When Old News is The Most Reliable

I have tried with modern Politics/media
And I will not give up trying to understand it.
But I am struggling to get a firm grip on it.

When a story moves like a whirlwind
over the vast plane of fast modern media
I have to wait to decide what to think,
because politics is about much more
than 'what is the first item in the news bulletin?'
Or a leader getting their name into the big type
of tomorrows news before the headlines are written.

I am thankful that I can see before the leaders
that populate the news headlines seem to,
that those who hear them will decide
well before the speakers do 'Nothing new here'.

By the time it is clear that there is nothing left
to switch off I have left the news long behind.
Older stories with more immediate cogence
and depth of thought take their place. They have to.   

Combustable?

One of the more memorable modern insults
hurled from behind the barricades of social media
at politicians of defensive temperaments is
'They could start an argument in an empty room'. 
though whether the room is empty even of them,
or just empty of other people has to guessed at.

When such insults become shorthand for their targets
this will make politics easier to read, but less uplifting.
It will make playing the know-all all the more tempting
whilst leaving listeners to the dialogue none the wiser.

The headlines in the paper will read something like
'Self combusting speaker sustains injury
from exploding argument: interviewer not injured.'
where the projected argument no longer matters, 
the burnt out speaker took all the oxygen out of it
with their personality as they spoke.

Later, calmer voices will reset the agenda,
and show an improved level of leadership
which make politics less conflicted.

We will only know that after it happens,
and the effect may not last for long.  

In The Summer, When The Weather Encourages Us

because the encouragement we gather in the summer
as we collect the wild fruits and spend easy times
with friends learning new things about ourselves
and each other are what will tide us over in Winter. 
will be what we live on in the Winter

 

Exceptional Family Values

My family were always the exception
to the advice they gave out, or more likely
made sure other family members followed,
whilst explaining the line to follow in a way
that denied them being held accountable
for their advice from who they made follow it.

So many times I would be told 'Don't get yourself
into situations you can't get yourself out of' when
the situation I needed to get out of most
was being told 'Don't get yourself into...     '
by people who put me in those same situations
they soon disowned putting me in.

But as they later said of choices laden with errors
'When you make your bed you have to lie on it*',
they will have their bed to lay on. They can follow
their own exceptional 'do as I say not as I do' advice,
which they clearly needed most in the first place.

*originally an English expression from the1500's about consequence of choice.      

Other Flags Are Available

Of course other governments with other flags
can also err and lie about it, but once this sequence
starts, and the process gets to stage two unrecognised
and unchecked, the process seems unstoppable
as the next lie builds on the last lie and erases
the base of what was formerly immutable truth.

 

The World Expands, The World Contracts

The world was made to stretchy, 
when we are sensitive we will feel
the contractions and the growth most
when the movements seems most in tune
when diluted by human expression- 
the worlds of government, social media,
religion and other matters all connected
with the three primary drivers of life
money sex and power which connect us all.   

Speculative Ventures

''Til Death does us join'
we won't know what we are joining with,
in the meanwhile are always projecting
this life onto the next. But when we arrive
we will know what we are part of.
And that alone will surprise us