Let’s Blame All the Politicians
Shôn Ellerton, January 3, 2020
Politicians don’t get it easy and they usually have to work very hard to get where they are, but when it come to the crunch, we always have time to point fingers at them.
Wouldn’t it be great to start the new year if we had less of that knee-jerk finger pointing which is going on so much, a good example being the news about the catastrophic bush fires which has enshrouded Australia as of late?
This morning, we watched the morning ABC (the Australian ABC) news. Needless to say, much of the material was centred on the horrible destruction the bush fires are causing. However, so much criticism was being placed on Scott Morrison’s (the prime minister) holiday to Hawaii. Not only is it a wasted effort to harp on about it on mainstream news, but it is seems incredibly counterproductive when effort could go into trying to solve the problem through rational thought and reasoning.
Can any leader work alone to make appropriate decisions during long periods of catastrophes without sleep, rest or any form of leisure? Perhaps, but it is unlikely. Human factors paint a very large portion of the picture to bring successful outcomes. Take it from any pilot, firefighter, police officer or, dare I say it, politician. I’m not here to defend politicians exclusively, but they certainly do get the lion’s share of the blame.
One must ask the question. Would you rather have the leader of a country make all the executive decisions all the time or would you prefer a well-rested leader who delegates the authority appropriately only to receive the occasional emergency call when required? Can you imagine a surgeon not taking any breaks? We all need breaks. We all need leisure. We all know that leaders visibly age at a quick rate of knots in their relatively short careers in the highchair.
Love them or loath them, we do need politicians. Many of us are quick to criticise them but if asked to take on a politician’s role, some of us may jokingly say, ‘Hey, my kid can do better’ or something similar, but the reality is that most of us wouldn’t bother. Heck, many of us struggle to get to the polling stations to vote! Becoming a politician is usually no mean feat. They often spend massive amounts of unpaid time in getting to know their local community including attending as many functions as possible whilst networking with as many people as possible. There may be more lavish functions being put on but most are very humble affairs involving a lot of hard work to become recognised as a vital cog in helping running the affairs of the community. Of course, the media will concentrate on the lavish ones, after all, creating a ruckus in the media about spending of the public purse will always get good news coverage. Few care to read about the hard work put in other menial affairs.
Those that stick their heads above the parapet will, no doubt, attract those who revere or demonise them. It’s always been that way. Movie stars, tycoons, politicians and sports celebrities represent typical groups of people who attract attention so easily. Whatever they do, whether it’s giving a donation to charity or whether they forgot to flush the toilet at a restaurant will attract the media’s attention.
Politicians are the most demonised of all groups. Whatever they do, whatever they say, whatever they write, will attract debate, controversy and downright trolling. It’s a natural occurrence and politicians or any other persons of a high media profile experience will be aware of this. Even as a low-profile writer on social media, I get the occasional troll or two. It’s okay. But the higher one goes, more effort takes place by others to knock one out of the sky, much like the story of Icarus, who flew to close to the Sun because he was flying so high.
How many of us have read mainstream press articles of politicians ‘abusing’ their privileges? Take for example a politician who, despite creating initiatives in creating hundreds of new jobs in a community or revitalising a decrepit suburb transforming it into a new business hub, only to then use one cabcharge on the public purse to take his or her partner out for a meal. The bottom line is if the media are aware of that one cabcharge being used other than for public business, that politician will be smote into the ground faster than you can blink an eye. Someone out there will do anything to take someone out regardless of the good things that person did. It’s truly depressing.
It would be nice to start this year with rational and logical thought trumping over knee-jerk finger-pointing. Humans often band together to coalesce against a common ‘enemy’ and this can often be a sad and sheepishly thing to do. If we could read, in full, the news in question without resorting to spewing emotive retorts based on headlines. If we could just adopt a rational and critically-thinking mind before openly criticising; this would be a great start to the new year.
