if one were to read von Clausewitz, Lao Tzu, Machiavelli, or even the I Ching, the timing of announcements is high craft. I cant image any WHouse singing ‘Dum de tee dum, Oh yes, let’s just choose any old day to tell the subjects the king was in a cross hairs.’
Just my .02. I find much similarity between the inkspot country Vatican and most every regime in terms of much shuffling around behind the bulging curtains, and much making of ‘pretend’ deus ex machinas and then… suddenly the ragged or newly whitewashed curtains part and out steps the latest theatrical… the one the king and all the king’s men want the subjects to see, without the subjects ALSO seeing all the positioning, craftiness, costume design behind the scenes.
But, sometimes the entire curtain falls down and suddenly… there is the cast of hundreds plying their paint and glitter, with the scribes still writing the story line, and all are for a moment caught like insects in amber, magnified under that yellow glass, for all to see.
Often, that sudden and momentary ‘curtain malfunction” is the only time the subjects and the town criers see the actual theatrical intents of the king. Which do not show the timbre nor temperature of the actual event… rather reduce it or magnify it… according to something else entirely happening far, far off stage.
… as the old men in our family used to say, having lived in the villages of the Balkans and Eastern Europe and having lived through being cruelly over-run by ‘king after king’ who mounted daily theatre: “Do not believe the words of any king: Instead ask how the king would be weakened, if he did not mount this theatre he so wants you to believe”
The old men meant, do not take on face value any theatric fragment, any sudden pronouncement by the commander … without you seeing the head and the tail and the guts of the king’s script also, seeing the whole of it all.
They also said about pronouncements by premieres and kings: “When a renegade hog is to be slaughtered publicly, it may be less about that hog, than a distraction about who is feeding the other renegade hogs offstage.”
The old men were not cynical. They were farmer realists. They knew that sunshine does not prevent rain, that fair sky does not mean clear night, that thunder may or may not bring a storm. And they knew that men, from sad experience, often create public drama in order to send a carom shot message, for reasons of their own, not for reasons of public safety, but rather the garnering of sympathy, protectiveness… for the king, especially one who needs to rally public support. Many means will be used. The timing of those means and pronouncements is not accidental.
Just saying…