Manifesto, you must be joking!

Manifesto

There are a few words in the English language that have become hateful to me. Manifesto is one of them. It is political of course and represents to me the promises of change and encouragement to the people that something good is going to happen if their support is forthcoming, when in fact for the most part overt good intentions were but a mask for corruption, cruelty, oppression and unbelievable privation.

Whenever a politician with a smile on his or her face waves a piece of paper in front of a crowd of onlookers or in these days a media scrum, I cringe. How can we all be fooled yet once again that a pig with its nose in the trough is actually going to do anything for us? Get real, in politics it is sometimes the best option to listen to the mild mannered orator who promises very little indeed! Politicians play on our fear, greed and hope for the impossible.

Even if we take the “O” off the end of the word Manifesto and get the word Manifest we have another word with darker undertones. It seems to be rarely used except to inform of a disaster and that a ship’s or plane’s manifest has to be checked to see who may be lost or missing in a disaster.

Laini and Megg, what a prompt to inflict on us in this season of joy and thanksgiving!