“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings)
The main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the backer of the backer; or, what is most important of all, the banker of the backer.
J. R. R. Tolkien