Robert Frank Funeral, St. Helena, South Carolina 1955
Bit unusual, but why not. I was reading British press earlier, trying to figure out what the fcuk is going on in London two days before March 29, and in an article in the Guardian I saw this comment, and thought it should be saved for posterity.
Since the article is/was one of those live updates ones, which tend to get very long, and moreover at the point I read it it already had well over 11,000 other comments, posting it here seemed to be the way to go to achieve that.
It was posted by someone who named themselves Tintenfische (German for squid, octopus?!), and that’s all I know about this person(s), who imagines a speech someone should stand up and deliver in the house. I think it says exactly what needs to be said, what politicians should say, in Britain where civil unrest is much closer than anyone wants to see, in the US where very similar scenarios are playing out, and in many other countries.
The failure of party politics is everywhere to be seen.
Tintenfische: Speech I wish someone would have the courage to give.
As I stand in Parliament today I see the faces of friends and colleagues I’ve worked alongside, struggled alongside, triumphed and lost alongside. Good men and women all from both sides of the house.
We and the parties we represent have fought for our beliefs and battled for our constituents for centuries. We’ve done what we believed to be right, we’ve fought battles we believed should be fought and shown the people across the globe how democracy when at its best is the only route to freedom. In this place too I’m confronted with history. It was here that our predecessors decided to stand up to fascism, where we ended slavery and wrote into law that no man or woman, no matter their race, colour, who they fall in love with or who they pray to is less than any other of us. We declared as a house that injustice must be fought, that evil opposed and democracy triumphed.
Great things have been done in this place, great things by great men, great women and even greater parties. However my friends that legacy is now at an end.
We have failed.
We have failed and our failure has broken this house and the institution we love. We have failed and with that too comes the failure of party politics.
None of us can run from that reality, none of us can hide, deny or challenge that reality. We have through partisan means on both sides of this house broken government of this once united nation. I could list the decisions, the politics, the loyalties which delivered this rupture. I could name names, point out lies and tell of moments when through advantage, greed or idiocy we decided to do what was best for our parties rather than our country, what was best for us rather than our constituents. I could list all those many many occasions when we as servants of the people failed the people, but what would be the point?
The truth is none of us are innocent, none of us escape blame. We as the leaders of this country could have stopped a collapse but we all chose this place and control over it as being more important than those outside. We chose ourselves and our parties ahead of our people.
But what else could we do? We could have stood up, we could have protested, we could have denied our own leaders but to what end? We all believe that we and the parties we represent are best placed to do what is right for this country. We all think that the shared policies, morals and ethics of ourselves and our parties are the right way for a country to be run. If we didn’t believe we knew best we wouldnt be here. But there’s the problem, circumstance has shown this not to be the case. Now we stand atop of a divided, fractured nation one which may never be able to be reformed and that has happened because of us. It is our fault. By following those certainties of righteousness and rightness both of ourselves and of our parties we have precipitated this collapse. We are now the problem.
So what’s to be done? We could just carry on, we could just continue down this same path which every day makes this country more divided, more ungovernable, more leaderless. We certainly could do that and looking around this room it’s easy to see so many of us already resigned to the path of destruction. Resigned to a rapid decline because we’re all too Cowed too timid to say no.
But we could also say no. We could as one house say to the country “I’m sorry but no. We can’t make these decisions, we’re not good enough. We can’t do anything but fail you or your future from here on in”. The people elected us to represent them it is true but we’re no longer capable of that, our parties are no longer capable of that. It is no longer in the national interest that we continue to represent the people when we can’t even govern ourselves.
We need to change ladies and gentlemen, we need to be better. We need to be greater than the sum of our parts. Each and everyone of us needs to decide who and what we our, who we represent. We need to turn away from the saftey and comradeship of party loyalty and act and vote on what we believe to be right, what we believe to be in the best interests of our nation, not what our leaders tell us is best because if we’ve failed then our leaders are double damned by their double failure.
What I’m asking is extreme, I’m asking you my fellow members to destroy the parties you all represent. I’m asking you for the sake of the nation to walk away from rosette loyalty and remember your oaths. I’m asking you to do the right thing.
We are no longer able to govern, we cannot lead and we cannot decide. We must return the question of our place in the world back to the people and once that’s done we must dissolve this house and our parties and a new slate be mined because right now not one of us is fit to stand in this place and claim leadership of this disunited kingdom.