How the sauce changes taste when the goose becomes the gander.
Two recent examples:

First Example
Government, wanting to put us under surveillance (IDs, email, cameras, &c.), says to trust, completely, for the next 50, 100, however many years the law will apply (A legal rule from 1863 caused problems this April.) that "You don't have to worry if you don't have anything to hide". We must trust, completely, that no-one involved will ever make a mistake or harbour a grudge; that in 20 years if you are now a member of a union or religious group or subscribe to the RSPCA or Wilderness Society it won't become suspicious (like belonging to some writers' groups in 1933 did in McCarthyite USA, 1953, or being a union official, mentally ill or Gypsy in Nazi Europe, 1943).

This changes when we're discussing, say, the International Criminal Court. Suddenly there's worries about people harbouring grudges, corruption in the system, or what will have changed 10 or more years from now.

Second Example
Business, when it wants employees to give up home, health, family, social duties, &c., put work above everything else; move from place to place; accept very long, unreliable & short-notice working hours, give up long-fought-for conditions & go back to 19th-century master & servant-style rules, chants: "Flexibility".

When there is some difficulty with supply, prices, taxes, competition, &c, however, the cry is: "Certainty".

Even the Herald never put stories about Swiss border guards turning back fleeing Jews (e.g. Sabine Sonabend, Joseph Spring) in WW II next to discussion of current refugee problems. [see www.jewishsf.com/bk971107/ivictim.htm &
www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/lawrpt/stories/s96863.htm])

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 10/21/2002 05:14:00 am