BUREAUCRACY

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With Thursday Thirteen items of news and views
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POLLY TICKS

I’m disgusted with the ‘efficiency’ of most modern bureaucracies. The
more efficient and centralized they are, the more they fail to deliver
to the local. Administration should be geared to back up the frontline,
not dictate to them. Efficiency is actually about making a system run
smoothly, which usually means it isn’t people-centred.

The inevitable result is a
disenfranchised population.

Efficiency is also about running to its optimum, most cost effective
way. Nowadays this makes it machine-like and doesn’t cater for the
unexpected. This is why systems so easily overload today. The
‘efficient’ is actually inefficient. One major problem here is that a
bureaucracy caters for an ideology alone. It may not seem to be the
case, but a totalitarian system is not total, and never has been. If it
was, a totalitarian system could not operate at all. As long as you
don’t question the ideology, dictators usually leave you alone. Today’s
bureaucracies are edging towards totalitarianism as they are geared
purely for globalised consumerism. Think different and you are so
easily marginalized. Such totalitarianism will always appear when the
bureaucracy is geared to a single system, for whilst such a system
needs a fanatical centre, it grows and survives because of the little
people in bureaucracies. They naturally slide into propping up the
system. This is why a totalitarian system can take over a country so
easily. And if you think it isn’t happening today, just note the speed
and totality of the political correctness brigade, trashing everything
traditional, just as globalised consumerism requires. A true bureaucracy
should always be as small as possible, non-ideological, and there to
serve the people through a myriad of organizations of every type. But
instead, today’s bureaucracies have perfected subtle totalitarianism
with the onward march of little dictators in jack-slippers.

Eye On the World
Essays on everything from science
to religion, politics to crime

BRIT NEWS: All-you-can-drink
bar offers could be banned to stop
binge drinking. Better idea than rise in price.
This hits sensible drinkers.

BRIT NEWS: The massive takeover bid of Cadbury by
Kraft is more evidence that we don’t live in a capitalist
economy, but a new imperialism.

WORLD NEWS: I see the Democrats have had a shock with a
Republican win in Massachusetts. Interesting to see if this is a protest
or trend.

BRIT NEWS: Governor of Bank of England says economy needs ‘long
period of healing’. Polite way of saying the economy is in terminal
decline.

BRIT NEWS: Labour seems to be focusing on class for the
coming election. Strange how it was dumped so easily
during their days in power.

MONEY NEWS: So moves are afoot to limit the size
of banks. The problem isn’t govt regulation or
not, but moral regulation – from inside.

BRIT NEWS: Police to get spy drones? I’ve no
problem with targeted spying, but general
spying’s a move towards unfreedom,
no matter how useful.

RATTLER’S TALE

A Voyage of the Imagination

One Single Impression
ReadWritePoem – Friday Flash 55
Three Word Wednesday
Sunday Scribblings

BLOWING THE CURVE

Life’s a graph, curves up or down,
Got a choice – smile or frown,
Feed from experience and much, much more,
Those damn curves you can’t ignore,
Especially when they’re reflected – groan,
Mirror shows diet really blown

CULTURE CATCHER

Fiction: Life won’t leave me alone. It creeps up on me, always. I think
I’m doing fine – escaping – then suddenly, slam! It’s there, in my face
– in my mind. And then it rebounds inside my head – swirling.
Connecting … I became a recluse, but that didn’t work. Stop the
impulses, I thought – get away from life. But then I thought about
what I’d done, what others had done. I tried meditation – empty the
mind. But afterwards it began again. I began reading books –
watching films – to distract myself, but they fanned responses and
that swirling began again – inside – and I had even more ideas. They
just won’t stop! Such is the lot of the Story Man.

THE CHAIR

No decisions from the chair,
No matter how long I stare,
It’s not so difficult to work it out,
The committee should have clout,
But it really has no power at all,
Minutes meagre, hardly recall,
Almost as if the Chair’s half there,
Nothing but spin – how long I stare

FLASH 55 – GOING MAD

Fiction: It was frustrating. Her husband just wasn’t what she’d hoped
for. She’d tried to drive him mental to get rid of him – to an
‘institution’, or even suicide – but it didn’t work! Infact, pretty soon
He was driving HER mental. She couldn’t understand it. As for him, his
wife just wasn’t what he’d hoped for …

LONG GONE FRIENDS

Afterlife in my head,
Memories of loved ones long ago dead,
No longer grieve, we have to move on,
But always listen to their song,
Kindred spirits, so very true,
Beacons of wisdom to guide you through

MILESTONE

Walked the road mile upon mile,
Occasionally I rest a while,
Reach a milestone, take a rest,
Think about past things that were the best,
Then I realise I’ve reached a goal,
But still I cannot feel totally whole,
Life’s not done – no time to talk,
Spy the next milestone, begin to walk

BIG BIZ: Most shareholders in firms
now are pension & mortgage funds – in
other words us. Do we get a say? No, Big Biz
does as it likes.

TV WATCH: I watched the UK National TV Awards. I
used to like them but now they’re in the massive 02 Arena
with screaming crowd. Draining.

NATO FOOLS: Nato believes new Taliban tactics could mean violence
can be halted. Afghanistan has never been tamed and never will. Get
real.

TV WATCH: BBC to ‘refresh’ drama output. Rumour is Spooks is
going. No mention of Doctor Who, though. They wouldn’t
dare. Would they?

A THOUGHT: We all want an easier life, but the
reality is, if like got easier we’d just get
bored. And that can be tiring in itself.

LAST WORD: A bureaucracy should
exist to serve, not rule. When
the balance shifts, watch
out, your freedom is
about to disappear.

© Anthony North, January 2010

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