No Need To Shout

I remember when the nearest
most citizens got to seeing their leaders
was on one of the three or four channels
of the analogue television that the UK gov't
regulated between 1964 and 1991.

When the viewer disliked the speaker
they did not do what it was logical to do;
mute the sound or change the channel,
or even better turn the set off for a while
the better to do something more engaging.

The politician made the viewers anger
alive enough for the viewer to forget
that these speeches were pre-recorded,
and if they had read it as later as a script
they would be calmer in their disagreement.

Thus the British shouted at recordings
of leaders who they disagreed with,
with a predictability that were it not so normalised
-their predecessors had shouted at the radio-
it should have been seen as more alarming.

The public did not care that their
television set could not hear them,
once set off  they could not stop
behaving profoundly irrationally.

Now we have other means
of venting our spleen
and renting our bile out
to whoever might want it,
like twitter and facebook.

But recycled bile has very little flavour.