Living Without Fear and Enduring Political Stupidity…
This article is fiction. It is a figment of the writer's imagination. It bears no resemblance to any person, living or dead, or to any set of circumstances real or imagined. It is entirely frivolous fiction. It is also essential to understand that the idea of Poobahs and Panjandrums does not, and never has, applied to the Queensland Police Service.
The People decided to live without fear. It began as many of these things always begin, with unconfirmed reports drifting in upon the social wind. The wind ruffled the remaining wispy hair, which had been streakily glued across the head of the person, who was the One In Authority (OIA).
There were quite a number of Ones In Authority. They got the job from the people looking for someone to tell them they were safe from the Rider of the Pale Horse. The Ones In Authority lived in a tall building in a big city, and from that building they could be in charge of everything.
The Ones In Authority were better at telling the people they were safe from the Rider of the Pale Horse than the other mob, who wanted to be in charge of everything, mainly because the other mob were still trying to work out who was actually in charge of them.
So, as time crept along, the Ones In Authority began to realise that this was an easy gig. They could do what they liked, and they liked doing that! All they had to do was to keep the mob thinking that danger surrounded them and that they, the current OIAs were the only alternative The People had to save them from the Rider of the Pale Horse.
And, to help them do that, they had many assets; they had people who had titles and badges – there were minions, plenty of them, who did not warrant a capital letter to their title. There were Poobahs, not so many of them because they were pretty significant, and finally, there were Panjandrums who were really, really important.
So there they were, the little army of the OIAs: minions, Poobahs and Panjandrums. They all had big shiny badges, and in their minds, they were necessary. The Ones In Authority relied upon their little army to keep The People scared, confused and dependant upon the pronouncements from the Temple of the Ones In Authority.
And, so far, it had worked pretty well. Although not truly scared, The People were sufficiently concerned about the Rider of the Pale Horse's vile poison that they obeyed the rules. They stayed home, they wore face masks, they crept about trying not to be seen, and they stood apart in certain places where there might be more than one person, following the New Rule of “Social Distancing”, a new phrase in most lives.
They read the signs posted on walls and reception desks: warnings that told them how to wash their hands, even though they were adults and had been living everyday lives until the Pale Horse arrived. It was clear that the Ones In Authority knew that The People did not know how to wash their hands. So there had to be notices to explain how to do that!
There were many signs, in many places, telling The People what to do and how to do it.
There were also many rules about where The People could go and how many of them could go there.
There were also many rules telling The People how to live their lives, bury their dead, marry each other, visit each other and worship their Gods.
All these rules were decided by the Ones In Authority because only they knew what was really happening and, also, because they could make the rules: no one else could!
For quite a long time, The People were quite ready to follow all these rules. They accepted that to be safe, these rules were fair and applied across the whole community.
But, there were some things that were happening that The People could see were not fair or even equal. A few feathers were becoming ruffled. And that is where the minions, the Poobahs and the Panjandrums had a role to play.
They had the badges. They had the power. They told The People what to do, and most did it because they thought that was the right way. It must be remembered that The People did not elect the Poobahs and the Panjandrums. Oh no! No-one did.
The Ones In Authority picked these particular creatures, and they did this so that if things went South, and that was possible, then it would be the Poobahs and the Panjandrums who would cop it!
To keep The People frightened enough to accept the impositions on their lives, it was important that the whole climate of fear was kept alive and refreshed; this was the job of all the Poobahs. They did this by appearing on television saying things like, "We’re all in this together”, or "I will do anything to keep The People safe", or "We need more time to track this down, or people will die."
After a while, The People became The Mob and began to question what they could see as evident double standards. If you were a footballer or a footballer's wife, you could easily cross borders. If you were one of The Mob and your parents were dying, tough luck! You could not visit their deathbed, nor could you even go to their funeral.
Examples of double standards began to appear in a number of places. Celebrities could arrive and depart without too much trouble, the Chief Health Panjandrum, with no apparent experience in state economics, commented that celebrities were needed to assist the economy.
And some of The Mob thought, “Now who knew that?”
More importantly, the nonsense became apparent at the border regions of the state. Children used the school bus to take them to school in one rural area, as do thousands of Australian bush children across the nation. In one particular case, the school was in one state, and the children lived in another state; a matter of 26.5 metres apart was the difference.
But that was enough for the badge-carrying Poobahs and Panjandrums! Yes, Sir, that was enough. The children who lived in one State, 26.5 metres from the other State, were denied entry to the school, and the bus was not allowed to cross the border; the Poobah’s badges were out, held high, and their beady eyes were glittering.
Nevertheless, the bus driver, contracted by the Ones In Authority, had to keep driving an empty bus to get paid, a contract requirement.
So, there we are. A school bus driving about with no one in it because it could not cross the border, occupied solely by the bus driver, not responsible for this mindless stupidity, who unhappily went about the task of driving an empty bus to nowhere in particular.
As these examples of political stupidity increased, many of The Mob became unsettled. The scene did not pass the pub test, and people started to think, “Well, bugger this!”
As normal people do, once they smell the rat they are onto it like robbers' dogs and the idea of living in fear and creeping about the place, blindly accepting the diktats of the Poobahs and Panjandrums, suddenly became wrong!
And, that is exactly what happened. The Mob decided enough was enough. They knew, because they were not stupid, that they would have to learn to live with this disease from the far-off Orient, and normal precautions like wearing masks and getting vaxxed were the answers.
They began to call out political stupidity when they saw it, and there was plenty of it about. They decided that they were not hostages to the political fortunes of the Ones In Authority and that as much as possible, within the boundaries of commonsense, they were going to live without fear.
And, generally speaking, that is a bloody good idea.
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