Monday 1 November 2010

prisoner of zenda or don’t let it rest on the president’s desk

It is rather difficult to keep composure over the tenor of the elections in the US and not being impatient with the results, although tutored in civility and reminded of our own catastrophic lunges towards insanity and overbearing. I truly wish some of the theater could be dispensed with, the ugliness and the cries of anguish and the cries of victory, however much that is not the political game, just like effecting change in government never should have been piecemeal and possibly too weak to resist the revisionists and spin-doctors or aimed so finely.

One cannot hope to alter those strategies any more than altering the game itself: a fragmented front with diluted messages quickly gives in and attention, whether rightly or wrongly or cynically, turns towards the truly local component in the saying “all politics is local.” I hope that the American voters and global underwriters can penetrate the smoke and mirrors and realize that whoever is left at the helm has inherited an enormous responsibility, and conditions, well-being, liberty, fiscal, legal, welfare, and diplomatic, are not allowed to be subsumed by a stale promise. Those interests who walk away from the polls with a respite are the biggest threats.
The German public, while enjoying in measurable terms--and I am sure some intangibles as well--historically low unemployment and an industrial juggernaut, have avoided austerity to a large extent, and while not boastful are neither ascribing the recovery to some preternatural government influence—maybe only helping bootstraps and not roadblocks, restrictions, or appeals to unfettered greed.