More And Less

The more I understand 'politics'
the less I wish I understood it,
and instead I could find a distance
where what I can no longer avoid feels safer.

Satire helps, but in the end no distance
from The News ever seems safe enough.  

Cycles Of Liberty Will Vary

But any liberty won on the back of acts of aggression
 will always be limited for the victors by how defensive 
the terms of the peace can be made to seem against
 the losing side, whom they seek to keep at a distance. 

When Paid Employment Fails The Turing Test

Most people have heard of The Turing Test.

It is the proposition that where a machine
gives every impression of being human,
in so far as human beings can test it blind,
then they accept that what they are dealing with
has a consciousness, and is not merely mechanical.

But I have been aghast at so many of the humans
I have spoken with by phone who would fail the standards
set by the Turing test, because they spout scripts
from screens provided for them by employers,
and the money they get for what they spout
matters more to them than whether they are thought
to be robots, as they are attentively listened to, or not.

The net result is that I nearly every time
part way through an attempted conversation
I cease know how to respond as the ghost
of the script takes over their voice.

That is usually when for me feeling ashamed
to answer a robot, I find I don't how to answer.
That is when the robotic management intervene.....

The Ultimate Phobia?

'Islamophobia' and 'Homophobia'
are two terms among many
whose very trendiness
I struggle to comprehend.

But the oldest phobia comes
from cursing someone as 'stupid',
and making out that a bad deed or two
by them the sum of of the whole person.

There we act out our fear
of rational argument by ignoring
the vital differences between people
which multiply the sum of life.

To curse and do down the intelligence
of another is to reduce your own self
to brute insensitivity, and to increase
the other persons sense of burden
to make it carry your contempt.

Such contempt is a living death wish.

Most Sectarianism

is despots reducing their enemies
into well mislabeled groups
convenient for the despot,
much to the discomfort
of those impersonally labeled.

As the discomfort multiplies
many feel trapped in a political ghetto
made by others, one where fighting
makes leaving the ghetto harder,
and swearing at the media is proof
that they are not being heard.

For myself, and for everyone else,
I prefer my insanities to be more wholesome
-inequalities which because they are reduced
can be shared with less need for aggression.

The Work Ethic Never Stops....

Particularly not for those who are ill or disabled, 
or are otherwise of no service to employers
as millions of people know. 
It is what keeps on going around them...

The Mathematics Of Weak Morals

Personal charisma + Vast wealth + The pomp of office = Potential for corruption.