The Solution

'The Solution', Bertolt Brecht's poem about the 1953 uprising in East Germany has seemed topical every day for many years, whenever I read the world news. In case you don't know it:

After the uprising of the 17th of June

The Secretary of the Writers' Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee

Stating that the people

Had forfeited the confidence of the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts.

Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?

Of course nowadays the politicians in all the countries in the developed world are indeed dissolving their peoples and electing new ones.