Bring on the clowns

There’s an old and cynical jape that holds that all the people who call the shots in the world are former C students.

In recent months (or maybe years) I’ve concluded that the statement is too complimentary. I think it’s the C-minus students holding control over our destinies and the future of the planet. That’s chilling, but I am not seeing much these days to convince me otherwise.

Oh, and those C-minus students are arrantly corrupt.

Make you feel better? Me neither.

Now, as a possessor of many good and gentlemanly Cs during my student days I not only resent those who were greater slackers than I filling out the power ranks, but they scare the bejesus out of me.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, goes the adage. And absolute power in the possession of really dumb guys and girls is the most corrupt of all.

There’s nothing new about this reality. Go back through history and you will find many examples of stupidity prevailing and becoming the inspiration for policy decisions.

Take World War One, for example. A fat, buffoonish heir to the vile imperial throne of Austria-Hungary gets blown away in Sarajevo one bright day, and the next four years saw decisions being made to send literally tens of millions of young men all over Europe and elsewhere on the planet to premature graves in the ghastliest conditions to that the remaining fat-ass elites could retain their vile thrones and remain in power.

In power without the best-and-brightest of the next generation there to take up the slack.

And then 20 years later they did it all over again. They had to. Those C-minus students had set the scenario in place.

This is not to say there haven’t been some supremely intelligent individuals at the helm over the years. Go back a number of years and you can certainly cite Roosevelt ad Churchill as shining lights that guided us through perilous and terrifying times. Bill Clinton, Rhodes Scholar and astute politician tended to think more with his dick than he should have, but was generally effective. Margaret Thatcher, love her or loathe her, brought the UK out of economic chaos, albeit with a social cost. Currently President Obama seems to hold huge potential in terms of intellect and we can only hope skills at unheralded levels.


There have been other capable and extremely intelligent individuals who while they may have had the IQ qualifications, didn’t necessarily have the political acumen to be effective.

Jimmy Carter was a bright man and hugely compassionate, but was generally a poor politician who paved the way for the dubious-to-disastrous two terms of Ronald Reagan, who paved the way for Bush Senior and eventually Bush Junior. Enough said about that.

In Canada Pierre Trudeau was intellectually brilliant, but left in his wake a house hugely divided. Divided, in my esteem, so that he could assuage an eccentric ego as big as his intellect.

But, it isn’t the boss men and women I am talking about in terms of the C-minus student fuckups who suck hope and inspiration from our societies. It’s the underlings; the toadying little jackals that wield far too much power and hold leaders in their sway. Those are the buffoons of the bureaucracies around the world; the banking and investment cartels; the weasels of the legal profession and judiciaries, broadcasting and media, and for some ungodly reason, entertainment, who set the patterns we must adhere to.

Who do you think has kept, and will continue to keep the people of the United States from quality and equitable health care? Not your leaders, or even George W. during his dubious, inept and scary tenure, but the self-seeking lobbyists and bureaucrats in health care. Those who have theirs are not about to share with the unwashed. Do I oversimplify here? Probably. You can do that with your own blog. This is a rant, after all. But, seriously, why would a political leader want to keep you or Aunt Hattie from reasonably priced meds or therapy? To accomplish this would be a wonderful legacy. For vested interests, the C-minus students in morality at least, not a chance?

In one of my own fields, addiction, there is an inexcusable lack of subsidized treatment available for those that want it. At the same time we soil ourselves about the derelict addicts on the streets. But, addiction isn’t sexy so politicians are persuaded to go in other directions. Directed by people who know literally nothing about the realities of addiction, and I include some C-minus medical practitioner advisors in that realm of interference.

Oh, I could go on and on, but I won’t.