My song today is ‘That’ll Be the Day’. This song was written by Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison. It was first recorded by ‘Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes’ in 1956 and was re-recorded in 1957 by ‘Buddy Holly and the Crickets’ (his new band). The 1957 recording was certified ‘gold’ (for over a million US sales) by the ‘Recording Industry Association of America’ (RIAA) in 1969. It was inducted into the ‘Grammy Hall of Fame’ in 1998. It was placed in the ‘National Recording Registry’, a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States", in 2005. Many other versions have been recorded.
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‘That will be the day’ is merely another way of saying, “Go on! Pull the other leg because I don’t believe a word that you’re saying!” People have always been prone to believe what they want to believe and disregard any views as being untrue when it is something they do not want to hear. It would be much easier to understand if the ‘gullible people in this world’ came solely from the ranks of the uneducated, and the unintelligent, but sadly that is not the case. As numerous events of the past have proved, there will always be an ear for the ‘conspiracy theorists’ of the day. There will always be people of such radical thought and opinion that were 1000 of the world’s brainiest scientists and best-informed academics to shout the same truth from the top of the Empire State Building to a crowd below, there will always be some in that crowd who are more prepared to receive a lie being placed in their ear providing it resonates with their already preconceived belief than to be told a fact which contradicts and opposes their preconception.
If there is one thing that this past year has taught me, whether one looks across the Atlantic Ocean at the political ‘goings-on’ in the United States of America, or across the Channel at the countries of Europe, or even within our own small island of England, Scotland, and Wales, is that there is nothing as dangerous to maintaining the freedom and democracy of the individual than governing bodies getting drunk on power the more of it they seize from their electorate. There is such a concept as being in power and exercising power over others for power’s sake!
During the past year, the western world has witnessed different interest groups generally seeking to increase their power base. We have seen the confrontation between the Republican and the Democratic parties in the U.S.A. dividing opinion down the middle and refused to agree upon the American election results, even to the point of insurrection and an uneasy transfer of power from the past President of the U.S.A. to the new President. We have observed the European and British Brexit negotiators trying to secure a Trade Deal while each side blames the other side for intransigence, taking things to the wire before arriving at an uneasy agreement. We have witnessed the ongoing disagreement between the British Government and the SNP (Scottish ruling party) about Scottish Independence, reflecting the desire to revoke ‘The Acts of Union’ of 1706 and 1707 between the English and Scottish Parliaments which turned the independent Kingdoms of England and the Kingdom of Scotland into one United Kingdom known as Great Britain, governed by the same monarch, thereby becoming independent once more. Finally, the world has witnessed a pandemic virus called Covid-19, and how each country has dealt with this threat to its economy and its people's health has created a polarisation of views. In response, every government across the globe has seized to itself greater powers, and has imposed restrictions and severe limitations upon the freedoms of it people, sometimes to the point of suspension of all freedom!
During this most trying of years across the western world, America, Europe, England, Scotland, or the British Government have not emerged with much dignity. Each of these power blocks has sought to exert their influence, fairly or otherwise upon the less powerful whom they govern. At the end of the day, it has been the individual citizen who has been kept ignorant of the facts which the more informed and powerful parts of our ‘democratic processes’ have decided not to tell us. It has been the man and women in the street who has and will continue paying the ultimate price for this gross mismanagement of all leading players on the world stage.
It is the person of ill-health who has been unable to access our hospitals for vital non-Covid-19 treatment who will pay the cost by their unattended pain, and with their lives! It is the self-employed person who will pay the price of business collapse and bankruptcy! It is the employed man and woman who will lose their gainful employment and the homeowners who will face repossession. It is the people with insufficient income who experience mounting debt who will sink farther down the food chain, while the hungry become hungrier, the homeless become colder and more deprived during winter months, and those lonely people with mental health issues will become more desperate in their depression and may despair so much that they decide to end the life that has been taken from them anyway!
These endless months of opposing consequence will adversely affect every one of us in different measure. Those in the richest bracket who started off their year wealthy will have automatically increased their wealth with each passing month of the country’s economic decline. It is this inhumane side of a capitalist economic system that I have always found most difficult to go along with, and yet I know that communism offers no better economic means of humane management and essential provision. It is as though the individual has only two choices by either selecting to be part of the ‘Capital and Conservative’ or ‘Socialist and Communist’ political and economic systems. In many ways, it is Hobson’s choice we are being given! We can be elect to be ‘unequally happier’ within a capitalistic society or more ‘equally miserable’ within a socialist society. All that we need to decide is whether ‘individual freedom’ trumps ‘collective responsibility’ or vice versa, as having both appear incompatible?
Whichever political system civilization subscribes to now or in the future, of one thing I am certain; there will be a pyramid power base. There will always be some citizens who are more or less well off than others, and more or less equal in their access to those aspects of one’s existence that makes life more satisfying, happier, and enriched. Such is the nature of mankind who has inexorably grown throughout the centuries to value individual distinction in all matters over that of personal uniformity. It is as though there is a sadistic nature to mankind which makes reward for some possible only at the expense of others being punished! It is as though mankind needs to be able to witness others being less well off than themselves, to feel better in themselves. It is as if I can only be rich if my immediate neighbour is poor, and I can only make myself richer by making my neighbours (both near and far) poorer in the process
And thirty years from now, although I will not be around to say, “I told you so!” America will still be competing with China and Russia as to who has the biggest and best to boast about, Europe (however large it grows in the number of countries which joins its political and economic block as member states) will still be run by the more influential French and Germans, who have done so for centuries past. I will also predict that the British Government will still be refusing to grant Scotland its Independence and that Boris will be replaced by Rishi Sunak as the Leader of the Conservatives and our future Prime Minister after Great Britain has been fully vaccinated.
As for the power which Prime Minister Boris and the British Government took from the British citizen, during the Covid-19 crisis, and all our freedoms which were restricted, they will all be ribbon wrapped and graciously handed back to the citizen. No way, Buster! That’ll be the day!
The Government of the day (whichever governing party that may be) will not willingly surrender back to you (the electorate) the freedoms which were seized from you during the Covid-19 crisis. The British citizen will be told that though the British Government intended to give you back all the power and freedom it took from you during the Covid-19 pandemic period, and which you have enjoyed ever since Oliver Cromwell beheaded Charles 1 in 1649, that was before the variants Covid-20, Covid-21, Covid-22…… Covid-164 came along out of the blue?
Love and peace.
Bill xxx