Introduction
Only just this morning added. That word. Why? being because I believe it true that what one comes to believe is sorted in the process of writing it down. And the writing has become somewhat longer than I'd originally anticipated. Doing justice to what I now believe is paramount. Hence an organised sort into several instalments shall follow.
Akunin is a Russian author. Popularized in English by a growing readership in the exploits of his character Fandoorin. The investigator. More openly acknowledged for his (Fandoorin) analytical skills. Akunin's narrative offers most illuminating asides. One of them is expressed by a response — ".. asking me what I think of politicians is like asking a lamp post what it thinks of dogs."
If like me you first of all laugh at this then step one has been achieved. Laughter lifts the soul, or spirit, from what may seem dedication to this writer's rather labored descriptions(translation being the real problem). Then, if again like me, perhaps a little reflection follows. Did you laugh because the joke captures your own feelings about politicians, politics? Sympathy, or empathy, for ordinary russians. Else, your preference toward a soviet and likely post-soviet state of affairs. Else, a way of dismissing the topic, ignoring any lesson therein. Whatever.
Here and now I will be open with you and say that my first reaction was to laugh. Chuckle anyway. And still do. Though not for the joke itself; rather for the doors it opens in my mind. And enables me write down firm belief along with investigative analytical powers of my own... and take a constructive approach to the clear needs arising.
Begins..
The decade is 1971-81 in the US. The period maligned by a naughty word: Vietnam. For in that war of their own choosing the great prevailers lost. So bad was this upon the North American psyche that books were written and published about the disunited states.
Decade of anguish, longing. Wherein Win resumed a root role.. Memory re-engaging albeit in a poor learning curve, the wail was for win-squared. When oh when would win-win return! Lemme see went the business conscience. Gettan idea, an icon. Yeah, so what's wrong widdan icon idea? Nothing, see! Eagles. Eagles soar. Eagles swoop. Grab opportunity. Talons do not lettago. Yeah, young eagles - not old bald - are winnas. And in the word of a now famous presidential embodiment filmed as 'W', See!
Yes, words are okay, have their place, but people, Americans—voters all—why they must see what is right for them.
Whereupon Hollywood and Governorship cast the new staffbearer. Ronald Reagan. Wishers stared disbelievingly at their small screens. Minds racing.. wasn't he B-movie.? Big reels.? B&W.? Not, not TV! To doubters this guy was ancient, not modern. No way (they uttered among themselves) even President Wilson looked more modern* back aways than this guy. Who looks stooge.. handsome, but since when did handsome stooge do it..
Like it should be done!
Still, he's gotten Nancy, and aint she a charmer. Charm, now there's a word. Another word, an add-on word. Modifier. Making for a compassionate eagle. Win-win. Topping out with such a warm tradition: family. And party, the folks in their millions who would put him - them! - there.
Star of StarWars, his party hollered. And Free Markets - Friedman and his missus - such scholars!.. no smarter way! Back in the day of multinationalité.
To wit and pertinent believe you me: Pacific south took its ten degrees at longitude 170-180. Co-enthused alongside its neighbor. From here would arise a knight utterly convinced from an otherwise drought of ideas for his 'better way'. And, likeminded when the democracy tired of this obsessive compulsion, his supposed political opponent - Mother of All Budgets author — declared selfsame dictum. Adding challenge—prove me wrong! YOU can't went the refrain, ignorant of the general inability to prove a negative. Sadly, she—they— have not even to this day proved it for themselves. Such is the power of infestation. In and through drought.
Stateside, sidekicks said: You lacking skills, no worries, we'll hand out smarts. Plus haven't we gotten Greenspan for the Fed so our corporates will capitalize and takeover the world. And let's not forget Al married the one who knew all about the big bad red.. [ not to be confused with the ever so good republican red ]. And wasn't Ayn the fan (another Hollywood protegé Ayn Rand had been raised and professorially educated in the USSR, but reincarnated stateside as the bankster ally supreme who never ceased wondering or writing about the shock and awe of American corporate management.. "such tall boys" ... yeah just the kind of push and shove Al needed to deliver dosh at low low interest rates).
That's how. It ought to be done. Will be done. Trust Ronnie.
Old Pernicious
And then there was the how — the outta sight right aka Old Pernicious (OP). Today not too many folks will recognise these cookies. Well, not as the OP, though religious types does cut the cloth so to say. Honed on Brazil 1964, resharpened Chile 73 and itching for further Latin American services ... El Salvadore..? .. they had pumped Ronnie in with one rising clerical vote. Preaching of course their practised trance tote.
Personable, charming, good onscreen, comfortable on-camera and script. Hey yes, gottabe scripted and say what we want, backers slapped. Ronnie has what it takes. In ranking movers and shakers for access. All willing win-win again. In a word, confidence.
Execs, Ayn pleaded, you gottabe this way—confident is the way to be, see! And don't you worry I'll do the Reifenstahl for the chattering classes. Long before I'm finished this Modern movement we got going will have voters pouring power and influence into ya pockets!
Oldsters died, newsters trusted. Ronnie was in. Big time. Hoo-hah! Razzamattaz! Showtime! Song and dance! Heady stuff, uppity on win-win. Face it we could put the DJI( Dow Jones Index) at 30K and more. For sure!
Reality Checks
Life as we have all learned this past wee while does not sustain the hoopla for long. Overcoming a lost national supremacy via war could boost folks for a time, but reality checks kick in.
And just in case you are wondering where this is going in this week of European celebration at the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's removal (President Reagan famously calling for it to be torn down back in the day) it is not there. To those things. But to the reality check of presidential style. Political party promotion of individualism. Of an idea. And specifically of how confidence, substantively unfounded, is fungal. Infesting. By spores, and generations of spores.. Spread on largely unseen if turbulent winds.
Style ruled. Ronnie said wars. Trust Ronnie. Wars to win.. small, winnables. Grenada..? Gotta get that psyche back, right! Then, well, our guys gotta get trade. With free markets - the access! the access! - delivering. No worries, aint we got the OP in there.. wherever.. Hey didn't they do it for us in LA! So why not the kingdom, their kingdom our goal. Listen, calm down, take it in. We're about growth; we're big so do I mean big growth. Anyways we can. Ya got the dough ya takeover. Hostile if need be (after all said and done we're the best).. mebbe merge.. then converge. Free markets, see! Freedom.. like to make mistakes. Theirs. Not ours. Never ours. That's why we stay close. Corporate. Now, Nance, which tie do you reckon I need for tonight..
With a guy like this before the mirror and behind you corporate execs really grew. Psyche-wise. Ego-wide. Recall the 80s-thru-90s.. Monsanto telling Brit trade negotiators they were bums for buying natural product from Brazil when they could have gotten GM from you know who. Yeah, all gotta see how they were the very best and latest in technology. And when you are that good patronizing the less fortunate is the new norm. Everyone else, but everyone! is less fortunate..
True, as herstory reveals, Brit PM Thatcher was so enthralled in the supposed 'special relationship' her et als never realised the bait and switch that was to eventually result in her lifetime's UK bank failures. And sovereign state reliance. Informed someones called renationalization.
Yet the world - ever suspicious after the Latin American ventures - had begun catching on. This GATT.. this WTO..? Heads of states calling the tune. Ostensibly. Organized unions worrying how left out this could leave them.
India pulled up in the 90s and early 21st century negotiations. Big, and former Empire exploited, she was for emergent status. Self-dependent. You can be poor but you don't have to show it! Besides, there's a lot of solar here, they astutely told themselves and implied to others.
Whose plied power retort was develop and buy into nukes**. Big time, gotta energise so many people! Hey, the market opportunity.! And wouldn't those Pakistanis hate losing out, added as always by OP service-mongers.
Yes, you've got it, market was the universal word by now—the one just everybody saw. The new millenia adding security. President G.W. Bush, same stable as Ronnie, announcing another great prevaileth in Afghanistan and Iraq, to shore up future spore. With a war 'on terrorism'. Soon thereafter 'global terrorism'. Yet meaning in both reality and trade the security of markets. Public and private..
So.. okay, bring on style. Confidence. Yet stay curious. Ask why does its supposed substance have to be war and the red blood of love and human spirit lost on alien soil. Or not as the case may be..
* - Modern movement began 1918 in USA with the deliberate 'consciousness' (radio had its uses) for minimalism, bringing an end to the so-termed Romantic era of, for example, architecture's 'excess' of stone images to iconize evils, devils etc. Soon recognised as the mindset to constructing concrete and glass monolithic office blocks..
** As the kiwi subject of the next instalment astutely highlights India has a big time problem with water—the one essential thing nuclear power stations must have. Vital in the productive process of cooling.
Next: The 'substance' of spore today... Is it more about the check than reality?
