Of Broken Clocks, Bears, And Vicious Attack Dogs

Every now and then, life surprises you, big time.

For example, there is a guy known all over the planet for having an impressive ability to say something wrong, or stupid, or outright heretical every time he open his mouth, which is far too often.

Still, this guy has recently managed to say something that, in fact, makes perfect sense: if you go on poking the bear, don’t be surprised if the bear attacks you.

Broken clocks come to mind.

The particular bear our broken clock is talking about has been constantly poked for the last thirty years; but it was, at the beginning, a weak, fat, incapable, actually drunk bear, and it could not do much to prevent the poking.

In time, the bear got stronger, and more assured of his now growing ability to react to bullying, harassment, and encirclement. 2007 came, and the bear, for the first time, let the world know, from a wonderful city called Munich, that the time of the poking had now come to an end.

The warning was not heeded, because the bear was thought to have the attributes of a kitten. Soon later, in 2008, the bear roared, and the world should, at that point, have paid attention.

But the world – or, better said, those who have appointed themselves its Only True Anointed Representatives – did not listen, and kept poking. When, in 2014, the poking took the form of a shameless, open coup d’etat against the bear’s extremely strategic neighbour, the Bear reacted fairly strongly, sending an unmistakeable signal that, unless the poking goes to an end, someone will get seriously hurt. As a result, the Little Friends of the bear were systematically targeted. Fourteen thousand of them were killed in 8 years. The bear was very, very angry.

You would think, at this point, the Only True Anointed Representatives would listen. They did not. Instead, they started to train an attack dog to harass and intimidate the bear.

The attack dog was vicious, but quite dumb. He had grievances against the Bear, and it was whispered in his ear that, if he kept harassing the bear, the Only True Anointed Representatives would appoint him Very Important Dog, line his dog house with fine paper and, in general, allow him to eat classy dog food forever. Vicious Attack Dog also loved the Svastika, but this was conveniently ignored.

Being dumb, Vicious Attack Dog did not understand that it was being merely used by the Only True Appointed Representatives: if he kept the bear intimidated and silent, so much the better. If not, the expendable dog would be torn to pieces, hopefully after inflicting mortal or, at least, serious wounds to the Bear. This would only cost, to said OTAR, dog training and dog food. The massacring would be, instead, suffered by Vicious Attack Dog.

And this is, my dear friends, exactly how it went, with Vicious Attack Dog currently being literally torn to pieces, whilst the OTAR incite him to keep fighting until total annihilation and physical dismemberment.

This is, meanwhile, so evident, that even broken clocks manage to indicate it.