Remember, Remember...

It's been a fun few weeks for global politics. Vučić in Serbia, Bolsonaro in Brasil, Netanyahu in Israel, and now Trump in the USA: right-wing strongmen have been rejected in several elections (I guess we can thank Orbán in Hungary for showing them the way in May). Of course, Netanyahu is not quite out of the picture yet, and could even manage to hang on to the premiership, while Trump himself isn't going anywhere (probably?) and has two lame-duck years left, during which there will no doubt be many tantrums and vetoes. Still, the people have spoken, and though they're probably not asking for the ideological opposites of the men and parties they repudiated, clearly they/we want change.

And change they/we had better get. Fuel prices, healthcare prices, grocery prices, RAM prices, Nobel peace prices; the pugnacious hyperbole, mongering fear and hatred and political violence, excessive immigration enforcement by masked thugs resulting in serious injuries and deaths, weaponizing government agencies and resources against real or perceived foes, corruption, wars and invasions and occupations, and lies, lies, lies… it's all insane and out of control. Does anyone really want things to continue in this fashion, and for the shoe to be on the other wing when voters do what they do?

Of course, let it go long enough, and build up enough steam, and the people resort to other means. Today is the fifth of November, the date of the failed Gunpowder Plot which would have seen disgruntled Catholics blow up the English House of Lords as well as the Protestant King James. Not sure they would have been gruntled had they succeeded, but the fact remains that they felt their only recourse was violence. So, too, in the film "V for Vendetta," released 20 years ago. It's been re-released very briefly in theaters, and I'm going to watch it in one, fittingly, tonight. "The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous." Stirring to read, and to watch on the big screen, but while the tree of liberty does seem to need refreshing with patriots' and tyrants' blood from time to time, that should never be the first (nor even the second) resort. Ballots can be frefreshing, too.

"Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up."