Posted on 11/06/2015 1:20:48 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
UNLESS I am much mistaken, and I dearly hope I am, there is something happening in this country that I find deeply troubling.
I refer to a sort of rift or schism that is developing between the governors and the governed. As for the first-named, I mean the Establishment. There is nothing fictional about the Establishment. Every society across the time zones and the ages has had one. It is not a body with a head office or a president but that does not mean it does not exist.
It is in fact a loose amalgam of institutions and common interest groups whose upper echelons effectively govern and run the country, regardless of which group of politicians believe they are in power. Of all these groups about 80 per cent are in the public sector, meaning they are on the public payroll, wholly subsidised in their high places by the taxpayer without whom they would be nothing.
Only the tycoons, masters of commerce, business, trade and industry pay for themselves. The governed are the rest of us, the broad masses of the people.
We work hard, or used to before we retired. We abide by the law, we pay our taxes. We hope and expect to be governed fairly and reasonably well. In a good society what flows upwards from the people to empower the Establishment is trust, what flows downwards is respect. In a bad society the people regard the governors with mistrust or active dislike and from the governors the lower orders are treated with dismissive contempt.
Despite the extreme ease of communication afforded by modern technology, all in real authority seem to wall themselves off from any contact with customer, client or taxpayer behind impenetrable screens of anonymity or unavailability. The classic recourse is the telephone that never answers, the recorded tape loop that repeats endlessly but masks a phone that is never picked up because no one is there.
If human contact is ever made, anyone in real authority is never available, always off that day, in conference or not in the office at that moment. One knows one is being fobbed off.
One knows that no letter, fax or email, no matter how courteous, will ever be answered unless there is money to be made, and then only in the private sector. The walling off of all authority from consumer contact is a form of contempt.
The offensiveness is especially marked in the public sector. It seems to be forgotten that where public servants (so-called) are concerned, they are not paying my salary, I am paying theirs.
Increasingly this country is actually governed now by the bureaucrats, not the elected tribunes of the people who seem to be intimidated into submission by Jobsworth.
Of all the attributes of Jobsworth the most insulting is the self-arrogation of the gift of infallibility. The public sector refuses to realise that the British people are a generous and fair-minded lot - nasty little trolls apart but they are a tiny minority. We will forgive a genuine mistake, genuinely made, genuinely admitted and genuinely rectified. What infuriates is the insulting pretence that no mistake could have been possible - a pretence leading to official cover-up over and over again.
But it is not a healthy country that has this gulf between governors and governed. We should not mistrust our governors and they should not despise us. But that is what I see growing and only the Establishment has the cure. That cure can only be by example.
A classic test of the gulf I mentioned above is enfolded in the case of Sgt Blackman, RM. Only a small coterie of stuffed shirts behind their privilege walls continue to think we have locked up a murderer.
The vast majority of the people and ex-soldiers from field marshals to squaddies know that a fighting sergeant who made a five-second mistake has been crucified and hung out to dry on the basis of political correctness - the creed of the coward and the bully.
Very soon the legal establishment will have an opportunity to re-examine this case and re-appraise. Then it will recommend. What will judgment be? Fair or contemptuous? It will be an interesting test of the nature of those who govern us.
“Jobsworth “ is a British colloquial word derived from the phrase “I can’t do that, it’s more than my job’s worth”, meaning it might lose the person their job: taking the initiative and performing an action, and perhaps in the process breaking a rule, is beyond what the person feels their job description allows.
Very good commentary. Sometimes a view from the field instead of from within the forest gives us proper perspective. Well articulated.
Article:
“If human contact is ever made, anyone in real authority is never available, always off that day, in conference or not in the office at that moment. One knows one is being fobbed off.”
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Don’t wanna fob me off. I get mean
This can be said of too many that wear a badge and a gun in the USA these days. The nonsensical, magical, and illogical belief that these people are always right just because they have a badge is first a delusion on the part of those wearing the badge and it is also a false belief on the part of so many who wish to believe the police are always right just because they're police.
And this false religion is causing quite a rift in the USA.
Indeed.
Incredible-—and from Frederick Forsyth,no less.
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“UNLESS I am much mistaken, and I dearly hope I am, there is something happening in this country that I find deeply troubling.
I refer to a sort of rift or schism that is developing between the governors and the governed. As for the first-named, I mean the Establishment. There is nothing fictional about the Establishment. Every society across the time zones and the ages has had one. It is not a body with a head office or a president but that does not mean it does not exist....”
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As for the US....same as the above....and the rift is RAPIDLY growing.
Yep. We are in a land of discontent for sure.
the creed of the coward and the bullyâ€, indeed. Exactly so . . . BEEP!
This seems to be true for all western societies. It is getting easier and easier to be conspiratorial about what is happening in our world.
“This can be said of too many that wear a badge and a gun in the USA these days. The nonsensical, magical, and illogical belief that these people are always right just because they have a badge is first a delusion on the part of those wearing the badge and it is also a false belief on the part of so many who wish to believe the police are always right just because they’re police.”
Get a ticket lately?
Although I could do a web search -- does anyone have the background about the Sgt Blackman incident? Maybe it is well known in the U.K., but I don't recall anything about him.
Bkmrk.
This is, I think, a natural cycle in societal evolution and is recognized as the cause of most revolutions and uprisings. ‘Usually’ democracies find the solution(s) without resorting to mass bloodshed but not always. The freezing of an impenetrable overclass starts earlier with monarchies and dictatorships but all societies tend to have nepotistic and cultural imperatives to cause them to desire locking out outsiders.
My hope is that our country, the USofA, may be able to break the 85 year cycle of liberal-progressive domination of society and government. After all, the Wilson-FDR revolution was the breaking of the ossified GOP-Business domination of the previous 75 years. It is time for US to break THEM and open society once more!
Been to Fox Lake IL lately?
Lawyers for a Royal Marine jailed for life for murdering an injured Taliban insurgent in Helmand in 2011 have told a court his conviction should be quashed.
Former Colour Sgt Al Blackman was found guilty at a court martial in December [2014] and sentenced to a minimum of 10 years. (He claims he thought the wounded insurgent was already dead!?)
Blackman, 39, of Taunton, Somerset, had his appeal against the verdict and sentence heard at the Court Martial Appeal Court in London.
The result is expected after Easter [2015] (sentence upheld, minimum prison reduced from 10 to 8 years).
Maybe it is well known in the U.K., but I don't recall anything about him.
Rally in London of his supporters drew thousands although the UK Ministry of Defense forbid active duty military from attending.
FYI Colour Sergeant: Colour sergeant (CSgt) is a non-commissioned title in the Royal Marines and infantry regiments of the British Army, ranking above sergeant and below warrant officer class 2.
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