Gordon Robinson | The essence of perspective

It’s time to revisit Apocrypha, our favourite Fantasyland beyond the clouds, where all politicians are friends and retired MP Oma D’unn solves political dilemmas by parable.

The political scene was heating up as elections were expected soon. Apocrypha’s two-party political system pitted the current governing Party Just Lazy People (JLP) against the current Opposition Party Promises Not Performance (PNP). Very much in pre-election mode, the PNP held several political rallies under the guise of constituency conferences and lashed out at the JLP at every opportunity.

A senior opposition MP invited Freshman MP Lowdown Cussin to speak at one such rally. Lowdown proceeded to venture into the realm of personal abuse. He accused the private sector of propping up the JLP Government and alleged that it would never vote for the PNP because the PNP was for the people. Lowdown’s host neither interfered nor contradicted.

Previously, at another PNP rally-cum-constituency-conference, an invited hypester made loud, disgusting, slanderous allegations (to the accompaniment of dancehall music) against the prime minister, which the sitting MP (a former energy minister) was subsequently celebrated on social media for stepping in and shutting down. But in fact, the slurs had already been effectively delivered and repeated before the MP stepped in to prevent a third rubbing of salt in the wound of vulgar speculation.

HORNS OF POLITICAL DILEMMA

PNP Leader Bark Balding was on the horns of a political dilemma. He was himself a decent man who wouldn’t ever say anything resembling those vicious public attacks, but the political actuality was that his party, trailing the JLP in all polls, was in desperate need of political hit men acting to gain political capital for the PNP in exactly this way. But, these clearly inexperienced hit men were falling into error by carrying out their task so publicly. All they accomplished was to embarrass the leader by ensuring that everyone knew he was aware of their tactics.

So should he keep quiet and accept the political mileage the PNP desperately needed? Or should he do the decent thing (natural for him); denounce the attacks; and risk losing more political ground? He turned to Oma for advice.

Oma told him to buy an English pub. Bark seemed taken aback, so Oma told him the story of the travelling congressman:

“An American congressman was invited to visit the UK to hold bilateral talks with a parliamentary counterpart. He arrived in London in the midst of a political kerfuffle. The British prime minister had resigned, and the run-off to succeed him was intense. The early front runner declared that ‘the jury’s out’ as to whether French President Macron was ‘friend or foe’, and her rival announced that he wouldn’t serve in a Cabinet led by his opponent.

It was a smorgasbord of personal abuse over policy proposals.

After a long day of meetings, the UK Parliamentarian invited the congressman to dinner at a local pub. Upon arrival at the pub’s entrance, they were greeted with a sign that said ‘All Politicians entering must be accompanied by an adult’”.

Bark’s quizzical look didn’t change, so Oma explained that all Lowdown had exposed was a critical-thinking deficit and superficial perspective resulting from history not taught in school but anecdotally learned from political sycophants. This deficit ensured that people like Lowdown are unable to differentiate historically political origins of the Private Sector Organization of Apocrypha (PSOA) from current private-sector realities. To youth steeped only in the “three Rs”, PSOA = Private Sector, and ancient political legend is permanent gospel. Oma assured Bark that nothing he said or did would likely change Lowdown’s perspective.

Oma reminded Bark that until systemic political defects were remedied, robotic thinkers like Lowdown wouldn’t be motivated to change perspective. He supposed that Lowdown would then grow up and grasp the gravamen of early 20th-century German-American socialist Oscar Ameringa’s axiom: “Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.” Maybe then he wouldn’t need so much adult supervision.

Until then, Oma guessed, he would likely continue insulting the electorate’s intelligence in the hope it puts the PNP in charge of the national purse.

Apocryphan politicians’ limited experience has taught them that electoral victory allows Government to abuse that purse for the benefit of party officials, hacks, cronies, and supporters so that they’ll say anything to that end. Oma advised Bark to focus on changing that system rather than wasting his breath trying to change congenital political perspectives that breed perverse political narratives.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.