I‘m not going to even pretend to know anything about Icelandic politics. My scant knowledge of the island nation only comes from a brother-in-law with Icelandic roots, a tube of lotion from a famous spa I received as a Christmas gift from my sister, some dish of rotting shark served there, and Bjork.
Of course most everyone with a pulse knows Iceland experienced some of the most devastating effects of the global financial collapse. Foreign banks stopped accepting their currency. The government took over the banks and shut down the stock market. Their coalition government collapsed.
Emerging from the volcanic ash and rubble of the financial system is a political lesson for anyone facing reelection in a post-modern, post-financial collapse democracy. Stephen Colbert, dust off your campaign speech.
The new mayor of Reykajvik, Iceland is a comedian and actor who ran a campaign demanding among other things palm trees for their waterfront and free towels at public pools, a new transparency in government. Jon Gnarr and a growing number of Icelanders are disgusted with the cozy relationship government officials and bankers maintain after the devastation wrought by the financial meltdown and the ensuing recovery which will inevitably be funded by the citizens of Iceland.
Gnarr surprised everyone with his success. Maintaining a serious campaign with his tongue firmly placed in his cheek throughout, Gnarr and his fellow “Best Party” candidates have provided an option for Iceland: stick with the same old parties and the same old corruption and special interests or take a chance on an outsider.
We can sense the same disgust in the U.S. electorate. We can stick with the same shifty characters whose spots change with the funders of their campaigns. We can choose between two parties whose interests continue to be big business, big banks, and big government. We can choose between “crazed sex poodles” or “Friday Night Specials” or even Argentinian love trysts.
Americans need to demand the dawning of a new day in politics. We could use a new party. A new type of candidate. Someone who will speak the truth, call a spade a spade, call out the cheats and liars, and go their own way. They need dry wit and an ability to speak calmly and clearly, a sense of urgency, self-motivation, and initiative. Some idea what it is like to wake up every day worrying about making your mortgage payment, affording the monthly grocery bill, and how to pay for a child’s broken arm with a $3,000 insurance deductible, may not hurt either.
Honor and trust would be nice, but at this point can you think of anyone admirable or trustworthy in higher political office? Do we even really expect our elected officials to tell the truth?
I admire those hardy Icelanders. I respect these folks who want to take government out of the hands of the self-interested, aggrandizing, disingenuous, cheats currently running the show even if they do choose a guy who pets rocks, promises a polar bear for the petting zoo, and says ridiculous things like, “I’m only joking, and I have arisen from the ashes like the bird, Felix.”
We need a “Felix” to arise from the ashes of our political system. Politics aside, it is fun to wonder what it would be like to have Bill Geist for a President.
