For the last four years I have been trying to work out how and why Donald Trump was elected President of the United States and why Boris A.B de P. Johnson persuaded more than half of voters that we should leave the EU and that they should elect him as Prime Minister of the UK. For four years I've been trying to discover how any rational intelligent voter could support either of these people? I've decided that voters don't make entirely rational decisions.
Today I was reminded of a famous officer promotion reference written by a commanding officer for a junior........ "Men will follow this officer anywhere; out of a sense of morbid curiosity".
Like the soldiers in the reference voters aren't entirely rational, they want to believe the optimistic stories they are told, from half truths to downright lies and even knowledge of a potential leader's mendacity, incompetence and indolence doesn't put them off.
George Packer, in The Atlantic, explains how the Covid19 virus has manged to exploit chronic underlying conditions;" political corruption, a sclerotic bureaucracy and heartless economy "and to show up the USA as a,"failed state". Every American concerned about the future of USA should read it, Trump is not going to make America great again.
We are living in a failed state, George Packer.
Andy Beckett in, The Guardian , explains how today in the UK we have the highest Corona-virus death rate in Europe exposing a similar range of fault lines in Britain and why exaggerated wilful optimism of the snake oil salesman is about to collide with reality. Johnson is just not up to the job of governing the country ; his complacency, misplaced sense of his own exceptionalism, old Etonian privilege and lack of attention to detail has been exposed by the pandemic. At least those who voted for him are having their sense of morbid curiosity satisfied.
Vote winning optimism and half truths are about to collide with reality, Andy Beckett
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| Led by donkeys |
Like the soldiers in the reference voters aren't entirely rational, they want to believe the optimistic stories they are told, from half truths to downright lies and even knowledge of a potential leader's mendacity, incompetence and indolence doesn't put them off.
George Packer, in The Atlantic, explains how the Covid19 virus has manged to exploit chronic underlying conditions;" political corruption, a sclerotic bureaucracy and heartless economy "and to show up the USA as a,"failed state". Every American concerned about the future of USA should read it, Trump is not going to make America great again.
We are living in a failed state, George Packer.
Andy Beckett in, The Guardian , explains how today in the UK we have the highest Corona-virus death rate in Europe exposing a similar range of fault lines in Britain and why exaggerated wilful optimism of the snake oil salesman is about to collide with reality. Johnson is just not up to the job of governing the country ; his complacency, misplaced sense of his own exceptionalism, old Etonian privilege and lack of attention to detail has been exposed by the pandemic. At least those who voted for him are having their sense of morbid curiosity satisfied.
Vote winning optimism and half truths are about to collide with reality, Andy Beckett
3 comments:
I absolutely agree with, well, everything you have posted. I despaired when we voted for Brexit (by that I mean"we") and I think Nicola Sturgeon is doing a much better job than Boris. Day by day it becomes more and more apparent that the government are a ship of fools unable to distinguish between a possible lifeline and a feather pillow in the waves. (Well, I know it's rather more complex than that,but still...) We were looking forward to our holiday on Mull in June, but I know it isn't going to happen. Just imagine people from all over packing into the Tobermory Co-op, it doesn't bear thinking about. So something the government knew about long before they took any action is going to drag on for longer than most of our European neighbours.
Oh well,got that off my chest, hope you will still let us know how things are going with you and Ardnamurchan generally, I could do with cheering up!
Boris ( Bozo) is a habitual liar. He has lied to his (ex) wife, lied to the country re Brexit, lied to parliament, lied to the queen and lied to the country again re just about everything.And as for Matt Hancock, have you ever seen anyone so far out of their depth ? I wouldn`t trust this pair to run a bath , let alone a government.
Now we in England have the whole Dominic Cummings scandal - backed up by Boris Johnson - which is totally unforgivable.
We are lucky in that our booking for two weeks in Mull have been carried forward to the same dates in June 2021 for which we are extremely grateful! Just hope things are better by then; we have every sympathy with the people living on Mull who would not want people coming in carrying Covid. And shopping in the small shops on Mull! We don't want to visit unless we are wanted.
Having said that, we love the area and have had many happy holidays over the last forty of so years, around Morvern, Ardnamurchan, Mull and further afield to Harris, Lewis and Isla. Ardnamurchan has always been our favourite though, with many holidays on the Ardnarmurchan Estate - particularly at Fascadale.
I can imagine it is difficult for people living in your area to imagine the love that those of us who can only visit briefly can feel for the area, but believe me it is a very important part of our lives. But we will not be pressing to come back before it is safe; we will not be writing to Nicola Sturgeon to urge her to lift her lockdown rules - she seems much more sensible than Boris Johnson!
Keep the area safe for us, I hope we will be able to visit at some point (we are getting a bit old and unfit). At the moment our booking has been carried on to next June (many thanks to Mull Cottages). Hope to be up with you next year!
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