Clones-Why our politicians let us down...

It is hard to escape the fact that our politicians are clones performing on a stage of their own making! Dancing to a tune which resonates not with the "the electoratae" they are supposed to represent.  The message is every thing  substance a long way down the list. Thus you get slogans like:

Stop the Boats

The Death Cult

Tough on Crime

Dob in a dealer

We are open for Business

A fair go

Advance Australia Fair

Carbon Tax

Green Lawfare

Chardonnay Socialist 

 

 

And so on and on but what does this mean? Are our politicians shallow, mean hearted, and cynical? Most politicians I have met are not,  that at all they are hard working generous people working long, hard hours.  But still there is something lacking!

The fact that that they are not well paid in relative terms given their committment, hours worked, intrusion into their life and uncertainty of future is another reason to puzzle over this conundrum.

One of the key things about public life now is the homogenous nature of all the participants. Go to any interview, broadcast, TV show, column, or public event, the thing that hits me is the sameness of it all. The message might be slightly different but the participants are like bikkies in a jar, all cut  with the same biscut maker.

They speak the same, look the same, use the same languuage, the same political speak, look at the camera the same, they even have the same nodders standing behind them to justify every word (They look like them little dogs that people used to put in the back of their cars in the eighties) They even dress the same ( There must be a shop in Canberra called the politicians shop come in and get your blue tie, dark suit, pale blue shirt...leave your personality  and spirit behind.)

It is not as though they come from a homogenous society! Austalia is one of the most diverse and interersting places in the world. Wander down any street and you are enriched by our citizens diversity of dress, thought, word and deed. What happens on the way to a parliament?It's as if our  parlimentarians have a frontal lobectomy, personality makeover, and have homegenous gelly injected. Just as bees feed their pupae special food to make them workers, queens, soldiers or males. It is a sthough our parlimentarians are eating politicians jelly to turn them into carbon copies of each other.

Is it because  politics is a career now, not an aspiration? Is it because we now have a political class,  born to rule? Is it because most new politicians do their apprentiships with other politians either as aids,press secretaries, assistants, or work their way up through political or affiliated organisations? Clones instructing clones?

Is it because  the career is more important than the cause? Survival more important than belief? Advancement more important than truth? The message more important than the substance? The look more important than the policy? Conformity more important than the idea? The game of celebrity politics more important than the idividual?

The Ancient Romans of the early republic in their Cursus Magisterium (Ladder of Office) had as one of their rules that a man advanced on merit ( After certain other qualifications of birth etc ) But their were age and qualification requirements that meant one held office or advanced after he had gained the required experience and had reached the required age. One of the most successful Empires in existence has to have had something going for it. And this was one of them, the quality of their office bearers and magistrates.

Perhaps we need something similair here! That our politians must have worked in the community (Including parent hood if appliacable) or for a minimum of ten years after school. This does not mean working  for another politcian, political affiliate or union office. In other words a "real job in the real world".

People like to see in parliament people whom they can identify, who they

recognise as in some way like themselves, bringing to the business of

government values and experiences not too different from their own.

 

From:  http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/1885/24578_1.pdf?sequence=1

  
 

A look at the make up of the parliament confirms what a monogamous, "fake" bunch our reps have become. Dancing their steps on the graves of once great political parties, ideals and ideas! Creating nothing but the opportunity for their own advancement and survival. We and our country are the poorer for it.

Note the Nodding Heads and Political Speak