Governance Unruly - Alcyonenews

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Posted February 23, 2024

Governance Unruly

If a history of governance was ever written, I have not read it. But looking at flocks of Canada geese migrating South or flying North gives me the impression that they are lead by the best navigator in the flock. Other groupings of living organisms, such as bees and wolves are also lead by those who possess most acute the primary characteristic of their respective species. These lead to formulating the hypothesis that human society should be led by its member possessing most accentuated the primary characteristic of the species, that of Mental Prowess. This dovetails with Plato’s assertion that human society must be governed by Philosophers instead of being ruled by Kings.

There is an “A-LIST” of five principles of governance circulating. I could not trace its author, but I found an unequivocal government endorsement of it in a paper titled:

“Public Sector Governance – A guide to the Principles of Good Practice – Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia”.

The five principles of governance on that “A-LIST” read:

“Accountability; Leadership; Integrity; Stewardship; and Transparency.”

It is well past its best-before date, if it ever had one – it is misleading at best and otherwise stupid.

The first principle, “accountability”, is forever chanted in our midst to make us believe we have what they deny us, to wit “accountable government”. Glen Clark did the Pacificat Catamarans -– where are they now, where is he now? Jean Chretien “armed” Canada to-the-teeth with a fleet of four Rust-Class submarines; Brian Mulroney “counseled” Karlheinz Schreiber, the “consultation fee” widely suspected to be a veiled “bribe” – Brian went to Court and it cost us $5.5M (2010 Dollars) and caused many of us loss of trust in the Justice system. There are more politicians who made “mistakes”, including the Trudeaus, father and son, who made many. What punishment did we mete out to them?

“Intelligence” is not explicitly called for in the A-LIST, but is insinuated, I presume, in the “Leadership” proviso, making it an “elective”, lest it breach inclusivity causing dreaded exclusivity. The OED defines: “leader > a person or thing that is the most successful or advanced in a particular area”. Diane Francis, a leading Journalist, often dissects mighty leaders in the “political area” and shows their qualifications to be mighty wanting.

“Leadership” morphs in people following a leader. At MIT, on sunny days students swarmed Norbert Wiener walking-and-talking around the campus – MIT had a stenographer following them, recording his conversation with his students. That is leadership, but when someone is PM because he swayed some voters to believe that he is not as bad as his rival, it isn’t leadership it is “herdship” laced with fearmongering.

“Integrity”? It means “being honest and morally upright”, the OED informs. Can somebody be so, if he has reached the PMO without having learned whether he is “ethical”, or whether his “next” step is, or is not unethical, amoral, illicit or something else. Surely such lack of knowledge unbecomes “men-on-the-street”, much more so a glorious PM! How can anyone become PM and then need a chaperone, aka “Ethics Commissioner” to hide from the people the PM’s sinistery?

Stewardship? Successive PMs took a Canada where Mike Pearson, Judy LaMarsh and Tommy Douglas were walking the streets wearing a smile, and turned the Land into one where the PM is carted around in armoured cars, speeding in “motorcades”. Yes, things have changed since, but who is to blame for the backslide if not the “acountable” politicians?

Transparency! The 5th and last of the “principles” on the “A-LIST” is amusing. The curtain of the political stage is tightly woven, impermeable to the light of day. What we see is graffiti the PM’s PR-artists paint on the public side of the curtain.

Then, what is governance? I will play Humpty Dumpty and define political governance to mean: “A system by which the People manage those of the affairs of the Society that need be managed collectively.” such as:

Infrastructure: Water supply; Sewage disposable; Clean environment; Education; Societal Peace; Protection from “enemies”; Interaction with the rest of the world; And, of course, Protection of Democratia.

The last is of most importance, arguably more so that those others I named and those I did not. Democratia is the protection of the people against coming to be governed by other than themselves. This because “governance by others” is enslavement, pure and simple, and no euphemism can detract form that. This irrespective of whether those who do the “governing” are an internal or external faction, or another nation, be they benevolent, malevolent or whatever else they could be.

These are all in the nature of things.