What Kills Us This Week!

OK, again with the "too early in the week" to do this but this week my pick is ...

America!

Did you see that speech John McCain gave two days ago? I tell you, it's up there with Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake!" or, as they say in China, referencing Emperor Hiu talking to his starving people "You have no vegetables? Meat congee is also nice"! Or indeed, Henry Tang when he was running for Hong Kong Head Honcho asking an impoverished old lady "And what do you do with your spare millions?" And when she said "I am one of the common folk. I have no spare millions.", he replied "What? Not even one or two!"

Forever joining this illustrious crowd, John McCain said, while commenting on Obama's plan to tax the rich, "America did not become the greatest nation on earth by freely distributing the country's wealth. America became the greatest nation on earth by giving the money to a handful of people and letting them hang onto it!" and the audience cheered.

Let me set this straight: America is meant to be the greatest nation on earth because it espouses certain values and those values are democratic and egalitarian. Yes, we all know that America forgot those values wayyy back but no one, to this date, has so freely demonstrated that those values are no more. And that audience cheered!

These ridiculous Republicans need to learn that there are certain RULES!; that there are over-riding rules for nations in general, and there are idiosyncratic rules peculiar to countries! Read your Joseph Campbell! At our most primal level, we are still doing the whole Fisher-King thing; it's hardwired into our DNA.

As for the over-riding rules, here's an example: do you remember when Australia was in that refugee stosh with Norway several years back? I was actually on Norway's side for that one until their Prime Minister looked straight into the cameras and lied. Yup, blatantly LIED! I thought "If Norway lets that one pass, I will forever more think they are a nation of liars and lowlife scum!" but, yaayyy, Norway wasn't OK with that one and within 5 days they'd called for an election and within five weeks that chap was GONE!!! That's the basis of the whole Fisher-King ethos: a nation's leader is a nation's voice when speaking to the rest of the world!

Or another example, much closer to home. I remember how I used to swell with pride when our own beloved leader, Ratu Mara, was dealing with the rest of the world. Do you remember his overwhelming dignity and chiefly mana? It helped too that he was six foot 10 inches tall and totally dwarfed every other nation's leader. Oooh, Fiji could hold it's head up high with a leader like that. Today? Mmmm, we have become a significantly smaller nation since, haven't we! (And I just love it that Fiji news photographers always try to pick out the Mara grandchildren in a crowd. It's so obvious that, at our deepest level, we are all looking for THE NEW MARA!!! We all crave to be BIG again!)

And the second part of the Fisher-King ethos is that a leader must also espouse the values that a nation is supposed to hold. Like, I LOVE that Australia is so "hands-off" regarding power. I love that they don't fuss over their leaders, I love that my naughty niece was able to go through the Prime Minister's drawers in his office looking for hidden copies of Playboy (there weren't any!). I adore that the Australian parliament is hidden under a hill and that the Australian Army is also hidden in the hills, wayyy away from anywhere.

And let me tell you something that happened several years back, in Townsville, that illustrates what I most love about that country: a group of Yank tourists asked me what all the "Driver Reviver" signs they'd seen meant. I said that the Australian Government provided free tea and biscuits to travelers every two hours apart on the highways. They were astonished. "The Government does that!" they kept saying. "It significantly reduces traffic accidents so it's cheaper for them to do it than not do it!" They were speechless. "It is incomprehensible to us that a government would do something like that!" was the slack-jawed upshot. Well, that's Australia!

But we're meant to be talking about America, and how the leader MUST espouse and represent the values of the people: like, months back, I was talking to a guy in American Army Intelligence and said "I don't care who America votes for as long as those uber-pig-men, Bush and Cheney, are swept off the world stage!" and he said "When McCain was taken prisoner in Vietnam, he spilled EVERYTHING to the enemy before they had even showed him the weapons of torture! I like to think my leader will hold out for at least one bout of torture before revealing secrets!"

So if McCain gets in, I'm going to think "So that's who America wants to be! A nation of snivelling cowards who uphold only the concerns of the rich!" They say that every nation gets the leader they deserve, but, honestly, please, please, please, America surely can't let this one happen. "Let them eat cake!" instead of "We hold these truths to be inviolate!"

McCain has revealed his true colours with this "don't spread the wealth" speech: "Let them eat cake!" "Meat congee is also nice!" and "What do you do with your spare millions?" Well, you know what happened to those other illustrious folk, don't you? Marie Antoinette was beheaded within weeks, Emperor Hiu was poisoned by his own family within days, and Henry Tang was immediately told he was no longer allowed to run for the Head Honcho post! They were instantly swept off the stage, as they should be! The Fisher-King, finally, MUST show they represent and care for the concerns of the Everyman!

And that's why I'm going to detest America if they elect that hideous cowardly LITTLE man as their leader! Obama is related to the royal family of Baganda, and they have a concept of The Great King who unites the people and leads everyone into a time of universal prosperity. I'm for that!