John Feehery: Speaking Engagements

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Game of Thrones Part Two

Posted on December 29, 2012


I have written about the HBO show Game of Thrones before, which is why this post is called Game of Thrones Part Two.  I like to keep my posts straight.

I have been watching re-runs of my favorite show as I feed our new baby while I am on vacation.  About the only channel I know down here is HBO, so it makes it easy to tune into it as I fumble around with the baby’s bottle.

Game of Thrones is a great show because it has all of the elements necessary to keep a guy like me interested:  Sex, violence and politics.  A lot of politics.

The basic premise of the show is that a bunch of principalities are at war over who should be the rightful king, while the whole bunch of them are under invasion from a far more sinister force to the north.

The Lannisters are battling the Starks and the Baratheons for supremacy in land protected by a Great Wall, called the Westeros.  The wall is garrisoned by a brotherhood called the “Nights Watch”, a group primarily made up of former criminals and ne’er-do-wells donated by each of the principalities, as well as some real military men.

The most important job in the Westeros is to be a member of the “Night’s Watch”, but it also the least glamorous.  You take an oath once you join the “Night’s Watch” to not have sex and to take a vow of poverty.   Not a lot of glory for most guys except for the most desperate.

Because of the wars between the southern principalities, nobody wants to give any men, money or munitions to ‘Nights Watch”.   For that reason, the brotherhood is woefully understaffed to deal with the attack from the “wildings” who are attacking from the north.

In other words, by being distracted by internal squabbles, the folks of the Westeros are endangering the security of everybody.

This kind of reminds me of what is happening with the fiscal cliff.

The biggest danger to our national security is our national debt.  That is the American equivalent to ‘winter is coming,” the warning issued by the Starks on a continual basis.

The fight between the Republicans and the Democrats over the Bush tax cuts and automatic sequester kind of reminds me of the fight between Stannis Baratheon and Tywin Lannister (and Rob Stark for that matter).

Unless they come up with a plan to fix the debt, we are all going to be in a world of hurt.

Winter is coming, my friends.  And we better take some steps now to make that winter less uncomfortable, or we all are going to freeze to death.

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