Think of this as an extension of the last post, if you will. If you hated that one, go ahead and sign off now. Don’t even read another word. Not even this one. Is this post political too? You’d better believe it. The title of this post derives not from Shakespeare, but from American journalist Jimmy Breslin’s 1975 book How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from Impeachment Summer.
Of course, the book was about Nixon and the Watergate scandal that had shaken the foundations of the United States political system in the 1970s. (Then President of the United States, Richard Nixon’s administration tried to cover its involvement with a breakin at the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex in Washington D.C.) As the political columnist, Donald Kaul once said (if you forgive my paraphrase), “Nixon was to politics what the Boston strangler was to crime.” This certainly seemed like the case at the time, and it may seem the case in retrospect as well, albeit there have been many other serial killers in the history of crime, and there are, of course, other politicians who may be just as bad, or even much much worse. No need to cough so loudly at the back. Please, someone get that lady a glass of water and a tissue.
Politics, like big business, readily lends itself to deception. Lying can be an effective way to manage people. In Hamlet, Polonius warns his daughter, Ophelia, against it, believing that Hamlet’s vows of love are really just lies to get him into Ophelia’s bed:
OPHELIA
My lord, he hath importuned me with love
In honorable fashion—
POLONIUS
Ay, “fashion” you may call it. Go to, go to!
OPHELIA
And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
POLONIUS
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both
Even in their promise as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. (Hamlet 2.1.119-29)
Yet, false protestations of love would only be one kind of lying. The line blurs in many places, but especially somewhere at deliberate obfuscation–at throwing metaphorical sand into the eyes of others to blind them or distort their vision. If one had the public ‘ear’, for example, say on Twitter or some other social media platform, one might Tweet or post something ‘loud’, or something outrageous enough to seem ‘loud’ even across the silence of a glowing screen. Or one might make contentious or controversial statements at a rally, when one might be safely enfolded in the warm sympathy of one’s own supporters.
These possibilities draw to mind heads of state that appear to stamp and rage, or make emphatic speeches–sometimes making outrageous statements that only the foolish or the truly gullible might believe, not to convince others, but simply to get those statements into the news. Simply stir the hornets’ nests of politics, and draw the repeated stings to swell those tweeted/uttered words and phrases and keep them longer before the public mind. Nearly the same as the way stings take so long to fade. In the end, there is only publicity, and such figures are only vanquished when their tantrums or their mock solemn pronouncements are ignored.
In the meantime, both sides of the fence, detractors and supporters, get more than a bit ridiculous about worrying and muttering over such stings. When supporters feel vindicated, the tantrum thrower has won. When detractors take up torches and pitchforks, the child king or queen, the puppeteer of popular opinion, has won again. If both sides stir in wanton rage or righteousness, the victory is double and the power base becomes that much more secure.
All of this conjures the brilliant Barry Humphries, and his creation Dame Edna Everage, especially one of her comments about ‘seniors’. Her comment is a joke, of course, but it applies strikingly well to members of political parties, and to much of the populace at large. Again, I paraphrase, but Dame Edna, the megastar, says, “Oh, look at them smiling out there. They’re so lovely out there enjoying the show. Of course, they don’t really know what’s going on. It’s really just the colour and the motion that holds their interest.”
Magicians make a living at waving handkerchiefs to draw our eyes from wherever the mechanics of the magic trick may be really taking place. The audience watches something juggled, or an assistant moving across the stage with shiny rings. All misdirection. But like the light and colour, it holds our attention long enough that we, all of us, can easily miss the trick, and never see what’s really going on.
It’s not that we’re stupid necessarily. It’s just that they’re professionals. Did you drop this, Ma’am/Sir? This gold ring? This hundred dollar bill? Let’s figure out a way to keep it safe until tomorrow. We’ll put our wallets/cash/rings/valuables together in this packet rolled up in tissue. That way, we’ll be able to tell if you took the tissue off in the night. You hold it for us, because you seem like a trustworthy person. You’re certain you’ve given us the right number? We’ll contact you tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes and the carefully wrapped parcel is empty. Yes, we all know the story of that old con game. The pigeon drop, it used to be called, but it remains deeply ingrained in our cultural vernacular, surfacing again and again.
For this week, the assignment is to watch yourselves out there. If you see a gold ring in the street, just ignore it and walk on. As my great grandfather used to say when anyone with him would glance at a shop window, “Don’t look at that.” “Why not?” would come the inevitable question. “Because it’s not yours” was always the reply. Fair enough. Fair enough.
interesting. ive just written a play in blank verse on nixon and watergate.
That would be an interesting read!