In the story, play, movie, or even the DVD Video Game, “Hamlet,” the character Hamlet is angered because he fears his father’s brother, Claudius has murdered his father so he (Claudius) can marry his father’s wife, Hamlet’s mother, so he (Claudius) can take control of Denmark. Further confusing the nepotinistic story, Hamlet’s madness involves Claudius’ adviser Polonius and his daughter, ending in tragedy for everyone. Whew!! Why does this suspiciously sound like our Fayette County Government?
No matter the event or the situation, anytime we read the complete details of any news report on any branch of Fayette county government, the list of characters and their relationships reads like a tragedy (or bet yet, a comedy) that only the Bard himself could write. Each time I finish reading a story on the in-fighting and squabbling among our representatives, I am always shocked at how many city and county officials have connections and relationships that extend beyond their government affiliations. I fear that if I were to write all their names on a chalkboard and connect all the dots I would have fashioned an illustration more complex than the Genome.
You don’t have to go any further than the presidency to see an overly-familial situation, yet locally it’s hard to tell the difference between our sovereignties and an August family reunion in Alabama--they’re not just ‘kin, they’re really, really kin!!
The way you can tell our government is “really, really kin” is in the way they fight. You see, families fight better and meaner than any of us regular, working folk. When the rest of us have a problem with our boss or our company, we don’t pick up the phone and call the paper. We don’t drop our lawyer’s business card faster than they can kill a pig in the outback. Yet, our government bodies fight dirtier and in more embarrassing ways than your aunt Myrtle and your uncle Clyde ever did after Thanksgiving dinner.
The saddest side of our elected officials’ constant, continual, chronic in-fighting is their obvious contempt for the people; normal, real, sane, logical people. At least the king who wore no clothes didn’t realize he was naked. Our public officials in their public bickering, don’t seem to see any problem in parading around in their frillywhites week-in and week-out.
It wouldn’t take much stretch to fit some of Shakespeare’s titles onto our recent government scandals. Would the recent, sexual harassment case, be called “King Leer?” or was it “Romeo & Juliet?” Or, would the offended parties who saw the case get settled consider it, “Taming of the Shrew.” Anything surrounding Peachtree City Council meetings could be titled “The Tempest.” And pretty much all the rest could really be lumped under the title, “Much Ado about Nothing.”
In the end we can blame all this on the free press and the endless access that we have into our government agencies. But, that’s what makes us the greatest nation on earth, that is; we can blame all our problems on the freedoms we have been given.. I don’t seek to pour poison in the ears of anyone, just point out again the absurdity we accept as the norm. After all, someone put these elected officials into office. And like someone might say at an Alabama family reunion, “them is us.”