Sorry, but where's the substance?

Do you ever get worried that the fate of the world (hence, all of us) rests in some highly inept hands connected to questionable brains and fuelled by agendas that are not shared by most of us?

I do.

Maybe it was always thus and I have merely reached an age in which I have come to question the competence of the leaders and the rules that hold this place together. It’s not just that these are perilous times – these were always perilous times, no matter which era in which human beings lived – but that the price we pay when we screw up (which we seem to do with tiresome regularity) is such a big one.

I am reminded of that old and fairly inspired satirical album by Firesign Theater back in 1971 called I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus, mainly because I have a sneaking suspicion that we are all bozos on this bus. Some of us are well-intentioned, and some of us are knaves. Some of us are smart; too many of us are stupid. And, most of us are easily led by the promised nostrums of yet another uber-bozo who promises to lead us into some sort of promised land.

As a working journalist for many years I have dealt with politicians coming from all directions – left-wingers, right-wingers, wingeing liberals, and slick conservatives – and I must confess, I have met few who have failed to disappoint. I have met few who, at the end of the day, are not ultimately self-seekers. If they are self-seekers who are certifiable morons, that is bad enough. If they are smart self-seekers, that seems to be worse because they suck in so many more gullible souls. But, how much substance do we get from the so-called smart ones?

"Terrorists might be getting on our airplanes. What to do? What to do? Let's ban people bringing on slurpies, books and laptops! That should solve it, and will distract the lamebrained public just sufficiently to delude them into thinking we're on top of this shit. Let's not look to real solutions, because we don't have any. We can't, after all, just go out and shoot potential terrorists -- or can we?"

Our problem in our societies is that we are seeking ‘daddies and mommies’ to help us through tough times. And, because we are frightened and insecure we tend to believe the bullshit of the new guy or girl more than we still believe the bullshit of the former guy or girl, even though in essence it is destined to smell just as bad.

We witness our contemporary leaders and we look at George W. and Tony Blair and see how they have failed us. Yet, their constituents elected them because they seemed to offer something new. Bush replaced the chronically randy Bill Clinton, and Blair replaced the stunningly inept John Major, who replaced the tyrannical Margaret Thatcher. Now, in a turnaround, the Clintons just don’t seem to be so bad because there are those who think that Hillary, who turned a blind-eye to semen-stained dresses, would make a good president. Maybe she would. I dunno.

Where are such leaders as Roosevelt and Churchill, some are driven to ask? Roosevelt, a chronic philanderer and Churchill, the world’s most famous functional alcoholic, somehow seemed more trustworthy. But, people forget that Churchill was no friend of those who toiled in the lower social orders in Britain, and that Roosevelt was an aristocrat who did not end the Great Depression other than by embroiling America in a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Iraq is a walk in the park on a day in May when compared with World War Two.

And so it goes.

I am not for a minute suggesting I am above all of this. I am as susceptible as the next person to somebody who actually seems to be offering some kind of a solution to the woes of the world, and doesn’t seem to be feathering his own nest in the process. But, I also know I have been wrong so many times, and will continue to be wrong in the future.

Call me a world-weary libertarian who would much rather make love than war, but who would also like to see all the bad people neatly excised from the planet.

But, my ‘bad people’ are probably different from somebody else’s ‘bad people’. And, the people I see as bad this year, might seem not-so-bad next year.

So, I guess we really are all bozos on this bus.