Demagoguery

You are beautiful… you are smart… you are sexy… I love your eyelashes…
Aren’t those words music to anyone’s ears? Of course they are.

“I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Mark Twain

le corbeau et le renardWe humans love compliments and demagogues are well aware of that. They are master manipulators. They will cajole voters and appeal to their prejudices rather than using rational arguments to make their point.

I will make America great again.
How? I am not sure but to me it sounds eerily similar to:

“I intend to set up a thousand–year Reich…
Remember that little fellow with the toothbrush mustache?

This kind of rhetoric usually appeals to disgruntled people who need scapegoats to excuse their own failures and inadequacies.

If they are not rich and successful, it is not their fault. The system is rigged!
And a demagogue will gladly rejigger the system to benefit everybody (except of course the Mexicans, the Muslims, the Gypsies, the gays, the transgenders, the liberals, the pesky press, and a slew of other Untouchables).

Many people in the past have succumbed to the sirens songs of famed demagogues such as Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Joseph McCarthy.
When they realized that they had been duped, they were on a one-way ticket to “internment camps”.

To succeed, a demagogue will make extravagant claims.
French President François Hollande said that he hated the rich and if elected he would soak them to make them pay for all the miseries that are burdening the French people.

He got elected and proved totally, hopelessly incapable of fulfilling any of his promises.
This is usually the lot of demagogues. Silver tongue and lead boots.

Demagogues seldom improve the lot of their constituents. Most often, they blame their inadequacy on the opposition and use brutal force to crush dissent.
I am pretty sure that everybody heard our Demagogue-in-chief declare:

 I’d like to punch him in the face!

So before trekking to the urns in November, have a good look at the ballot and think twice before casting your vote for somebody who promised you the moon.

Demagogues are often like rockets. They suddenly crash and burn midway to their destination.

Alain

Le Corbeau et le Renard

Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
Tenait en son bec un fromage.
Maître Renard, par l’odeur alléché,
Lui tint à peu près ce langage :
“Hé ! bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau.
Que vous êtes joli ! que vous me semblez beau !
Sans mentir, si votre ramage
Se rapporte à votre plumage,
Vous êtes le Phénix des hôtes de ces bois.”
A ces mots le Corbeau ne se sent pas de joie ;
Et pour montrer sa belle voix,
Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie.
Le Renard s’en saisit, et dit : “Mon bon Monsieur,
Apprenez que tout flatteur
Vit aux dépens de celui qui l’écoute.

Master Crow perched on a tree,
Was holding a cheese in his beak.
Master Fox attracted by the smell
Said something like this:
“Well, Hello Mister Crow!
How beautiful you are! how nice you seem to me!
Really, if your voice
Is like your plumage,
You are the phoenix of all the inhabitants of these woods.”
At these words, the Crow is overjoyed.
And in order to show off his beautiful voice,
He opens his beak wide, lets his prey fall.
The Fox grabs it, and says: “My good man,
Learn that every flatterer
Lives at the expense of the one who listens to him.

Watch out for forked tongue rabble-rousers! They always end up stealing your Camembert.

E pluribus unum

The stunning aftermath of Brexit gives pause for reflection.
Regardless of what spin-doctors will say, the decision to leave the European Union was driven for many Brits by the fear (real or unfounded) of unchecked immigration.
This choice is regrettable but understandable.

Brexit

A massive influx of foreigners in any country tends to upset one’s comfort zone. It feels for many like a kebab joint is pushing out his local pub.

Personally, I am not a fan of the much-ballyhooed “diversity”. It tends to tear up the social fabric of a community and exacerbates social unrest.
As someone once said “One hot chili pepper makes a dish interesting. Too many of them make it difficult to digest.”
Today, after ingesting too many chili peppers, many European nations have debilitating stomachaches.
Hence the Brexit vote.

The more diverse a society (e.g. India), the more difficult it is to govern. Trying to please everybody often ends up satisfying nobody.
To be strong, a nation needs to be fairly homogeneous. It needs to have the same language, the same laws, the same customs and conventions.
And, it should absolutely do without any undue religious interference.
Religion is a personal matter; it has no place in government.

You cannot join a team and play according to your own rules.
I don’t care if you are white, yellow, black or green or if you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or Zoroastrian, you must abide by the same democratically approved laws. No exceptions.

Diversity is a two way street.
You have no business applying for asylum if you are unwilling to comply with the prevalent rules and customs of your country of adoption.
First and foremost, you have to accept the separation of church and state and gender equality. Those are the pillars of modern democracy.

If you cannot agree with this, you have no right to remain in a country that provided shelter and a slew of benefits totally non-existent in your country of origin.

I (unlike that pompadoured quacking fool) don’t condone Brexit. I think that it is an historical miscalculation, but it emphasizes the need for national cohesion and an orderly, tightly controlled immigration process followed by intense integration classes.

Alain

The toll of loneliness

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” Kurt Vonnegut

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It seems that in America, mass shootings are becoming an almost ordinary occurrence.
After such an incident people express grief, shed tears, hold memorials, say prayers, make heartfelt speeches and… fatalistically wait for the next massacre to occur.

Tightly controlling the sale of guns (a measure strenuously opposed by the GOP) would be an obvious way to curb that scourge, but eradicating loneliness would also be another way to limit the carnage.
Because lonely people (consciously or unconsciously) are angry, resentful, and these alienated individuals are irrational, dangerous human beings.
Most of the shootings are perpetrated by disaffected loners.

Anger is a manifestation of a deeper issue… and that, for me, is based on insecurity, self-esteem and loneliness. Naomi Campbell

In our age of effortless, instant communication, isolation is paradoxically the most virulent disease. And you don’t have to be old to be lonely. Loneliness strikes indiscriminately young and old, blacks and whites, poor and wealthy.

Version 2I recently met an enthusiastic young woman on the pétanque field.
Her name is Jenny and she piqued my interest when she mentioned that she was working on a project “to bring together different generations”.

Her undertaking meshes neatly with my own philosophy. I always believed that to remain in the game you need to mingle and interact with people of all ages and background. Jenny’s goal is as I understand it, to integrate different generations in a big happy melting pot.

We have a lot to learn from previous generations, and similarly seniors need to keep in touch with Milleniums in order to avoid becoming human flotsam.
If you don’t want to be classified and treated like a relic, you need to mingle and interact with younger folks.

Youth is impetuous. It often takes an older person to temper the impulsiveness of a hothead, but it also take a younger person to creatively think outside the envelope.

To sum it up we all need each other, and Jenny could be the linchpin who could in our own group bring about a solution to this modern predicament.

If you see that young lady on the field, don’t be a stuck-up geezer; approach her, talk to her and include her and her friends in all your activities.

Alain