WHAT MEMORIES ARE THESE?

 

We are all, all of us, students of history. We grow up and cannot help but see and/or hear what goes on around us. From the moment we are born the hippocampi in our brain begins to store those observations. Just like your computers hard drive, located betwixt a myriad of chips and circuits, the hippocampus is located in the medial temporal lobes, under the cerebral cortex. It plays a critical role in learning, emotional responses and memory functions and storage. There are two, one on each side of the brain, a few inches above each ear. It helps us navigate the world we live in, wherever and whatever that world might be.

 

Based on a number of personal observations, I believe it should be, indeed must be, apparent that some individuals are more accomplished at making use of, and organising, the information contained in our brains to better navigate that world.

 

Since human beings have evolved, modes of survival have developed and a variety of systems for living have expanded across the globe. Tribes and groups grew larger and formed into nations with the result that the globe has been parcelled off into 195 nations. Each of those nations has a history that has culminated in their present system for living, which, for the most part, consists of a head of state and a governing body whose function is to provide for the wellbeing of its population. In some instances however, the heads of state function merely to maintain power as heads of state, regardless of the welfare of the population, but these states are continually in flux as populations begin to assert themselves over time.

 

This growing assertiveness is fuelled by the coming together of 193 of those countries as member states of the United Nations, and as such are pledged to uphold certain universal human rights. These rights have been codified into law by a number of nations.

 

These human rights, or freedoms, have been instrumental in creating nations that survive via a system of rules and regulations referred to as “the rule of law”.  In order to maintain the system and allow the population to flourish and survive, heads of state, and representatives of the people, are elected by that population to oversee the repair and continuing maintenance of the system. So while individuals go about their business, their representatives ensure their continuing health and safety by overseeing the day to day necessities – security, rubbish collection and disposal, housing, education, health, communication networks (roads, rail, telephone, etc..), commercial responsibility and all those parts of everyone’s life that come under the heading of health, safety, security and freedom. It is in effect a pretty responsible job.

 

Some individuals, the ones who make better use of their brains, are sometimes asked to step forward and be such a representative, or pubic servant. Some individuals see it as a calling and volunteer willingly to enter into public service. Some feel a strong urge to ‘improve things’ and strenuously take up causes to ameliorate the lives of others, and unfortunately some seek only to obtain some form of power or glory. Whatever the reason for an individual putting themselves forward as a public servant, they engage in a social contract to maintain integrity, honesty and humility in their function as such a servant. They are in office to maintain the equality and individual integrity of their electors. It is not to be undertaken through the arrogance of “I know best”, by those who conduct their affairs with strategic condescension, or pretentions of higher social class, education or riches. Those representatives who do that are deceiving themselves as well as the public. They have no place in the governance of a nation.

 

So when I put my hippocampi to work, and reflect upon the current situation in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the western democratic states, I find a number of disturbing matters requiring comment.

 

When I see and hear the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg refer to the political leader of the Scottish branch of the Conservative party as a lightweight, and go on in a superior fashion to talk about evidence before judgements are made and, wait for Sue Gray’s report on her investigation, I am overwhelmed with incredulity.  The cat is long out of the bag. Boris Johnson has admitted he acted wrongly. He has admitted various illegal gatherings have taken place under his watch. He has apologised openly to Parliament that they had taken place. He admitted to being at one of the gatherings. He is in a photograph at one of the gatherings. What is Rees-Mogg waiting for.  Does he expect Ms Gray to magically fall in line and excuse the behaviour? How is it this Cabinet can support this Prime Minister? He has behaved like a clown since he came into politics. This is just another example of his jolly, one of the guys, hail fellow well met, personas. He looks contrite but definitely expects to get away with it because everyone has always let him get away with it. The 1922 committee should be flooded with letters demanding a vote of confidence, yet the current conservative party public servants recently elected have little or no honesty, integrity or gumption and seek merely to cling on to what little power they have.

  

The arrogance of Boris Johnson is only exceeded by that of Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is less than a lightweight individual, a puny narrow minded prissy pedantic bigoted man who has no empathy whatsoever for human beings.  He sees himself as a pinnacle of sophistication and common sense. How he was ever elected is beyond belief. The citizens of North East Somerset are ill-served by this minnow of a man and don’t even know it. The removal of Boris Johnson would also see the removal of most of his cabinet, especially Rees-Mogg.

 

If they are so keen to keep Boris and he is not to resign, let the electors decide the matter in a democratic fashion by his calling for a general election. That is not likely to happen, but it should. Even Rees-Mugg (deliberate spelling) would object to a general election now, as his inbuilt sense of hypocrisy tells him it’s not the right time; but, if Boris and Co. can bamboozle the public to elect again a majority of conservative MPs to parliament, then the country deserves no better than what it has at present.

 

Turning the mind towards the United States and one fares no better. One asks oneself how the likes of Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham and many others managed to get elected to public office. Have the American public been lobotomised? Does anyone actually possess a hippocampus in their brain at all? Or are they just so dumbfounded and prone to believe outrageous scatological conspiracy theories that they smother what sense of truth they have? The ‘big lie’ has been haunting America for over a year now and there seems to be no end in sight. The sophistry, speciousness and mendacity of these so called public servants is online for the world to see and hear and be astounded by. The repetition of their lies and the psychotic behaviour of their saviour Trump is on show across all three major networks in the United States, who all refer to the ‘big lie’ as factual news, not just opinion, and still the show rolls on. That the justice department has refrained from indicting Mr Trump and his co-conspirators of incitement to commit crimes against the state is stupefying.

 

And so we go on feeding the limbic system, compiling and consolidating information. But perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps the memories, emotions and other stored behaviours in my hippocampi are in error and I live in an alternate universe. Just what is public service about and what should we, as electors, expect?  What have we a right to expect? Someone, please show me the error of my ways.