* NEW * POLITICAL OBSESSION CREATION OF MADNESS

 POLITICAL OBSESSION      CREATION OF MADNESS

 

Why does VENICE remind me of so much of present day  political culture?  All around the world Politics seems to be infected with a peculiar madness. In Australia, formerly conservative politicians - be it our Prime Minister or State Premiers - once models of economic and civil rights conservatism have become profligate spenders of money we do not have, and radical repressors of  civil rights. In the USA madness has been taken to new depths as the aged, demented and bumbling.President Biden, "elected" by dubious means proves himself incapable of answering a question, let alone saying anything coherent in response to spontaneous questioning, and Vice President Kamala Harris avoids answering questions hoping to glide by using her characteristic smirk and girlie giggle. The Prime Minister of the U.K. seems to have no idea of how to use a comb. The President of France seems to think it is enough to be outrageous in actions and words. The Chancellor of Germany seems happy no matter how fully she puts her country at the mercy of Mr.Putin's Russia, The leader "for life" of China, one Xi Jin ping, has become unhinged and threatens not only Hong Kong, but also Taiwan and, if that is not enough, he has put completely offside, the Phillipines, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, India, and even Kenya. We could go on.

Yes, but what about VENICE?

In the course of my current reading of "VENICE" by Peter Ackroyd 

I came upon this gem of institutionalised madness. Mind you, like much of today's political madness, it started out with good intentions. The Venetians had no hereditary rulers and did not want any.They wanted their Serenissima Republica to be firmly governed but, with no risk of any ruling family evolving. But they seem to have become victims of their own good intentions : Read on:

 

" But an insight can be gained into the labyrinthine Venetian mind by describing the process by which a doge was elected. On the morning of the election, the youngest member of the Signoria , one branch of the administration, fell on his knees to pray in the basilica (St. Mark's) ; then he went out into Saint Mark's Square and stopped the first boy he met. This child became the ballotino   who drew the nomination slips from the urn in the ducal palace. In the first ballot the great council chose thirty of its members. In a second vote, nine were chosen out of this original thirty. In turn, the nine chose forty, each of whom had to receive seven nominations . A new ballot would then reduce this forty to twelve, who voted for twenty who voted for nine, who voted for forty-five, who voted for eleven. These eleven then voted for forty one voters who would then elect the doge . No more cumbersome and intricate procedure could have been devised.Its only purpose was to eliminate individual chicanery and special interests, but it suggest an almost obsessive preoccupation with communal solidarity."  

I would have said madness.