CleverWitch politics and greed

A feary tale is like a fairy tale, only scary and all too real. One of life‘s greatest challenges is to stand up and speak out. This is a start, share it if you like… we must hold our political systems and leaders accountable for their dissembling, egotism, fudging and wastefulness. And so to our tale…

The Broken Land

Once upon a time, there was a land surrounded by sea. As you’d expect, like all good realms, the people trusted the Powerful to look after their interests, educate their children, help them stay healthy and keep them safe from dangerous predators. Then things changed.

“…there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.” Margaret Thatcher

One day, CleverWitch of the Notha was elected queen of the Aristocrats, Landowners and Merchants Guild. People weren’t important to her. She considered society unimportant. She loved gold and power above all. With a flourish, she waved her wand, cast a greedy spell and made people think they’d be rich.

Entranced, many of the citizens followed her. For a while, things seemed to get better and better. She fought against any traditional ways of doing things that she considered wasteful; sometimes she was right… but not always. Still, she thought she was always right anyway, and nobody contradicted her. Encouraged by always being right, Clever Witch created a new magical aristocracy, the Notha.

The imp, BoJo, worshipped her, believing greed is good. He wanted wealth and status. In fact, like many of his kind, he believed the Notha didn’t need to do common work like ordinary people, and each of them could easily become a Spurius; look lovable and caring while damaging everything and blaming others.

The CleverWitch and the Notha could make up rules for anything, like how things worked, why they should take money… even if they didn’t know.

The imp, BoJo,  made a bold bid for the mantle of the Clever Witch by declaring that inequality is essential to fostering “the spirit of envy” and hailed greed as a “valuable spur to economic activity“. The Guardian November, 2013

Fruits of Evil

The Notha enjoyed the fruits of their mendacity. Yet there was only one real difference between them and the people: the Notha managed to create mountains of real gold for themselves, and the people didn’t, in spite of the CleverWitch’s promises. CleverWitch and the Notha convinced citizens that suppressing the UnderPeople was a good thing. It’s always best to have an enemy, especially a weak one. She also encouraged hatred between people as a way to keep pressure off her people and avoid reality … most of the time.

The Notha and the Spurii hired the worm-like WordSpinners, who hid the truth and manufactured exciting lies that the people believed were true. Through CleverWitch’s enchantment, the people thought they were getting gold, too. Under the spell of the WordSpinners, they trusted that their wealth was real. Thus, the people spent lots of gold that didn’t exist… but which they’d have to pay back one day. So, although the people felt good, they lived in a land that was slowly being stolen from under their noses.

The UnderPeople believed they worked hard to look after the country: its castles, roads, hospitals and many useful dirty jobs like digging coal. Their guilds were fairly combative, but they couldn’t withstand CleverWitch and her familiars.

A Twist from the WordSpinners

“Unlike some politicians, I can admit to a mistake.” Nelson Mandela

As instructed, the WordSpinners enforced the idea that the UnderPeople were troublesome and always needed to be put in their place. Many changes took place in the land. The Notha pretended to make improvements but actually made more gold for themselves, leaving empty coffers for the people to keep filling … for many generations to come.

If people complained or argued, they would be destroyed by WordSpinners, and the Notha would throw them out or, if that didn’t work, give them real gold to go away. Many people came to realise that the leadership of the Notha was not nearly as good as it sounded. They came to see that the Notha were all talk and hot air. Except for a few, the Notha didn’t care.

Grey-Gnome fights Powerful-Wizard

After many years CleverWitch lost her power and the GreyGnome took her place. GreyGnome was very much like CleverWitch until he, a nondescript Spurius, lost power to PowerfulWizard and his clever familiar. PowerfulWizard seemed good. He had a lovely smile and promised to make the people happy and treat them well. His golden words convinced most of the people until they at last discovered he was a Spurius in disguise and every bit as wicked as  CleverWitch.

One day, PowerfulWizard fought a battle with AwesomeScotus, Scrotum of the North, who defeated him. Are you surprised that the story repeated itself? Of course, by then, people had forgotten what proper leadership was like, how to do things and why the UnderPeople had lost their way.

More than half the leaders and magical aristocracy were Notha anyway. It’s hardly surprising that every single Spurius believed that if they thrashed and bullied the UnderPeople, things would get better. To make sure, they put guilds of Notha in charge of keeping the UP’s in line.

Disenchantment Breaks the Spell

As time passed, more and more people became free of the spell of the Notha and WordSpinners. The land became full of unhappy and disillusioned people. Most realised things weren’t right. Almost all the gold was gone. The Notha who had been around when CleverWitch arrived were all gone. The new leaders were not all Notha (although most were) and had no experience of the real world because they had never known it.

What misery there was when the Notha clung to power, getting gold by fair means or foul. One day, the gold vanished, to where no one knows (some say to PanaMania), whatever, the coffers were empty. The Notha and their WordSpinners tried hard to convince the people they knew what to do, but they didn’t (and still don’t).

The skills and knowledge to fix things were almost lost. But even if found, the Notha would never allow the righting of great wrongs, protection of the Land or strengthening of the UnderPeople. Powerful UnderPeople would mean the Notha and Spurius couldn’t do whatever they liked.

The biggest sadness of all was that the Notha did not understand how evil they were. Like many PowerfulPeople, they thought they were good and the only folk with the right answers; even though they had shown time after time they didn’t have many, if any, good spells.

Old Ones

Things grew so terribly bleak and dark that many people cried out in pain and anger. One day, the demon Brexit nearly broke the land. Some even blamed the OldOnes, the YoungOnes, the Northern folk, Druids and many different factions for the evil.

Across the land, something crackled with energy and focus. It was all the people breaking free of the spell. The OldOnes, who could vaguely remember the spells and right action, found the YoungOnes, and all the others did know what to do. One day, they will stand, their eyes shining with true power (which has always been theirs). With a very loud voice, they will confront the Notha and make them do right and not let them duck anything for a long, long time… please God!

Mac Logan
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related posts Stay or Go, creed of greed, short-term culture long-term problems, If the Panama Hat fits, Flogging the Jewels,

first posted August 2015