Right now it seems as if the leadership of the entire planet is
coming up for election. At least that’s the impression I get from the
news: there are changes of leadership everywhere, or at least in those
places where the population is allowed to have a say in such matters.
But when I look at the results, I can’t help thinking that the people
coming into power are completely incapable of meeting the challenges of
our times.
Consider, for instance, France where a diminutive and obnoxious
opportunist named Nicolas Sarkozy recently lost the presidential
election to a mid-level civil servant type called Francois Hollande.
Now I’m sure the French had their reasons for getting rid of Sarkozy, I
never liked him much myself, but when I look at his replacement I can’t
say I feel very excited.
First, he only won the Socialist nomination because Dominique
Strauss-Kahn (the randy IMF head honcho who originally planned to run
against Sarkozy) spent far too much time drinking champagne and having
sex with naked ladies. Indeed, DSK spent so much time with naked ladies
that he forgot to ask which ones were prostitutes and which ones were
members of French high society who just happened to be undressed. That
caused a terrible mess.
Now I don’t know about Francois Hollande’s interactions with naked
ladies but I do know that he got into power by promising lots of free
stuff in the middle of an economic crisis, and also by pledging to tax
the rich at 75%, thereby guaranteeing that they will take all of their
money out of the country, making it much harder for him to provide all
that free stuff.
Meanwhile in Greece, a lefty fantasist angling for the prime
minister’s office declared that he would cancel the severe budget
cutting measures agreed upon by the previous administration in order to
secure the foreign money the country needs to survive. Presumably he
thinks foreigners should supply the Greeks with free cash out of
gratitude for their contributions to civilization 2,400 or so years ago.
Meanwhile the Golden Dawn, a group of English occultists founded in the
late 19th century won 20 seats in parliament.
The Rosy Cross of the Golden Dawn
Oh wait, I’m getting mixed up. The Greek Golden Dawn is a bunch of
far right types who are extremely agitated about illegal immigrants, not
a bunch of symbolist poets and opium smoking aesthetes.
Over in the States election campaigning is entering a new phase. In
the blue corner we have a president, Barack Obama, who has been a major
disappointment to almost everybody except (possibly) his dog, Bo. And in
the red corner we have a strange animatronic figure named Mitt Romney,
who appears to have escaped Disneyworld after somehow attaining a
modicum of sentience.
Since Obama cannot run on the economy (which is still a mess), or
health care reform (which almost everybody hates), he’s been reduced to
fist pumping the air at his own awesomeness while bragging about how he
TOTALLY PWNED Osama bin Laden. And when he’s not doing that he
dispatches lackeys to provoke select minority groups into two-minute
hate fests against the animatronic robot and his party.
The initial two minutes’ hate actually lasted around two weeks, and
centered around bloated radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans
alleged “war on women.” It then took a brief detour into animal lover
territory, when it was revealed that the animatronic figure had once
strapped a dog to a car roof. But that two minutes of hate was canceled
when it was revealed that Obama once ate a dog. There was also a
flirtation with inspiring a two-minute hate against Mormons for their
past endorsement of polygamy (the animatronic figure is a Mormon, by the
way) until it was pointed out that Obama’s father was a bigamist and
his grandfather had at least four wives. The upshot is: this election
will be about almost everything except what it should be about, and that
is going to be extremely tiring.
Thus in a world rocked by change and uncertainty and run by pygmies,
where can a man look for stability?
Well, this week I watched Vladimir
Putin’s inauguration on TV, in a hall filled with so much gold it made
me dizzy just looking at it. Putin has now been the leader of Russia, de
facto or otherwise, for one-third of my life span. And while he was
manifestly a much better president than his immediate predecessor, I
don’t think it’s good for one man to have that much power for so long.
Consider the case of Moscow ex-Mayor Yuri Luzhkov who started his
career as an effective and popular city manager and ended it very rich,
but in total disgrace. Putin will never become a pygmy, but does he have
it in him to ignore the bootlickers and flatterers and keep adapting to
the demands of an unstable world beset with economic and political
strife?
We will see.