When you think of a cuckoo, do you think of a clock? You know, the ones from Germany, where a cuckoo pops out and greets you with a cheerful welcome? Time is ticking and it is nearly midnight folks.
Let me tell you a little about this strange little bird. It is rather sneaky.
It lays its eggs in the nests of other birds leaving those unwitting innocents to rear the imposter as one of their own. The cuckoo thrives and eventually throws the other baby birds out to die.
Many of the older generation know the saying whereby someone is a cuckold, referring to a man who unwittingly rears a child, thinking that the little one is his own.
Well, I think we have been cuckolded and, if things don’t change, we will continue to be thrown out of our homes and left to perish.
While thousands of citizens are homeless, we are seeing cuckoos sitting in nests screeching for food and the bodies of the citizens are lying under the public housing towers in the cold winter stare of poverty.
Something is very wrong when our veterans – around the world – lie homeless and neglected in an uncaring and critical world, while the cuckoos sleep in our nests, built by us, and demand food and more welfare to the detriment of the discarded and wounded natural offspring. Something is very wrong indeed when it is our own leaders who are now tossing us out of our nests in order for the cuckoos to sleep in our beds.
The cuckoo is a bird known for its unique and often unsettling reproductive strategy called "brood parasitism." Instead of building its own nest and raising its young, the cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other bird species, leaving the responsibility of raising its offspring to these unsuspecting "foster" parents.
The cuckoo deceives other birds into raising its young, often to the detriment of the host's own offspring. The cuckoo chick typically hatches earlier, grows faster, and may push the host's eggs or chicks out of the nest, ensuring it gets all the attention and resources.
Our parents in this case are the cuckolded citizens who have been conned into raising migrants to the detriment of their/our own; paying hard earned taxes to build nests for the constantly screeching birds that demand more and more ; I fear that we are – via our governments – throwing our own chicks out of the nest in order to look after the imposter’s offspring.
Do these “ chicks ‘ not realise that they themselves will be without a nest or food for which to screech?
Which brings me to a story that seems somehow very relevant these days.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, both the novel by Ken Kesey and the film directed by Miloš Forman,is a profound exploration of power, control, and individuality. Published in 1962 and adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1975, this story is set in a psychiatric hospital and follows the rebellious Randle P. McMurphy as he challenges the authoritarian rule of Nurse Ratched. At its core, the narrative is an allegory of the struggle between individuality and institutional authority—something we are all too familiar with these days.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the mental hospital represents a modern society where conformity is enforced, and individualism is suppressed. Nurse Ratched, with her cold, controlling demeanour, symbolises the oppressive governments and bureaucracy that are stealing personal freedom. Her methodical manipulation of the patients reflects the societal pressures to conform, where deviation from the norm is met with harsh repercussions. And boy oh boy, haven't we seen our fair share of that in recent years?
McMurphy’s arrival challenges this system. He embodies the spirit of rebellion and resistance against authoritarian control. His antics, though often reckless, are driven by a desire to restore a sense of individuality among the patients. This clash between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched illustrates the broader conflict between those who wield power and those who resist it.
He is, in fact, the Tommy Robinson, the Nigel Farage, the Donald Trump, the rebel in so many of us. And hasn't Nurse Ratched come down hard on those who seek to fly over the cuckoo's nest.
Covid saw our world descend in to a 21st century representation of a horror story where we were daily being subjected to shock treatment, a system of reward and punishment, locked up, detained and defamed for daring to speak out or go and have a fishing trip.
Remember the scene in the movie when the “ lunatics ‘ dare to escape and go on a fishing trip?
How many were fined or prosecuted for going fishing or sitting in a park?
WE ARE LIVING THE HELL THAT MCMURPHY LIVED
Because, for many of us, we live in the asylum that has become our world and the cuckoos are sitting up there, comfortable and fed whilst we all get thrown out of our nests and told to suck it up and do as we are told.
When we hit the ground with no job, no home, no savings and no future and look up to the cuckoos in our nests, will we see the goose from China and the Middle East swoop down and pick our carcasses?
Will we lie on the cold ground and say “ What have we allowed to happen?“
BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS
