THE FOXY TESTS

(Be brief.)

A. Essays.

1.Just because youre paranoid doesnt mean that no ones out to get you.
Discuss this axiom of wily old fox Dr. Henry Kissinger with reference to bond
commissions as a means to humiliating arrogant incumbents; Bond scams as par
for the course under a democracy keen on wider friendly participation in
kleptocracy than family; Bond charades as managed spectacles to keep the
citizens occupied with bread and circuses until the cows come home with
something to show for their efforts at governance.

B. Short Answers.

1. What makes you suspect that political conflict among parties of the present day
is a managed spectacle? (BTW: full marks for subscribing to my conspiracy
theory.)
2. How well do political leaders overseas use fear as the key to unlocking the
support of sympathetic electorates fearful of starvation on home streets or
nuclear war in their local neighbourhood? (HINT: first defuse the ticking time-
bomb under your car or chair.)

C. MCQ.

1. Who is the big bad wolf abroad we fear a lot these days?
a. Trump the old boar
b. Putin the old bear
c. May the foxy vixen
d. Merkel the merciless minx
e. Kim Jong-un the ill-wind-blown nuclear iguana

2. Who is the big bad wolf at home were more than frightful about on the way
forward?
a. MS the bore
b. MR the barefaced
c. RW the old fox
d. None of the above nucleus of the managed spectacle

3. Where will it end?

a. At the beginning of the usual dark nightmare
b. Before the dream of a new society fades
c. Caught between a rock and a hard place for our citizenry
d. Down in the doldrums for democracy

4. What is it that the powers that be do to frighten you most?

a. Huff
b. Puff
c. Blow the house down
d. Blow the House up with their damn grandstanding against a good thing

Is there a point to the text above and the test below it?
Perhaps, perhaps not! Maybe the point of the exercise is that we have lived too
long in the shadow of bogeymen conjured by canny politicos. Maybe its time to
move on to the vast sunlit uplands of the various hard-won liberties we hardly pay
heed to these days. Maybe its high time for the savvier segments of our polity to
mature and develop to have sophisticated responses to the managed spectacles
that sundry parties and their respective leaders have foisted on us.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself. We have nothing to lose but our shackles
and our craven dependence on shameless swindlers who have cheated us of our
sovereignty by perpetuating the old political culture under a new mask and look
like theyre gearing up to do it but once again.

(A senior journalist, the writer was once the Chief Sub Editor of The Sunday Leader,
1994-8, and is ex-LMD, having been its Editor, 2004-8. He has made a career out
of asking questions, and not waiting for answers.)