Light Enables

It took fifty years, but the UK has finally brought the bad business of tainted blood to light.  (See link from The Guardian)  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/20/fatal-shredded-evidence-contaminated-blood-scandal-justice-report?utm_term=664c1c42a541517295c91fbfc145da6d&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

"It would be totally shocking if we hadn’t been here before. But appallingly, it’s not uncommon. Mistakes are made, bad and careless decisions are taken, and those in authority who are involved will not fess up. That’s not just immoral in itself. The consequence is vastly more suffering for those who have been wronged and their families.” (Quote from Ms. Boseley's piece on tainted blood. )

There is another example of terrible harm done to innocent people, this time in the business of the UK’s postal service.  The postal service seemed to function just fine, perhaps a little less efficiently than some would have liked.   Thus a major change was made with the integration of information technology into its operations.  Suddenly hundreds of subpostmasters and subpostmistresses were seen to be criminals, duly charged, sentenced, sent to prison, lives ruined, families broken.  What one obvious variable in the operation of the Post Office had lately changed?  Amazingly, it took a major inquiry driven by a large class action lawsuit and eventual judgements therefrom to discover it was - wait for it - a problem with the integration of information technology!  There were no criminal subostmasters or subpostmistresses at all!  (See link from The Guardian)  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/19/paula-vennells-post-office-scandal-ordained-priest-horizon-it-inquiry  

This was another sorry example of governance without justice, in fact, perhaps with deliberate injustice, attacks on Post Office employees where the actual malefactor was Fujitsu, the international information technology firm.  The scapegoats meant there was no effective direction and oversight of this huge disruptive process.  That meant the integration project leadership teams were not held accountable.  What’s happened to Fujitsu?   Not a lot by comparison as they have managed to lock themselves into the position of continuing contractor because of the enormous complexity of the job, the details of which they have spent years learning.  

This is the sort of governance we like to sneer at when it arises in autocracies.  How does this differ from their examples?  These sorts of terrible cases must motivate us to examine how we have organised, structured our democratic governance to be both controlled by and in service to each of us as citizens.  This seems very much an outcome of an organisational culture that is still a carryover from feudal times.  So it seems ever more certain  that  the culture change we need must begin at the very origins of our models of government, adding in pieces that were omitted at the foundation of our institutions of government.  

We must remember that we, each and all of us, matter.  Our democratic government institutions, including government itself, must serve us, is accountable to us.  That accountability is only effective when all parts of the decision-making processes, resulting program design and delivery are made transparent.  Then we might fruitfully incorporate our judgement and knowledge into the collaborative effort required for effective government.

Michael Klein  May 21, 2024

Aarrgh! The Light!

Chanced upon a gent watching a Vampire show on television.  Turns out it was Van Helsing.

The particular scene was one where there is a desperate fight with swords, daggers, metal bars, a lot of lethal weapons, all handled with blinding speed a la Kung Fu.  It seems one set of fighters were vampires and another set were not vampires.  The situation is steadily worsening for the not vampires.  Then one of the not vampires remembers some advice she received a long time ago, that light is the answer.  She spies what might be her chance in this long, dark, vaulted stone edifice, a rope tied to a metal fixture on the wall.  She dove to the rope with her keen-edged sword, cutting the rope.  The wooden shutters at the end of the room fall to the floor, flooding the edifice with strong sunlight.  The vampires collapse in small piles of dust.

This was just after reading reports of advice given to wannabe political leaders seeking election to direct and operate the government in accordance with their political philosophy.  That advice was to not tell people what their manifesto is, what their political goals are, what their means of achieving those goals might be.  They were to wait until after they were elected before exposing their purpose to the electorate.  They were to ensure the electorate opted for them while working as entirely as possible in the dark.  In the meantime, they were to disparage, smear, demean their political opponents with every means possible.  Never worry about the accuracy of the smears as indictments of evil intent and malfeasance.

In other words, try to make it impossible for the electorate to tell the vampires from the not vampires.  

So it seems where some would drive our politics to, blood sucking, living human flesh eating vampires.  

Democracy?  Not by my definition.

M G Klein May 18, 2024