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Tag Archives: Social Contract

Trump, Trust, People Power & A New Social Contract

25 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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20 Million Voices, Con, Divestment, facebook, Fossil Fuels, hawks, Islam, Lyndon Johnsen, Military Industrial Complex, Monty Python & The Holy Grail, NeoCon, Oil Men, PeoplePower, Pussy Grabber, Radicalism, Social Contract, Trump, TRUST, UltraCon, Vietnam

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I’m less concerned with the overt Trumpness of Donald. I am sure that I should be.

Weirdly, the idea that one certain mister ‘pussy grabber’ becomes the President Elect of the United States does not surprise or shock me.

The White House has had its fair share of mysoginists and philanderers – and of course the hawks (both the useful ones the world desperately needed and the assholes the world didn’t). Presidents have not all been shades of the wholesome, family-loving God bless America of Carter and Reagan.

Trump’s direct assaults on minorities, global warming groups, foreign aid, etc. are in no way a surprise. He claims that he is against radical Islam not Muslims, but seems to think beating up Muslims is a great strategy to that end.

And as for the Wall and the Mexican issue. Its teetering on high comedy.

I imagine Trump in the roll of the Norman Knight played by John Cleese in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, looking down from his high vantage on the castle wall.

As the people far below call up to him the Donald flicks his nose at them.

Whispers from off camera: What do they want?

Donald: They’re looking for the American Dream… (sniggers) I told them we already got one.

The cynics point to the fact that Trump can’t be a friend of Hollywood because Hollywood would never forgive him for sending back the people who do their gardens – as every lawn from Sunset to Malibu would scorch and die if it weren’t for the Mexican part time labourers who fill the pick-ups every morning on every principal corner of Sunset where the bus stops sit.

Global warming is cobblers of course  in Donaldland (my new name for the Disney-esque NeoCon Hoo Haa place we call the Disunited States of America).

We knew this was coming. His dinner party friends have all made a huge amounts of money from fossil fuels – Oh, and they think the science is cod. How remarkably convenient. Oh and they’d like to continue to make a whole lot of money from fossil fuels. (Apparently the quickest was to roll back environmental impact stuff and fluff is to roll forward one hell of a pipeline.)

And the new hawkish ‘build it up build it out’ approach will be making a whole lot of industrialists in the ordnance sector positively dribble in anticipation. Its like ’64 and Lyndon Johnson’s election all over again.

So shock horror probe.

Donald’s anti the soft lefty red types in the arts. He’s backing the Oil Men, the Military Industrial Complex, the dream of the self-made Millionaire, a two people America and defensive divisive Isolationism.

Damn right.

This is what made America great people. And that’s what Donald is gonna do again.

Look it. Whatta guy. Even his Campaign Officer is a helluva woman – comin’ out fig’tin an e’ry thing at that Inauguration Dinner. Hah.

We’re a hellzaapoppin, asskickin, red slappin’, say it the way it is, speak my mind raise my fists burn some rubber bomb some ragheads give no quarter US of Damn A – an’ don’t you forget it.

There is nothing surprising about Donald Trump at all. He is a very ordinary unsurprising old school alpha man. He is that man in that bar or pub. Foghorn Leghorn. His scrabble for money has given him bragging rights and a loudspeaker for whats right and wrong. And his politics are simply his genetic ‘assert & ascend’ survival strategy writ large and loud.

The greatest issue with Donald Trump is not his politics. It’s his integrity. That fuzzy golden grey periphery that seems to wrap itself around and about everything he touches.

And the minority of ordinary people who voted for him are potentially in for a rude awakening one day. There’s no guarantee he’ll screw it up of course. He may busk it. Survive the next 4 years and fate will smile on him.

It’s a little like functioning alcoholics: teetering on the edge of the abyss of their addiction but never quite falling into it. He may just glide across the bumps. Even more scary for some, there may even be some things that he does that are not necessarily welcome but actually might benefit a large number of people. The issue is can you trust him to do that but not at a punitive cost to others. Favouring one group or bloc or constituency over another is a politician’s remit. But not a President’s.

A substantially larger number of the thinking, living, earning, voting population of the country he runs don’t trust him to run the country in a manner they see fitting for an advanced and great First World bastion of Democracy and Liberalism (and I don’t just mean the fiscal kind).

They do have some fair reason.

A man who does not immediately and absolutely divest his business interests in the interest of running a country is like a man who turns an old pre wedding girlfriend into a post wedding mistress. A weighty dose of cake and Eating it.

A president who does not happily take a transparent line on his business and tax affairs is not to be trusted. This is where I will draw the Silvio Berlusconi parallel. It simply does not work. It leads to or exacerbates existing corruption, self interest runs riot, and toxic back room dealings and trades become the foundation of government decision making. Governments and Presidents do not need any more ‘obfuscation as policy’ – other than  that which already exists in the misty foggy worlds of GeoPolitics.

Regardless of whether he is playing games to reduce tax disproportionately or whether it is because Divestment might lead to full and open scrutiny of the financial health and integrity of those businesses – especially the degree of leverage he’s using and the source of that leverage (China anyone?), he is a man who fogs facts and doesn’t finish sentences – an obfuscator of the first order.

Policies are not the issue. Trust is, in regards to both his intentions and his actions.

And to be clear what I mean by ‘half the nation do not Trust Donald’ – I do not mean Trust as in their belief in his ability to undertake and do something he commits to doing. I wholly trust him to keep to his (vague) word and commitments:

“I trust DT to execute a mass of executive orders in his own and associates interest and to his own ends”

I wholly believe he will do that.

The Trust I mean is the one that defines the commitment to an action that is instilled with values and ethics – and of a clear sense of collective and not just selective good:

“I trust DT to set aside this own self-interest in pursuit of creating a better country for both the people who didn’t vote for him as for those who did.

As President, his role is to increase prosperity, and reduce division between the haves and the not haves, and between those for and against him.

Which leads me to venture a thought.

I wonder whether perhaps in our peer to peer world in the absence of a Trust coming down from on high, the new social contract needs to be drawn not between government and the people, but BETWEEN THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.

Perhaps the new social contract – the contract of TRUST – needs to be drawn up between Trump voters and non Trump Voters. And to each the other is held accountable. Because if Donald is all about acting on the will of the people, then the people’s integrity and mutual trust and vision is everything and he should be in service to that.

Perhaps this is the new model to be forged – enshrined and acted upon in the interests of the American people.

The social contract of TRUST should become a respectful charter for mutuality that transcends party and individual politics:

I trust you to uphold your personal liberties without holding them above mine.

I trust you to raise and protect your family but not at the expense of mine or others

I trust you not to harm our communities in pursuit of making a better one of your own

I trust you to raise your hand in support of those less well off than you, not in suppression of them.

I trust you to protect the freedom of every American citizen, not just those like you.

I trust you to protect our great American wildlife and countryside for our grandchildren

I trust you not to be seduced by words but swayed by actions

I trust you to share equally the Greatness we collectively make.

Just a thought. A new peer to peer Social Contract for the American People.

If we could get both sides to agree that it is the people who Donald serves, and let the people shape the Social Contract that he is action, underwrite and secure using all of the instruments tools and machinery of his elected office, now that would be something.

Who knows: we might even have finally found a meaningful role for Facebook in a declining market.

A peer to peer social contract managed across face book’s 20 Million users – which to be fair even allowing for the teenage user profile and pre voting age bloc is still a hell of a lot closer to representing the future voice and desire of America.

It is certainly more broadly representative of the people of America than the 60% turnout of which Donald still did not secure the majority.

Just saying.

 

 

Clinique, Morgan Freeman & a search for Certainty.

24 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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Tags

Baileys, Bruce Almighty, certainty, Christmas, Christmas Sales, Clinique, David Attenborough, Donald Trump, face Serum, ferrero rocher, Frasier, gogglebox, Gucci, John Lewis, Life On Earth, Living beyond Our Means, Living The Dream, Morgan Freeman, orang-utans, Pam Oil, Shawshank Redemption, Simon & Garfunkel, Social Contract, The Holidays Are Coming, Warren Buffet

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I was trapped at the roundabout at the bottom of Fulham Palace Road, going nowhere. This gave me ample time to admire the sharpness and surety of a Clinique Bus Side communicating  yet another miracle creme.

It was a master class in the art of communicating Certainty.

It was less the actual nature-defying aspect of the crème itself and the certainty of what promised and more the surgical certainty of its sense of self – its absolute right to be on the side of a bus telling me everything’s going to be OK. The precision and fixedness of the way it looked and felt – the production values – and the voice with which it spoke that seduced me.

Everything about the bus side, the clarity of the type face, the exquisite finishing on the photography – the meticulous attention to detail and the inherent balance carried a confidence and absoluteness that screamed Certainty. Even the white background was more certain of its whitest whiteness than any white background around it.

Surely nothing bad can happen in a world where Clinique exists. Not really. Clinique exists in a world where YouTube beheadings don’t happen. Where the Far Right is merely a reference to which end of the Front Row you’re seated at when the GUCCI show comes to London fashion Week.

The CERTAINTY which the bus side imbued me with, even just fleetingly, was mesmerising, desperately delusional but boy it felt good.

Thankfully the news on the radio reminded me that I do in fact live in a world where places like Aleppo exist, along with the pain and human suffering and outrage that seem to accompany our species on our journey to self-determined extinction.

In Clinique World Baby Orangutans don’t get ripped from their dying mothers in a rain forest and sold for a couple of dollars – all for the want of some palm oil to grease the palm of western vanities. You can be certain of that. Not here. Not us. Not Right Here Right Now.

But that’s escapism for you. It doesn’t always have to be a movie or a song. Escapism comes in many forms. And at the beating heart of Escapism is certainty with a dash of hope. Hope of better. Hope of something else.

Certainty can be consumption; even the toxic kind. Especially the toxic kind. The kind that helps me forget even just for a second that I am simply surviving with stickers, unlikely to ever reach the giddy heights of just Being, free at last to unclutter my life of all the ballast of Certainty I’ve been propping myself up with along the way.

Hiding inside a lifestyle we couldn’t otherwise afford without racking it up on credit card – and living the dream of Having It All seems to be the order of the day. Shiny skin creams are Us. Gorgeous smells and not thinking too hard about stuff.

Kind of understandable now that our always-on news feeds relentlessly bombard us with the exceptional output of human madness and cruelty.

As long as I can use my swipey app to order EXACTLY what I deserve in the take away department and be certain that it will arrive, piping hot, aromatic, and with a roll on reward offer – as long as I can treat myself because I’m worth it – hell I’m alive aren’t I? Give me a break.

Certainty is one of those things that acts as a much needed corrective for ordinary people in an increasingly volatile world – a world Warren-Buffeted by collapsing and soaring markets and share prices, the death of the social contract, strange political shifts (has no one noticed the correlation between the rise of tyrants and the exercising of the Populist Vote – or is that just me?) and the onslaught of some rather crazy weather.

The future is indeed bright – the future is Donald not going out for a duck; the near future at least.

I have a theory that there must be a set of scales somewhere – scales that will illustrate that the more screen time Donald gets, the more people will (in the absence of God) crave and stream Morgan Freeman movies.

In times of trouble, Certainty can also be a voice – like Morgan’s, or that of David Attenborough. When the day closes in and stuff gets dreadful, and the reassurance of watching Frasier re runs isn’t working anymore – cue Attenborough’s salving voice and his pictures of beauty – of a world where we are still richly interwoven into something more sublime and greater than ourselves, rather than hovering above it like the sword of Damocles above its head.

As Simon & Garfunkel might one day sing:

“When you’re weary, feeling small

When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all (all)

I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough

And friends can’t be found…

Watch Morgan in Bruce Almighty”

 Certainty can also be a season.

As Christmas roars towards us – having started its mighty yawp on November the 1st, we all start to feel a little more certain; because Christmas is certain.

Christmas lights up the darkest night in the deepest black of the year.

Ping! Gorgeous.

Year in and Year out. Unwavering. Immutable. Unmovable. Christmas allows us to embrace the certainty of it and all that comes with it.

The world lights up (the western Christian one specifically). And life is good.

Who cares if the brands get to milking the Purse of Human Kindness, ferociously pick pocketing every ounce of insecurity in us and replacing it with a rather shiny bauble to give or receive. Love that.

The certainty of Christmas doesn’t just start early because the brands and businesses make more money out of it.

Christmas lasts for two months because we need a new super charged amount of its glorious twinkling certainty to off-set the all the awfulness we have to consume the rest of the year.

We simply aren’t capable of crawling the last few yards to something like a more respectful December 12 or 13th Christmas start.

We would fold into a despondent mess way before then. We are ravenous for the exquisite promise of Certainty that Christmas begins. (And its Sales – because they’re different to all the other all year round sales aren’t they? Of course they are!!)

Even the commercials that the big retail brands produce have become a pillar of that Certainty. John Lewis. Thank-you for redeeming me with a gold plated you-tube film featuring furry creatures on a child’s garden trampoline. Bless you for that.

A sugar coated filmic hit of Certainty.

In a world where a boxer dog’s ears flap up and down with merriment as we ding dong our merrily on high – what could possibly go wrong?

Who cares if there’s a shed load of brands and businesses out there relentlessly reframing their value as some salve ‘in an uncertain world’. We’ve got formation dancing, leaping creatures, red Starbucks cups and for chrissakes, THE HOLIDAYS ARE COMING.

In fact, even in this volatile roller coaster life of ours, of one thing I can be almost certain. Christmas is the bomb when it comes to CERTAINTY.

If I find myself on Christmas Day parked in front of the telly, my face soaked in Clinique For Men Anti Ageing Serum, the milky sweet of Bailey’s buttering my lips, a scatter of walnut casings and Ferrero wrappers peppering my technicolour Ted Baker gilet, watching the Shawshank Redemption, followed by a Life On Earth Double Bill, all to the accompaniment of the chirrup grunt squeak boing of a quality-street assortment of furry creatures bouncing up and down on the  trampoline outside my triple glazed bullet proof conservatory windows – I may just explode in a cascade of tinsel twinkling Certainty.

Heaven.  (If you happen to believe in that sort of thing.)

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