A Literary Master on Politics

I have read Charles Dickens before and I will read him again, but I never realized his wit or how relevant his commentary on his government in the past would be to my own today: one to which I'm forced to pay attention because I live a stone's throw from our "parliament." Clearly men of power have been running in circles for time immemorial. I give you, Dickens:

"It is true that HOW NOT TO DO IT was the great study and object of all public departments and professional politicians all round... It is true that every new premier and every new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their utmost faculties in discovering, How not to do it. It is true that from the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been asking the friends of the honorable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found out; ... I now dismiss you."
Little Dorrit
Charles Dickens ©1857

Here here Master Dickens. By no means could I have said it better myself.