Roget's Conundrum....

There is a saying: "some men are born great and others have greatness thrust upon them." 


While that saying appears complete in and of itself, it requires a counterfoil to exist in reality, and in these instances Ancil Roget, you are it. You are the exception, you are the opposite that proves the rule - some men are born inadequate and some men find the rug pulled out from under them in the pursuit of greatness. 

After taking what must have seen like forever to become the pinnacle of labour discontent and mean it, Comrade Roget now finds himself at the tip of the spear of labor history that may just as easily run him through as anybody else. 

Almost overnight the country went from dealing with Watson Duke in all his glory to not having to worry about him anymore, and without getting as much as a pause between installments, we find ourselves confronted with the specter of Ancil Roget in his place, with the main difference being instead of the comical stunts used by Duke to make his point, Roget has opted for the hard line, threatening the country and causing the nation panic and concern.


Had he not opted for such a hardened position so early in the proceedings he may well have enjoyed public support against a government who seemed intent on doing their damnedest to squander whatever remaining goodwill they may have had leftover from the general election, but instead of tapping into that public discontent, his approach came across as dangerous and threatening to the nation's political stability and turned the people off of him and his grand adventure. Having left himself no retreat, his lack of experience and immaturity has shown through and has exposed him as verbally talented but weak on details. If he does succeed in getting workers to continue on in this vein he may well cost many their jobs and could go down in history as the man who broke the unions.



To make things worse and as if conspiring to thwart him at every turn, world events seem to be coming down on the wrong side of his entrenched position, robbing him of anything like popular support and leaving his army confused as to where to go from here. With the mobilization orders already given, there exists no real avenue for retreat that he could reasonably take that saves him enough face to continue on in command for any length of time, and the deeper this engagement digs in and the more protracted the deliberations, the less ground he may find under his feet; such is the nature of the 'all in' bet, you are either damned sure of the strength of your hand or you lose everything you have on one play. 



Regardless of what he does now the government owns him and dictates his future. Yes he may be able to cause some disruption and yes there may be outages, but they wont be long, and he risks his very freedom if he runs afoul of labor law. Now that the people, the business community and even the Central Bank have cautioned him against disrupting the economy in pursuit of what is appearing more and more to be a political agenda as much as anything else, any risks he takes he takes alone.



His only hope is that the government reaches out an olive branch and gives him some sort of settlement in key areas that he can brandish publicly as victory, while conceding and abandoning others in pursuit of survival of the system. The line in the sand is now the only thing we all see, and it is only he who drew it there that has the power to erase it.

Where the rubber meets the road though, everyone needs to back off of this for a while, return to the bargaining table and hammer out the best possible deal for the workers under the current global economic conditions. From a union leadership point of view Ancil Roget may already be a dead man walking, and when things on the labor front have quieted down and is the least embarrassing for him personally, Comrade Leader needs to step down.