“No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.”
~ Thomas Sowell
As we begin the new year, to me at least, it appears that we are heading to a period of calm after the storm of a year of political turmoil in many parts of the world. We had Brexit, The USA’s Presidential elections, impeachment of the President of South Korea, Italian elections, etc, and in my own backyard, the high decibel politics due to the demonetisation.
While all these things and many more minor political shenanigans took place, what grabbed the maximum attention, naturally due to its global importance is the electioneering, the election and the result of the American President.
Over here in India, the political oneupmanship following the demonetisation continues unabated. Addding spice to the curry as it were are forth coming elections in some crucial states in India for the state legislatures. The cacophony is mind blowing and within my circle of friends, some rifts have taken place due to differing ideologies and loyalties. Politics and religion does that! I am grateful that the latter has not popped up as yet among us!
To conclude on a lighter note, India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls shortly and the dynasty that has been ruling there is facing a palace revolt as it were. Mulayam Singh Yadav is the patriarch and the Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is his son. The joke is that Mulayam is suffering from Akhilesh’s Heels.
Since I will be otherwise preoccupied tomorrow, I am publishing this this week’s Friday LBC post a day in advance. The topic has been chosen by Shackman. Other than him and me, Maria the gaelikaa and Pravin are likely to write on the same topic. Please do drop in at their blogs and see what they have to say about it.
any year has GOT to be better than last year was!
the monkey played bad jokes (and some say dangerous) all the way around.
enjoy your weekend dear rummy!
HA! what am i saying? we lovely retirees have weekends all week long. 😀
tammy j recently posted..moving on old bean
I think that you are right. I hope that it will be too.
I am not so sure it will be calm – there is simply too much hatred inn American politics. .It will indeed be interesting
I certainly hope that you are wrong but since writing the post and publishing it, other developments in your patch of green gives me the shivers!
I think the ‘fun’ is just beginning in American politics. We have a new crisis and a new tweet every day—hard to keep up!
Please see Shckman’s comment and my response. I hope that you are right.
I agree. We ain’t seen nothing yet!
Cheerful Monk recently posted..Great Quote
🙂
even down here – we had a upset in politics when our recent PM decided to resign and a new PM was elected from within it ranks…all sorts of stories of why, suspect we won’t ever really know.
then a number of by-elections have had to be held, with local MP resigning their positions, some quite high profile ones as well…
but on the hole, I try to remain consistent with myself and let all that stuff just float on by….
oops “whole” not “hole” maybe though it is down a rabbit hole…
🙂
Good policy. I do the same. I see too many fellows getting stressed up with politics not to learn lessons from.
My home state seems to intrigue you, Ramana. That’s great. You are definitely due to visit here, or should I say overdue to visit. It’s nice to know that down in Pune, people are watching our Uttar Pradesh affairs with interest. The family feud in the UP Yadavs grows more interesting hourly.
Maria recently posted..Politics – Too Big A Topic For A Mere Blog Post
UP is vital for India for one simple reason. It is the largest state and sends the maximum number of MPs to the parliament. The quality of those worthies can have serious impact on the welfare of the country as a whole. And what concerns me more is another factor that you might like to explore at leisure. Please draw a line along the longitude above and below Kanpur. The West of Kanpur is prosperous and doing well. The East of Kanpur does not and drags the entire country’s statistics down. If we take only the West, we are not a developing nation. There is enough with just that observation to generate some serious introspection.
Well, I think that we what we have lived through here and in the world is nothing compared to what is coming. The polarization is staggering. The movement of “me first!” seems to be sweeping across the globe – legitimized by the results of the election here. I am saddened by what I am reading while trying not to read or listen. Strange, right?
Mother recently posted..The Glory of Marching Toward…
Strange is an understatement Mother. I dare not use any other adjective but will restrict myself to saying that the least that will happen is that we senior citizens will find some very interesting developments taking place.