The Barmy Army - One term or two?

[richard5za]

In a cricket context, the Barmy Army is an organised group of cricket fans which organises touring parties of its members to follow the English cricket team on all of its overseas tours. They are a good natured and colourful addition to cricket matches and are welcomed everywhere. The word “barmy” means daft or ‘wrong in the head’, and living up to their name the group has a repetitive cry of "Barmy Army, Barmy Army, Barmy Army" which can last for a minute or so, and is quite often repeated during the day.

However, after January 21 it took me no time at all to nickname the Obama administration as the “Barmy Army”. Its not just that he is a voice rather than a brain, and that people seem to be mesmerised by his oratory, but you need to lose contact with reality to even quarter believe the large number of extravagant pre-election promises that he made. He actually seems to believe that he is going to set the world to rights! It gets worse: Without going into detail, there are a number of cogent reasons why the USA government finance Bubble is even more dangerous than the Wall Street/mortgage finance Bubble. And his health care proposals as originally conceptualised are economically very ill advised.

My prediction was that he would extensively fail America and that he would last one term only.

I seldom pay any attention to the highly conservative and vociferous minority Christian groups in America. I don’t doubt their sincerity but find myself at variance to some of their views. But I can’t help noticing that these minority groups seem to be becoming united in presenting Obama as the “anti-Christ”! I can understand someone like Adolf Hitler being cast in the mould of an anti-Christ, but this must surely be an historical first for an American president?

But if they are right, then I’ll be wrong – he will last more than one term.

[John]

Dear Richard,

You're expressing some very strong feelings about President Obama,
and I can't help but think that your feelings are related to the
turmoil going on in South Africa right now, as well as the many
similarities between Obama and Jacob Zuma. Any thoughts?

Sincerely,

John

[richard5za]

Dear John,

First of all thank you for your interest.

Yes, I do think that there are similarities between President Obama and Jacob Zuma; both are orators (a voice) as oppsed to a brain, both get things done.

However, Zuma was carefully chosen by the majority of the ruling party disillusioned with the lack of action during Mbeki's term, and I might add has the support of big black business, whereas President Obama got elected by making more extravagant promises than his rivals to a panicking America. Fear politics works; thats how the South African apartheid government had such a hold on power for so long.

South Africa doesn't need a brain at the helm; we need someone who will implement simple, sensible policies and get things done; in particular addressing the unacceptable levels of crime, and needs in health and education. Whatever you might think of Zuma's morality he is the guy to get things done. He recently appointed a new chief of police who apparantley is a real cowboy, and I can imagine that there might well be complaints above lack of criminals rights but I can also imagine that the job will get done.

Economically South Africa is heavily dependant upon the international economy. A popular expression for many years has been "if America gets a cold we get pneumonia".

The whole world needs America to have a brain, not a voice. America's decision making will make things worse or better depending upon how good the decisions are. And as you point out, he and his administration are not making good decisions at present. If you compare this to his pre-election promises one surely be forgiven nick-naming his adminstration the "Barmy Army".

And wait for the heat to bite, he is still largely fresh from the honeymoon stage. When you are in the swamp and the crocodiles are snapping at your rear end its very difficult to remember that you are there to drain it! When the heat comes on the quality of the decisions will get worse not better.

Things are not looking good.

Sincerely,
Richard

[John]

> First of all thank you for your interest.

If I haven't written about South Africa for a while, it hasn't been
for lack of interest, but for lack of time. I really wanted to do
something on the recent election, but it just couldn't make it to the
top of the priority list.

As it is, there are stories on Somalia, North Korea, the Mideast, the
Caucasus, and even the Ferghana Valley (in Central Asia) that are
screaming to be written, but I just can't get to them. Each article
takes me 5-10 hours, including research and writing, and with the
necessity to make a living and to survive, there isn't a lot of time.

Sooooooo, I'm hereby "leaking" the fact that I'm going to try
tweeting. If you go to

http://twitter.com/gendyn

then you can read my latest tweets. There's a perverse advantage to
twitter for me: Since each tweet is only 142 characters long, I can't
possibly spend more than a couple of minutes writing it.

Anyway, this is an experiment, and if I can keep it up then I'll make
a much broader announcement, and it should allow more frequent
commentary and analysis. If enough people sign up to become
followers, then I'll keep doing it.

Please check this out and let me know what you think. You can either
just go to the above web site every now and then, or you can sign up
to be a "follower," and receive notifications automatically by e-mail
or phone.

> However, Zuma was carefully chosen by the majority of the ruling
> party disillusioned with the lack of action during Mbeki's term,
> and I might add has the support of big black business, whereas
> President Obama got elected by making more extravagant promises
> than his rivals to a panicking America. Fear politics works; thats
> how the South African apartheid government had such a hold on
> power for so long.

I really see Obama and Zuma as a lot more similar than you suggest.
Zuma also made extravagant promises related to a South Africa that
was panicked following the widespread violence a year ago.

** South Africa will create 'temporary shelters' for migrants, not 'refugee camps'
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 31#e080531

Both America and South Africa are deep into generational Crisis eras,
and SA's violence problems are just as intractable as America's
financial problems. No politician can resolve either of these
problems, but both Zuma and Obama have made extravagant claims that
they can.

> The whole world needs America to have a brain, not a voice.
> America's decision making will make things worse or better
> depending upon how good the decisions are. And as you point out,
> he and his administration are not making good decisions at
> present. If you compare this to his pre-election promises one
> surely be forgiven nick-naming his adminstration the "Barmy
> Army".

The problem is that bad decisions are being made because there are no
good decisions. The decisions would be equally bad if McCain were
President, because there are no good decisions.

> And wait for the heat to bite, he is still largely fresh from the
> honeymoon stage.

Even more true of Zuma.

Sincerely,

John