If the government takes $1.00 from us and gives back $.40, why are we supposed to be grateful?
from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:
Education Explained by the Metaphor of Dead Horse Racing
If the government finds that it has a dead horse on its hands, a horse for which it paid, naturally, much more than the horse was worth, even when alive, it will relentlessly present at least one of the following. Spin doctors worth their salt will pound away at all of them. Watch for them in your local and national media. Remember, German propaganda guaranteed the Red Army would be “hurled back from the gates of Berlin.” in April 1945, just before capitulation. Beware the dead horse pronouncements from “official sources”, but be sure to enjoy the humor, otherwise, you might start worrying about the value your tax dollars bring. Government pronouncements are based on fond hope, sincere desire and rhetoric. Do not confuse any of these proclamations with truth. Their purpose is spin.
The horse will soon arise from its rationally planned torpor and show itself to be the champion we always knew it to be. The only thing required is more money for those costly, special oats our experts find so necessary for dead horse nutrition.
This dead horse is much cheaper than other dead horses which don’t run nearly as fast.
The horse will race just fine if we get a stronger, bigger, and more expensive whip.
We provide employment for many people.
The horse is only sleeping.
There are rumors that some horses are not quite dead, showing a nostril flare or a tail twitch. We must go and study these extraordinary horses. We can only study these horses in warm places in winter and cool places in summer.
We will show our initiative and creativity by organizing a conference to study dead horses. Sessions at these conferences will have titles such as, “Blended funding for dead horse maintenance.”, “Relevant factors in dead horse racing.”, “The dead horse in historical context.”, “Social Justice and the dead horse.”, “Optical conditions fostering the illusion of aliveness in the presence of deadness.” , “Social constructivism in horse racing.”, “How to make it appear the horse is winning.” and so on. There will be considerable admiration for the dead horse minders and self-congratulatory oratory will flow.
A commission must be empanelled and “experts” paid exorbitant fees. This commission will miss several deadlines (the longer they sit, the greater their fees–can you say Law of Contingencies). Their recommendations will be such things as, “Change the color of the bridle.”, “Empower the rider.”, “Stable the horse in a nicer barn.”
The horse needs better shoes.
Not enough people are betting on this horse, so we must make betting on it compulsory.
This is our horse, so, it is the best horse.
The horse is not dead.
The horse needs a lot of money to keep it running at this “world-class” pace.
This is the only horse we have and the only horse we can ever have.
The horse will be fine with a new rider.
Even talking about getting a new horse will fatally undermine our democratic principles and cause chaos which can only be imagined. Considerable attention will be paid to “champion horse deniers.” with dark hints about their lack of sanity, sincerity, patriotism and intelligence.
The horse will be made more responsible by having higher standards for the speed of dead horses.
We must pay specialists and consultants large amounts of money to groom the dead horse.
The union must be consulted and agree to every step. This will require more money for the unionized workers, catered negotiation sessions and an intricate set of rules set up which will require frequent and costly grievance procedures.
We need to study other dead horses.
The live horses ahead of our horse must be penalized for running faster. We will take money from the purses they win and give it to the connections of the dead horse because competition is an archaic and hurtful model for horse racing, totally out of step with postmodern thought.
All the horses in the race are dead so we race just as fast as they.
The fact that the horse is dead is the fault of everyone except the horse, the trainer and the jockey.
If we ride this horse better, it will win.
We will create a team of dead horses which will race much faster than this dead horse alone.
We must find the lowest-paid employee associated with this dead horse and fire him.
We define the speed of the dead horse as the planned and required speed. As they say in computer-land, “This is not a bug, it’s a feature.”
Faster horses are obviously cheating.
This is a “world class” dead horse.
The complex nature of horses precludes any determination of “real” racing speed, so our horse is, in spite of appearances, really going faster than any other horse.
Follow the golden sequence for dead horses. First, deny that the horse is dead. Second, explain that the death of the horse is someone else’s fault. Third, explain the good reasons you had for murdering the horse. Fourth, promise never to kill another horse. Fifth, kill another horse. Deny that the horse is dead…..
Cheers and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
October 28, 2009 at 11:42 am |
[...] mention is that this horse was immediately steered into a wall, which brings us to the metaphor of Dead Horse Racing, presented [...]