he feels his old dependency.
He sniggers at the Good Book, mocks the priss and prim,
Does anything for pay if it will pay
And since he knows what ladies do to him
He thrusts them well out of his way.
All through the day he swears
He’s self denying, then dusk descends
And once again he’s lying.
They’re all the same in meeting love’s confusion
Poor noble souls get blotted in illusion
The one who swore he could escape the clinches
Who is it that entangles him, wenches
It fain resists their lush authority
Before him stands his old dependency.
He harked the ten Commandments
Trod the tried and true, would godly be and Golden Rule obey.
For lunch ate frugally, a grape a two,
Survived on one pure thought a day.”
Foreign policy + Intel + Security
Subscribe | Follow | Bookmarkand join Buchanan & Manning LIVE Thursdays @ midday
MIL Public Webcast Service
And for the politically literate Brecht’s:
“In Praise of Communism”
http://willdaddario.blogspot.co.nz/2010/12/brechts-in-praise-of-communism.html
Some sobering thoughts here. I think sometimes that those of us who have strong political views and/or contribute regularly to blogs tend to forget that there are a large number of people out there who just frankly are not interested in politics. They really don’t care who is in charge or what they are doing, except in rare circumstances where they notice a sharp difference in their weekly take home pay or how much their home loan costs each month. You will never persuade them otherwise, they see no value in taking an interest in a system to which they feel they have no connection. The political disconnected see politicians as elitist, self-serving, arrogant show ponies who are only interested in them for a few weeks every three years and for the rest of the time ignore them completely. How can you argue with that, it is often true!
How do we reconnect the disconnected? By producing politicians with mana and dignity. Politicians that do rather than act, that inspire rather than belittle. People like politicians they can identify with, but the image must be natural, not contrived. New Zealanders deplore politicians that do not appear genuine or do not speak the truth. “White man speak with forked tongue”. The challenge for our political system is to produce more people who can be true leaders, not followers and true heroes, not basking in other people’s glory.
I hope it will happen in my time.
timely as
Bit unfair to lump sex workers alongside bad politicians. I can’t see how political ignorance is a cause of prostitution either.
However, I do like Brecht’s “The Ballard of Sexual Dependency” in that it does identify that no man (or very few) can resist their own sexual urges, and it can be the cause of their undoing as happens to “Mack the Knife” in “The Three Penny Opera.” However, Brecht does blame women in the lyrics rather than Mack’s own behavior.
“Now there’s a man, the living tool of Satan
He charges forth while others are debating
Conniving, cocky knave with all the trimmings
I know one thing will trim him down — women.
In women he meets deep authority,
In them he feels his old dependency.
He sniggers at the Good Book, mocks the priss and prim,
Does anything for pay if it will pay
And since he knows what ladies do to him
He thrusts them well out of his way.
All through the day he swears
He’s self denying, then dusk descends
And once again he’s lying.
They’re all the same in meeting love’s confusion
Poor noble souls get blotted in illusion
The one who swore he could escape the clinches
Who is it that entangles him, wenches
It fain resists their lush authority
Before him stands his old dependency.
He harked the ten Commandments
Trod the tried and true, would godly be and Golden Rule obey.
For lunch ate frugally, a grape a two,
Survived on one pure thought a day.”
Comments are closed.