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Wednesday 24 February 2021

Just make it work



Warning - the link below takes you to the Guardian -

Justin Trudeau has praised Joe Biden for rejoining the Paris climate accord during their first bilateral meeting, saying: “US leadership has been sorely missed over the past years.”

The Canadian prime minister added: “And I have to say as we were preparing the joint rollout of the communique on this, it’s nice when the Americans are not pulling out all the references to climate change and instead adding them in.”


The ongoing hatred of Donald Trump has a strange feel to it. Something distinctly abnormal for a very popular and democratically elected leader. There appear to be a number of reasons behind the abnormality, but one of them may be his undeclared but powerful identification with making things work as the reason for employing someone.

Which seems a little offbeat as an explanation, but it is surprisingly instructive to view a job as being paid to make something work or keep something working. Looked at this way we get rid of the fluff.

That something may be anything from making a column of figures add up, a car which starts every morning, a school doing what schools are supposed to do, a bus route which works, a piece of software which works or fixing a central heating boiler to make it work again. The number of possibilities is huge.

Yet during my working life I have encountered people who never seem to make anything work apart from their own security as employees. It's a guess, but I don't think this is an unusual experience. 

Over the past few decades universities have churned out millions of graduates with mickey mouse degrees who seemingly never learned how to make anything work in the real world apart from social interactions working for their own benefit. Many seem to emerge from university with a view that anything can be achieved by describing it in an approved manner. Too many never seem to lose that early training.

To my mind it all suggests that collapse is inevitable. We do not have enough people who understand how to make things work and how vitally important this is. As for Biden and Trudeau, they possibly don't care either way, they have their security. 

8 comments:

wiggiatlarge said...

The 'club' is back together, the two party system had its nose put out of joint for four years by Trump and Brexit, they really don't like any intruders, just watch the French elections when Le Pen looks as though she might finally make it.
Biden and Trudeau are just two of the same globalist pals back in the driving seat, the public is still not aware that they all represent exactly the same thing.

Doonhamer said...

Agree. The unskilled became/ become committee members, and the bigger the committee the better - to hide their individual incompetance.
These drones spawn procedures and boxes to be ticked.
I have known or worked for companies that believed having perfect ISO 20xx procedures was the route to continued success. But, like building a wonderful, top architect designed headquarters, it was just precursor to collapse.
Of course taxpayer paid-for organisations cannot fail. They just bumble on, learning lessons, adding new boxes to tick, forming sub- committees, having full enquiries, doing a square dance of CEO exchange. Always needing more "funding".
It is hard not to believe that we are truly fucked.

Ed P said...

Thanks for the warning about the link - since I grew up and stopped being an ignorant socialist student, reading that paper, I avoid it like covid/the plague.

Marine Le Pen is now as popular as Micron, so we may expect many dirty tricks to keep her away from power.

Just as Caligula had Macro as his fixer (at least in I, Claudius, if not in reality), so the Davos shadowy people have Micron.

Sam Vega said...

It's always somehow uplifting to meet people who make things work. But did it always feel like that? Didn't it feel more ordinary and expected, a few decades ago? I suspect competence is now a minor marvel, a bit like perfect manners.

Scrobs. said...

Like Barry Obama's lot, nothing really interesting will ever happen while Biden is zimmering around. It won't change when Kamilla gets the job either, as they are just born swamp-dwellers, content on doing nothing to 'make things happen', just piddle around at the edges.

Luckily, I don't need to even listen to what's going on over there now, it's already dull, unimaginative, and like The Guardian, out of touch!

God, I love this incisive journalism and searing comment...

...not.

DiscoveredJoys said...

So true. I have argued before that Trump is a Child of Chaos, a Disruptor. He vowed to drain the Swamp but found too much resistance to achieve in a single Presidency (or more!). Trump was not a comfortable President - perhaps believing change rather than reassurance was his role.

The Swamp feared him and tried all sorts of tricks to bring him down, although I believe this was mostly instinctive rather than some grand conspiracy. And now the USA is going to suffer through a 'Revenge of the Bureaucrats' Presidency...

Nessimmersion said...

One of the reasons the swamp/ military/ industrial machine in the US hated Trump was the lack of churn / cash from new wars.
Drumpf didn’t start any new wars or waste billions killing loads of 2nd /3rd worlders, hence lack of business opportunities, hence he had to go.

A K Haart said...

Wiggia - that's the conclusion I've arrived at. So many vested interests grouped so tightly about the levers of power that it is bound to be a club.

Doonhamer - those taxpayer paid-for organisations are also too far from the taxpayers who no longer see what they are up to.

Ed - the Marine Le Pen versus Micron will be interesting. As you say we'll probably see dirty tricks to keep her away from power, although they must know that they have other resources even if she makes it.

Sam - good point and I'm sure you are right. I watch YouTube videos for that reason, although now we get to see the very best of course.

Scrobs - poor old Joe will probably just piddle around at the edges without even meaning to.

DJ - yes Trump may have seen himself as a change manager rather than a motivational manager. A huge job for him to have taken on.

Nessimmersion - that's one of the unknowns but it must have been significant and the coronavirus mess must have made it much more acute. It's almost a question of where Joe drops his first bombs.