A Fable: It Is a Tragedy To Have a Boss Like This

To have a boss who makes decisions mainly based on how much sleep he got the night before or on what has just popped into his mind, is a tragedy for people who work for such a person. It is even worse when that boss does not make decisions that favor the company’s interests, but rather only his own needs or those of his family, interests that don’t always coincide with the interests of others and the companies they run. And at the same time, you, the employees or subordinates, have nowhere to run, even when the company is constantly walking a razor’s edge and one can easily be laid off. That boss, to wit, controls other businesses or their suppliers, and anyone who opposes him faces having nothing to feed their children, something the boss can arrange with a wave of his hand. Vengeance is swift.

An unseemly tale for children? Not at all, just reality, slightly modified. Other than the modifications, it’s all true. The name of the boss is Donald Trump, and the subordinates are those countries that voluntarily joined NATO – or are somehow otherwise connected to it. Was that admission to NATO voluntary? Did we vote on entering the alliance or not? No. The powers-that-be decided for those of us who live in Podhradí* (towns “below the castle” in Czech) and in Podstrakovčí, named for the Straka Academy, the seat of the government.

Am I exaggerating? Not at all. Care for an example of treachery and haughtiness? Just look at the latest actions of the “boss.” Imagine, for example, that, probably just for fun or to show how powerful he is, he decides to abandon those who have helped him thus far, and he will no longer guard the well, which those he has abandoned dug themselves. All along he has known that the cowboys from the neighboring farm will drive out the original builders of that well, those who have used it thus far. And that’s what he did. Indeed, those cowboys from the farm next door pulled up to the water with their Colt revolvers and started to drive out the former “boss’s helpers.” And the “boss”? He was watching from an observation tower on the nearest mountain as the gunslingers shot at the defenders of the well.

Did I just make up a freakish story? No. It’s no fairy tale. Just change the characters and adjust the stage.

When there were so many dead bodies among the well’s defenders, including women and children, that the surrounding farmers began to cry out, he simply smiled and sent his top cowboy to negotiate with the aggressors to get them to cut it out. After all, it’s not important; he just wanted to see how the two sides would grapple with each other. Just a bit of fun. I deserve applause, people! He is like Nero setting fire to Rome and then sending in firefighters to put it out.

We are talking here about Trump. He told his cheering supporters that he had intentionally sent the Turks to attack the Kurds to see how they would fight. It’s only a bit of fun, and the American people must have fun. At least some of them must have their bread and circuses, but not everybody. I don’t believe everyone in the U.S. is a lunatic or a cynic.**

Even here people are protesting the “boss man.” I just don’t understand how a country that gave the world Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Louis Armstrong, John Steinbeck and John Brown, or even Henry Ford, could elect a man with the morality of Trump as their leader.

*Translator’s note: This word is a reference to a town “below the castle” in Czech.

**Editor’s note: Attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal, “bread and circuses” is used in modern parlance to refer to extravagant entertainment offered as an expedient means of soothing discontent or diverting attention from a source of grievance.