I’ve never before taken issue with persons who associate election campaigns and the rantings of politicians with “the Silly Season.” To my way of thinking, there are other public events more deserving of the association. I leave it to you dear reader to decide which events make seasons silly. There is frankly nothing silly about persons who may have missed their calling and who instead have chosen a political podium from which to vent anger at themselves or at a failed government. Missed opportunities for social and economic progress are legitimate reasons for protests. The Brits have given us their soap boxes at Hyde Park Corner in London. It’s an example to copy in a fledgling democracy.
There is a malaise in this society of sad little men with half-hidden histories and dodgy characters, who are often less well read than those they wish to represent in parliament. It’s a disease worthy of pause. It should make us think long and hard about mental illness and how to manage it. Free speech should be encouraged even though it takes savvy to detect loquacious political imposters who are bold, egotistical and given to greed. Such persons are ruled by their own desires, and exploit people with deceptive words. There is nothing silly about such imposters. Election campaigns may allow any idiot to vent his feelings openly but look more closely and their hidden agendas will be detected.
Such crooked persons abuse the rights guaranteed in a constitution. It allows someone with rum-glass in hand at 10.30 on a Sunday morning, and who knows not what the inside of a primary school looks like, to appear in public and announce the coming of a new messiah: himself! Those who take him seriously are equally to be examined for mental deficiencies.
Such is the nature of political campaigns that loud-mouthed party hacks, political novices and party affiliates, all conspire to advocate better wages and working conditions for those without jobs; better healthcare for those who do not work and do no-work when employed, and better everything for those in a hurry to experience the New Jerusalem soonest. Such is the native intelligence of socialist ideology. Mention money and everyone expects a pay day whether or not they have earned it or, care what remedy that money is intended to compensate. From these aspects, it is not difficult to see why the casual observer may regard this rising idiocy every five years as the silly season. Frankly, there is nothing silly about planned deception in any season.
For such as are described above, an election campaign may be the only opportunity to raise their voices, and attempt to shine. Independence anniversary passes and leaves them dejected. They see little hope in the warmed-over parades and fake smiles at official independence functions as invitees drink out their excess taxes dollars. Christmas leaves them cheerless and broke, and wishing that some Dry-Season-Santa would appear in his dream with a bag of medical supplies and a bucket-full of money – and water. Carnival is an abomination unworthy of their so-called Christians morals. It is deemed unworthy of their un-vitiating soul.
Call an election campaign whatever pops to your head, but please stop calling it ‘the silly season.’ There is too much cunning, too many deliberate lies and scheming for it to be referred to as silly. Such calculated calculations deserve a more appropriate name. The only things silly about the season are the people who allow politicians to get away with lies.
If an approaching election is accepted as ‘the silly season’ it may dissuade those who aren’t silly and who may have solid ideas for national development from participating in the process. It is therefore strongly recommended that the electorate should be educated to ‘don’t give up, give them up’. ‘Them’ here refers to failed politicians and sycophants out to deceive and filled their rapacious pockets’ giving nothing in return.
Dag Hammarskjöld, the first Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), once said that the democratic vote in the hands of the illiterate masses can be more explosive than the atomic bomb. He may have forgotten to comment on politicians who deliberately set out to keep the illiterate masses ignorant. He also failed to say what, if anything, the UN can and should do, about such politicians. There is no need for a modern day nationalist leader to be as dramatic as the first UN Secretary General. The new nationalist leader has to educate his illiterate masses and teach them to fish before they can STEP. Staying wedded to an old mind-set that has heaped pain upon misery, and lies upon deceit cannot be a positive thing to do.
Perhaps it would instead be best to imitate the rebellious slave who says ‘any place is better than this slave plantation I’m outa here.’ Running away may not solve every problem but it sure beats staying in an abusive and dehumanizing situation. The equivalent ‘silly season’ therefore suggests; ‘don’t give up, give them up. Furthermore it also says: ‘Don’t let people piss in your eyes and call it rain. The time to give them up and to cut a new path to a brighter future is now. And no one should be allowed to describe words used to express your anger as ‘the silly season.’
There is nothing silly about people who dare to speak their minds. Better that than ‘not a word, not a word, not a word and to allow cunning and crooked politicians to have the ears of the nation to themselves. So whatever the situation, one must make a conscious effort to give up the people and the things that are a burden on one’s health and an economic burden on one’s backs. Let those who wish say silly season. History teaches that people choose to change their government by whatever means they deem appropriate – silly season or winter of discontent—call it what you will.
