Are We Are Idiots, Or What?

 
CNN currently has up one of those typical tendentious are-you-still-beating-your-wife online opinion polls. They’ve left out an additional choice — an essential one, in the opinion of Gates of Vienna:

Should President Bush have been on the ground in New Orleans sooner?
Yes
No
This is a stupid question

What do you think the results of our poll would be?

Mnemonic Device

On September 11th, 2001, something happened, but I don’t quite remember what it was.

Were there some planes that crashed into buildings? Were there fires? And didn’t some people die? I can’t remember…

For a little while the TV showed me some pictures… And then… I didn’t see them anymore, so I forgot them.

If I concentrate really hard I seem to remember people jumping from burning buildings.

The images were too disturbing. I was told they were “divisive.” What if I kept seeing them? I would become enraged and take it out on an oppressed ethnic group. I might question the value of our unique multicultural society, the one that tolerates and respects diversity. So I didn’t see the images anymore… and I forgot.

There were images that were appropriate for ordinary people like me, so I was shown them instead.

Pictures of hooded men standing with wires attached to them, of leashed naked men being taunted. There were photos of men with women’s underwear on their heads. Terrible things were being done to these men; their religion was disrespected and they were kept up past their bedtimes. Sometimes they had to listen to loud pop music.

Terrible, terrible things were done, and I saw those images over and over again until they were seared — seared — in my memory.

I forgot the other images.

The images of Americans suffering and dying for no reason: I forgot them.

The images of brave firemen and policemen entering burning buildings to face certain death: I forgot them.

The valiant soldiers who fought on my behalf to prevent more innocent people from being killed: I forgot them.

Oh, I do remember a bad man reading about a pet goat while people suffered, a bad man who sent psychopaths to kill kite-flying children in a faraway country of which I know little*. I remember that image well.

But I can’t seem to recall a planeload of ordinary Americans who decided to fight back, knowing by then that they were going to die. Nor do I remember their microscopic fragments scattered across the green fields of Pennsylvania.

When I try to remember that beautiful fall day and those frightened children and their mothers in a jetliner rushing towards the side of a skyscraper… I just can’t.

Please help me remember. Should I tie a string around my finger? Write a note to myself?

Help me not to forget.


*In 1938, as he prepared to abandon Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said dismissively, “This is a faraway country of which we know little.”


UPDATE: Here are some excellent 9-11 memorials worth a look, by Michelle Malkin, Bill Quick, and CUANAS (multiple posts with photos; start at the top and keep scrolling).

Posting Will Be Light-Headed (Again!)

 
Today has been an interesting day. This afternoon, while I was working here at the computer, Dymphna, the Baroness Bodissey, went outside to pick figs from the big tree by the side porch.

A while later our enormous cat Moe came meowing back to see me, rubbing my legs and acting like he does when he is hungry (which is always). I ignored him for a while, but then he meowed plaintively and trotted from the room, as if he were Lassie trying to lead me to Timmy.

At that moment I heard a muffled screaming coming from the side door. It turned out that Dymphna, foolishly descending the stepladder with both hands full of figs, had lost her balance and fallen. She caught her leg in the ladder and wrenched her knee, as well as hurting her hip and her elbow. She was unable to get up.

She lay on the ground and yelled for me for a while, to no avail. Every time she yelled, Moe (who was anxiously watching her from the storm door) would meow. Finally, she kept yelling while she painfully crawled to the steps and up to the side door. Evidently it became too much for poor Moe, so he came to get me. At that moment she was able to open the door, and I heard her.

To make a long story short, I was able to get her into the house and make her comfortable while we debated whether to go to the emergency room (35 miles away) or try to make it through to Monday. She determined that there was nothing broken, and we have a pair of crutches and a chair on wheels to help her move around when she has to.

So now she is resting, as comfortably as can be expected, with the help of hydrocodone. As soon as she can crawl to the keyboard she will resume blogging and commenting. Meanwhile, keep her in your prayers.

Until then, I will try to hold this spot for her…

Sing Along: “Not Me and Georgie B.”

 
It’s not often that you find a perfect parody of a song. When you do, it’s your task to spread the music. With that obligation in mind, here is Scarmouche’s riff on Bobby McGee. Title supplied by Dymphna.

Sing along with the moonbats:

	Not Me and Georgie B.
	Busted flat in Baton Rouge. Headed to D.C. FEMA Chief’s Been stripped of his command. George has started taking stock. Throwin’ out dead wood. Big Easy’s drying out its soggy land.
	Chorus: They’ve started pointin’ fingers At the Texan they all hate, And saying things They’re never takin’ back. Like “Bush controls the weather” And “he loathes you if you’re poor” And “Katrina is exactly like Iraq”.
	Freedom’s just another word for “Let’s pile on dumb old Bush. The neocons control him anyway. He stole that first election From our man, Albert Gore. And now we’re glad We’ll finally make him pay.”
	Repeat Chorus: Oh, they’ve started pointin’ fingers At the Texan they all hate…

This may be the rallying song for both the Reality-Based Community (aka the Moonbat Left) and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. The Left could sing with deeply-felt sincerity behind the words while VRWC bellowed with rich irony.

It works for everybody.

Sheepdogs or Angels?

 
So. There were these three college students. Stop me if you’ve heard this one already…

There were these three fun-loving college boys looking for a good time weekend. Funny thing is, they found it — and more than they had any inkling of when they set out to go get them some fun in the sun on the Gulf.

MTV tells the story:

“I was just watching the news and was really becoming indignant about the way the situation was being handled. There was 20,000 people trapped in the convention center with no food and no water, living like animals,” Buder said. “So I called up my roommate Sonny and said, ‘I have a proposition for you. We’re going down to New Orleans.’ And he said, ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’ So we grabbed one other kid from our hall and took off.”

Fourteen hours from Duke University to what was formerly the Big Easy and is now the Enormously Difficult. Fourteen hours to decide what to do when they got there and how they would be of help. It turned out to be both more and less than they expected.

First of all was the logistics: the fallen trees and flooded roads. They were able to make their way to LSU where a makeshift medical facility had been set up. They began helping with the evacuees but with the number of volunteers coming in, they realized they were superfluous.

They don’t say how they ended up at their next stop: a TV station, where they used those strong young bodies to load water into trucks (it hurts my back to think about it) and taking in supplies as they arrived. Good work for guys with no medical or rescue skills.

Now here is where the old Yankee (and Southern) “can-do” genetics in the American character take over. They’re at a TV station, right? And what are TV “journalists”? Why, they’re members of the Press. So the boys did what all college boys do: they improvised on the theme of their weekend of fun. They stole a press pass, xeroxed it for all three, added their own names, and set off to do some real rescue. Are you excited yet? Are you there with them in the car, yelling “Hoohah” and full of energy just sparking to do something?

It worked.

	Byrd swiped a press pass from a reporter’s desk, snagged T-shirts and business cards with the station’s logo, and made copies of everything at a local Kinko’s.
	“We just changed the names, found the little lanyards that go around your neck, rolled up to the National Guard, waved the passes and next thing we know, we were on our way into the city,” Buder said.

And the city was theirs. Sort of.

Byrd weaved their vehicle through roads littered with fallen trees and power lines, surrounded by rotting sewage and human waste. They blindly navigated their way through the city, guided only by a small map and directions they had received from friends.

The first thing they saw was a kid standing on a street corner with a sign bearing the legend: “Need Food and Water.” After a moment’s hesitation, they took him on — and presumably fed and watered him — and in exchange the boy, Mario, served as their guide. The group made it to the convention center.

	“It was an absolute disaster zone, and the fact that people had been living there for days with no food or water was too much for us to take in,” Byrd said.
	“There were dead bodies upstairs, feces and urine was all over the carpet, people had been murdered and beaten inside,” Buder added. “It was a perfect hell on earth.”

They don’t say what they did at the convention center, only that they were distressed that three college sophomores with energy and a few feints, had managed to get to the scene and yet no one else was there helping.

“The same question kept popping up in our minds: ‘Why were these people stranded for four or five days without food, no water, in hellish conditions — anarchy, murder, pillaging — when it took us, three college students who had never been to New Orleans, 20 minutes in a Hyundai Elantra?’” Buder said.

Here is the answer, young men. You were three students with some brains and initiative and you had no one to answer to. You didn’t ask permission — thank God for that — you just rolled up your sleeves and did what you could. No mayor or governor was blocking the way — at least they weren’t blocking the way for the Press, just for the relief and rescue people. So under the guise of observers, you were given access. Just like the UN. You could’ve put on some blue helmets and felt right at home.

This mess was way bigger than anything three college boys could handle, so they cut it down into manageable chunks. First they rounded up a bunch of evacuees, including three women who left their husbands behind. See, the rules still work: women and children first. Later , the boys returned for the women’s’ husbands. Everyone was re-united and put on a bus headed for Texas, including a man they’d found who had survived the rising waters by climbing a tree and spending the night being eaten by fire ants. It doesn’t say if Mario was among that number, but he probably was. And he’ll probably remember those three college sophomores for the rest of his days.

Washington has risen to the occasion by forming a committee to investigate What-Went-Wrong. Those politicos won’t see the rest of the country rolling its eyes at the thought of another incompetent 9/11-like “commission” to scuttle the truth.

Here’s the truth of it:

• The mayor never thought it would happen on his watch. He had his CYA in place with lots of paper plans but he hadn’t as much as a clue bag to clutch when the bad news hit. Without a clue bag to put it in, what can you do with the information anyone gives you? Tear it up and eat the scraps, maybe, hoping to incorporate at least some of the decision-making abilities he’s supposed to have. You can tell a person is without a clue bag when he sends the people who are supposed to be in charge on a vacation in the midst of the crisis. Those two policeman who committed suicide? They knew they were already in hell. Pray for the repose of their souls.
• The governor: hand-wringer extraordinaire. Polly-put-the-kettle-on, we’re sure not going anywhere under this lady’s watch. She’s been termed “deliberative” when “petrified” might be more appropriate. It beggars the imagination that this woman could be asked by the nation’s president to restore order in very specific ways and she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Reminds me of the DU story I read about the woman in the flooded area who was going to stop and help a woman whose car had broken down in the flood. However, as she slowed she noticed a “Bush” sticker on the car so she sped on. If that’s not a modern day example of one of the villains in the set piece about the Good Samaritan, what is?
• FEMA, SHMEMA: Whatever. A bureaucracy frozen in place by rules and regulations and ineptitude. Bureaucracy is always inept. It’s inherent in the structure. That’s why, when you give, give to the little places that deal directly with the people they serve. The ones who live there — churches, TV stations, the local gas station owner who has decided to organize things on his end of town. I will make two exceptions here: Salvation Army, the special ops people in emergencies. They aren’t taken in by the stories and the jive; Salvation Army has seen it all and still thinks we all deserve to eat. Catholic Charities in New Orleans for the same reason. They’ve been in the area forever and they know what to do. Not only that, they know what not to do.
• Our President. Could he have been more decisive and less deliberative? Probably. Could he have twisted some arms in Louisiana? I doubt it. Don’t forget that the governor and the mayor are yellow dog Democrats. If they are presented an opportunity to make the President look impotent, do you believe they’d turn it down? One of Bush’s characteristics is to move with deliberation — but he actually moves, unlike the governor of Louisiana. He didn’t respond as well as Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi. But then Barbour wasn’t out to make political hay out of the situation. That’s why you don’t see nearly as much of him on the MSM. He’s not very helpful in pushing the MSM meme of Bush Derangement.
• The citizens of New Orleans. We’ll never hear all the stories of valor and courage, the times when people worked at their own level to secure the safety of their own and others. The stories are there, but like Iraq, the MSM simply isn’t interested in finding them. Compared to Bush-bashing, stories about the good are less than interesting, they’re downright obstructive to the main task: get Bush. Get Bush.Get Bush.

We owe our gratitude to the boys from Duke. As one of the women said:

“On the way out, the women just kept, praying, thanking God,” Buder recalled. “They kept calling us the three wise men and their angels.”

Not wise men. Sheep dogs in training who just earned their certificates.

Makes you feel good about the next generation.

You'll Clean the Bejayzus Out of 'Em!

 


Attention paranoids (a4g, this means you!): The subliminal messages are on the side of the box...

The Ten Thousand Things Rise and Fall

 
Dymphna wrote yesterday about the likely inflation of Katrina’s death toll by the MSM and Louisiana’s political leaders. So far she (and the Guardian) are being borne out by events:

	NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Authorities said their systematic sweep of New Orleans to get voluntary evacuees out was nearly complete, and far fewer bodies than expected or feared were found during the operation.
	Estimates of the death toll have ranged up to 10,000.

Our leaders would do well to heed the Tao Te Ching:

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,
Creating, yet not.
Working, yet not taking credit.
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts forever.

The Heart of the Matter

 
As usual, Ms. P gets right down to the bare bones: one page.

	At root the nightmare that arose in New Orleans is about the abandonment of long-term comprehensive planning in the United States. The tragedy played out in New Orleans removed arguments for long-term planning from the abstractions of economic and political theories and put them in concrete, simple terms. So now, everybody understands.
	The neglect of long-range planning has been across the board: in education, jobs retraining, energy exploration, maintenance of critical infrastructures, land/water management, civil defense, the list goes on.

Actually, her list could be the prelude to a don’t-get-me-started rant. What is most interesting, if you look closely, is that her points are all intertwined. For example, just to take two: education and the maintenance of critical infrastructures. We are not training enough people in maintaining anything. Maintenance jobs are considered “low status” and kids who shouldn’t be there are pushed into college.

	Simply put, there are more skilled technical positions than workers to fill them. To top it off, many of the more experienced technical workers are reaching retirement age.
	The average age of a skilled tradesperson is 48. The average age of a supervisor is 51.

Meanwhile, the machinists’ jobs are going begging:

	Often, the more specific a technical skill or craft is, the higher the demand and the higher the pay. A tool-and-die maker can earn $50,000 to $100,000. These highly skilled craftspeople make the tools and construct the metal molds, gauges and fixtures used in manufacturing.
	"That's an old, old trade, and I don't think most people understand what it is. It's the artist of manufacturing," says Butch Merritt, director of job placement and cooperative education at Tri-County Technical College in Pendleton, S.C. "That's a real skill. Accuracy is so important."

Look at this jobs data from 2001-2002:

Employment change by highest educational attainment January 2001 - January 2002
	January 2002 total	12-month change
Less than high school diploma	15,908,416	-510,695
High school diploma only	40,450,000	-1,360,000
Some college, no degree	25,990,000	-890,000
Post-secondary technical degree	6,507,836	419,122
Two-year academic degree	5,603,021	-14,835
Bachelor's degree	25,080,000	-90,000
Advanced degree	12,597,373	119,162
Source: Employment Policy Foundation tabulation of Bureau of Labor Statistics/Census Current Population Survey microdata files, January 2001 and January 2002.

And guess what did not get funded by that slab of pork called “No Child Left Behind”? Vocational training. No money for “them.” We need to educate more English majors to work at Starbucks while we complain over our lattes about outsourcing.

Pundita goes on to outline the causes of our catastrophically short-sighted quick-fix remedies for long term problems:

	Many causes led this country to drift from long-range thinking; among them:
	The two-party system of politics, which became a literal industry serving its own needs at the expense of the national welfare.
	Pork barrel politics: localities elected officials not for their foresight and governance skills but for what they could do, short-term, for a business faction or voting bloc.
	Over-idealization of democratic principles: obsessive focus on the Right and Left to ramrod ideals about freedom into legislation at the expense of basic, critical national needs.
	Abuse of the concept of federalism, which transformed many US state governments into a virtual duchy.

She’s right about something else, too. The two-party system in this country is broken. It’s an anachronism, as is our tax code. The fear of change is killing us, literally. Pundita points to the latest example of the Congressional idea about how to fix things. It amounts to how to fix blame.

The two-party political machine way of doing things began to creak and groan two decades ago under the pressures of the modern era. The machine is now broken. Any doubts on that score, consider the squabbling in Congress these past days about the makeup of the Goat Commission to fix blame for what happened to New Orleans -- the very commission Congress called for.

Here is her parting shot across the bow of the pols, emphasis added:

Face this: the aftermath of a hurricane is sweeping away an era in American politics. If the Congress does not confront the failure of long-term planning they will lose the American public. Then the Democrat and Republican parties will find themselves facing a third party candidate by 2008.

The candidate will not be Ralph Nader or a Green Party type -- one easily blocked by Democrat and GOP machines at the state level. It will be a candidate representing the tidal wave of public outrage. The American workforce is among the hardest working, if not the hardest working, in the world. And hands down, we are the busiest people in the world. We don't have time for verbal sleights of hand from elected officials..

From her mouth to God’s ears.

Tarnish the Halo, Please. The Shine Hurts Our Eyes.

 
Oh my. Richard Cohen thinks that Judge Roberts is questionable because he hasn’t failed enough.

Excuse me? Failure is a recommendation for the Supreme Court? Umm… then I have any number of recommendations, beginning with William Jefferson Clinton, a man who has made more than his share of boo boos. Or is that bimbos? Never mind.

But that is not the only attribute that Mr. Cohen thinks Judge Roberts lacks. You see, the Judge has never been a politician. Now how this fits one for the Supreme Court is an interesting question, but it is not a query that Cohen addresses adequately. But then Mr. C thinks failure becomes a fellow, so perhaps this intellectual failure on his own part adds to Mr. Cohen’s stature as a... left wing nut, umm... MSM columnist. Same thing.

Having assailed Judge Robert's failure to fail, Cohen moves on to Roberts' inexperience with the “real world.” Unlike others, who have lived at the margins of society, the Judge comes from the world of affluence and success. Shame on him! And in case you knew that Roberts worked summers as a laborer — well, Mr. Cohen has that covered:

The best Roberts could do in this respect was to work summers in a steel mill. He shared the work — but not the plight.

Now, given these bona fides, one would think that Clarence Thomas would be Mr. Cohen’s ideal, right? Thomas was poor, lived on the margins, made some mistakes — all things Mr. Cohen claims fit one better for life and for duty on the Court.

But, no. These don’t give Clarence Thomas a pass with the muddled Mr. Cohen. Here is his last, incoherent take on the subject:

If I had a vote in the Senate, I would not deny it to Roberts based on his lack of tough times — nor, for that matter, would I have granted one to Clarence Thomas, who had plenty of them. But when it comes to civil rights, to women's rights, to workers' rights, to gay rights and to the plight of the poor, I would prefer that Roberts had had his moment of failure. He will lead one branch of the government. I wish he knew more about all of the people.

Try to parse that if you can. The Judge should have failed at what, precisely? Violated workers’ rights? Called gays rude names? Laughed at the “plight” of the poor? And these failures would have done what to enhance the Judge’s fitness for the Supreme Court?

I wish for Mr. Cohen not more failure but more moments of lucidity. And when they occur, I wish he would share them with us. Not only that, but I wish he would sort out the double standards to which he holds Supreme Court judges. Cohen’s contradictory demands are so irrational they would bend a normal man’s mind into a pretzel. It’s amazing that he can speak publicly about the set of standards he puts in place for Clarence Thomas and the ones he reserves for John Roberts. Such dissonance would flummox even the most experienced of psychiatrists. But I forgot: Mr. Cohen is a trained journalist; he can hold these contradictions together. Well, if not “together” exactly, they at least spout from the same mind.

Think about this: The Washington Post paid Mr. Cohen for producing these notions. While it has become a truism that we have been cursed to live in interesting times, it does not follow from this age’s affliction that we need be burdened with Mr. Cohen’s labored -- and failed -- attempts to bring forth coherent or congruent thought in the discussion about Judge Roberts’ qualifications. That Cohen has been reduced to flashing his failures for us is pathetic, and the failures themselves are pretty small cheese.

If you’re going to fail, Cohen, and then carp about someone else’s “perfect” success, at least fail at what you attempt with some of the same pizzazz with which Judge Roberts succeeded at his endeavors. Do not bore us with night school and your job at an insurance company.

You, Mr. Cohen, are laden with a spoiling kind of envy. So burdened with it are you that your eyes are green and slitted against the glitter you see in Judge Roberts.

You, Mr. Cohen, are a sad, sad man. Sad and embarrassing.

A Dollar Short and a Weasel Long

 
Yikes! This is most inexcusably overdue. As is last week’s posting of winners. But first things first.

The Council Winner for the August 26th vote was Gates of Vienna for the letter to Cindy Sheehan. You might want to read the follow-up, Concrete Angel, which is a reprise of a post written by her youngest brother on the first anniversary of Shelagh’s death. A year later, Will wrote his post about the helplessness and love he experienced.

Meanwhile, though, look at the second place: Dr Sanity’s Shame, the Arab Psyche, and Islam. At some point, Gates of Vienna will do a post on the Arab culture and shame. It won’t be as thorough as the good doctor’s but it will be a slightly different perspective. Anything we can understand of this phenomenon will go a long way toward healing it — curettage might not be a bad idea.

Alpha Patriot took first place in the non-council posts for his astute overview of the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews that has led inexorably to the sad removal of the settlers in the Gaza Strip. He has all the dates, places and names. This is not a story which is going to go away; Gaza is merely the latest chapter.

There is much disagreement as to whether this strategic move was wise. At Gates, with fingers crossed and a small pleading to Fate, we think it may be a smart move — one that is three moves ahead of the wily Hamas terrorists who plan to make hay with the “retreat.”

All the rest is over at the Watcher’s page. See if you agree with the vote.

Directions for Making an MSM Story: Unwrap. Inflate.

 
Does every MSM journalist get his own bicycle pump or do they use the electric kind you see on those inflatable beds? One thing is for sure — they can’t tell a straight story anymore, it has to have larger-than-life qualities or it’s boring. This is probably a function of the state of television “news” — blather is necessary because they stick you in front of a camera for waaay too many hours and the little red light is blinking so you have to say something, anything, in fact, until the little red light goes off. And you’re in front of that camera not because you are smart or insightful but because you look good and hava taken elocution lessons and paid a great deal of money for your haircut and your suit.

This may be the reason that actors think they have the credentials to make important statements about government policy or world events. They watch too much television “news” and they think it’s real. Compared to the films they make, it is. But the hubris that accompanies being a familiar face in what passes for public life means this: what matters is not what you say but how much face time you get to say it. It’s the 21st century version of “I-don’t-care-what-you-say-about-me-as-long-as-you-spell-my-name-right.” Since no one can spell anymore, what does that matter? It’s all about being seen.

Which brings us to the inflatable death figures for Katrina. Remember the tens of thousands who were supposed to have died in the conflagration of 9/11? Remember how the figure kept being notched downwards? The mechanism here is the same. It is not enough that terrible damage was done to 90,000 square miles of America. In addition, we need large numbers of floating dead, abandoned bodies, human flotsam and jetsam washed out to sea. Preferably with pictures of the gory details.


The Guardian is the first sign that the newsworld may be coming to its senses:

	The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, said that the total of dead left by Hurricane Katrina would “shock the nation”. Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco said that people should prepare themselves for “thousands” of dead.
	But yesterday the total of those officially listed as dead in the state stood at 71. How many lives has Katrina really claimed?

When everything is totted up, we still won’t know for sure. But right now some people are guessing maybe two hundred or so.

“The estimates are always far in excess of the reality,” said one American reporter who specialises in covering disasters as the rescue operations were coordinated outside Harrahs casino in New Orleans. “I would not be surprised if we were looking at as few 200 to 300.”

If you want some perspective on the body count look at the Hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900:

	On the evening of September 8, the tempest of wind and water slammed into Galveston. In the language of today’s National Weather Service, it would be called an extreme hurricane, or X-storm. Within a few hours of making landfall, the storm had scoured vast sections of the city clean of any man-made structure, deposited towering walls of debris in other areas, and killed upward of 10,000 people.
	The Galveston storm remains the worst natural disaster ever to strike the U.S., its death toll eclipsing the combined carnage of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 and the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Imagine what CNN could have done with that story: unwrap. Inflate till the damn thing bursts. Throw away. Find new story. Unwrap...


Hat tip: Wally Ballou.

Tormented by Ten Thousand Hells

		In Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus, the doctor of Wittenberg, in his greed and vanity, summons Lucifer’s servant Mephostophilis in order to bargain away his soul. During their conversation the following exchange occurs:
Faustus:		Stay, Mephostophilis, and tell me What good will my soul do thy lord.
Mephostophilis:		Enlarge his kingdom.

Obvious conclusion: Lucifer is in charge of a bureaucracy.

In a previous post I discussed the brittleness of the modern American infrastructure as made evident by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. When jolted out of its routine functioning, the United States’ political and economic machinery reveals its vulnerability. Our manifest wealth is plainly not enough to guarantee that systems will function effectively under duress.

One of the primary reasons for such dysfunction is the metastasis of bureaucracy that has occurred at all levels of government in the last few decades. Layer upon layer of offices, commissions, departments, bureaus, and agencies; armies of deputy secretaries, assistant commissioners, and junior assistant deputy somethings; budgets that never decrease but inch a little ahead of inflation, year after year — welcome to political sclerosis, American style.

Such luxuriant bureaucratic growth is a byproduct of our wealth. As Max Weber pointed out, bureaucracy is a function of affluence, since only those polities with extra resources can afford to assign sun-deprived office toilers to activities not directly related to economic productivity. Before the emergence of agriculture and its surpluses of food, such things were impossible. When the first large agriculturally-based society arose on the sun-baked plains of Mesopotamia in the 4th millenium BC, the king undoubtedly created a “Department of Ziggurat Construction” and an “Office of Chariot Maintenance” as soon as the bricks in his palace were dry.

So for six thousand years we have lived with bureaucracy. Bureaucrats flourished because bureaucratic political structures were the strongest. The Romans, with their genius for administration and organization, were master bureaucrats. Despite all the petty, pointless, and unproductive activity endemic to political hierarchies, the bureaucratic state proved more effective than the barbarian hordes who danced around their campfires beyond the pale of the Empire.

It has gone on so long that it is hard to imagine it any other way — the bureaucrats you have always with you. But does it really have to be that way, or can there exist a rival way of organizing societal structures, one that can outperform bureaucracies?

If it lacks significant external stressors, the sole purpose of a bureaucracy is to maintain itself and increase its area of responsibility. Each agent in the hierarchy is impelled to protect his own position, which means that adding further layers of hierarchical insulation is in his best interests. In this the unchecked bureaucracy resembles a cancerous growth, and the use of the word “metastasis” is well-advised.

After all, what is the function of the Department of Education? It certainly isn’t the education of children; that function is performed by the schools and school boards at a local level, no matter how many “No Child Left Behind” acts are passed by Congress. How about the Department of Commerce? Is it out there making and selling widgets? One could run down the list — Agriculture, Health and Human Services… and don’t get me started on State.

Bureaucracy, of course, is not confined solely to the government. Private industry succumbs easily to the disease, especially the large multinational corporations. Religious groups, the military, and philanthropic organizations all have their share of the metastasis.

The more an organization faces competition, the less metastasis in its bureaucracy. It’s a sure bet that WalMart and Food Lion have lean administrative structures. The military faces its own version of competition every time it has to fight and win a war, which surely serves to concentrate the bureaucratic mind.

But the Department of Education will be with us until the sun goes out. Its purpose is to protect its budget, secure its funding base, and guard against all encroachments on its turf. That’s it. All the rest, all “the future of America lies in its children” folderol, is mere boilerplate.

To prove the point, try to find a bureaucratic entity that has ceased to exist in a time of peace; there are very few. The Mohair Subsidy Program is still with us, after all. Did you notice that the March of Dimes didn’t fold up its desks when polio was ended? Rest assured that if cancer is ever cured, the American Cancer Society will go on soliciting your contributions, though perhaps with a slight name change…

Bureaucracy triumphed because it was stronger than the alternatives. But that situation is in the process of changing right now.

Bureaucracy owes its success to its management of information. As communication flows up and down through the hierarchy, officials near the top of the stack are able to acquire data and effect results far beyond what loose groups of individuals can manage. But this advantage has been maintained only because of the inadequacy of the means of communication.

The words you are reading are evidence of the process I am describing. Before the internet age, I would have to write them, submit them to a sub-editor, gain approval from an editor, rewrite them according to the changes demanded, and resubmit them. They then might be published, or not. All through the hierarchy they would be subject to editing and veto based on the political predilections of the establishment. Heresy would be squelched and any bad thoughts suppressed.

But times have changed. Witness, besides the blogosphere, peer-to-peer file sharing, instant messaging, cellphones, and satellite links. Networks of loosely-connected and rapidly-changing components form and dissolve faster than any authority can monitor. The blogosphere’s takedown of Dan Rather is just the bare beginning of what is to come.

But it will be hard to surrender our allegiance to bureaucracy; we are so used to it. When anything significant happens, we look to the top of the hierarchy. That’s why President Bush is to blame for a hurricane, and it’s why hunger in Africa is referred to Kofi Annan. Old habits die hard.

When a meteor strikes downtown Omaha, and your first response is to blog it, consult your IM friends, call your kids on your cell, and not look at CNN until long afterwards… then you’ll know things have changed.

In the meantime, keep in mind another quote from Dr. Faustus:

Faustus:	How comes it then that thou art out of hell?
Mephostophilis:	Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

UPDATE: Dr. Sanity reminds me that she was first through this particular door with her post on Monday, Pseudo-Action. The money quote:

This “pseudo-action” is the hallmark of government on all levels, from the local to the federal. From NASA to FEMA to the Post Office. Somehow, all these agencies are able to transform huge amounts of money from the taxpayers into the appearance of doing something, when in fact, they fiercely resist any change, any improvement, any suggestions.

How Can I Keep From Singing?*

 
Here we go again. Ten thousandth verse same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse (anybody hoarse yet?) Three women are going to jail in Indonesia. They were found guilty of trying to convert Muslim children to Christianity.

Here's what they did: they had a “Happy Weekend” event for their Christian children. Sounds like bible camp, maybe? Evidently, some Muslim children attended and so the women were charged with breaking the law enacted in 2002, a law entitled The Child Protection Act. Under its statutes, it is unlawful to use “deception, lies and incitement” to convert a child to another religion. Ummm...isn't that taqiyya? Oh. Right. Only when it's in the cause of Allah. Otherwise it's a criminal offense.

Evidently the trial has been a big event. For four months Rebecca Loanita, Etty Pangesti and Ratna Mala Bangun were in the dock, defending themselves against charges brought by (tah dah. Drum roll please) The Indonesian Council of Mullahs.

The three women had organised a week-end of songs, games and outings for Christian children alone, an element that their attorneys had stressed but that the court in Indramavu (West Java) chose to disregard it on the grounds that non-Christian children were present.

Now there’s a conundrum for you: arrange a time for fun and games for the Christian children and if any little Muslim kids show up, drop kick them into the nearest mosque. Now that would be real Christian behavior, wouldn’t it?

It goes without saying that the Mullahs used the trial as an entertainment for themselves. They brought a casket into court and said they would bury the women should they be acquitted. They demanded the death penalty, etc, etc, ad tedium, ad Allahu akbar, ad eternitatum.

Here’s a thought for any Christian Arabs: take a page from the Jewish book: avoid other religions. Keep your children where they can’t be exposed to other sects. Don’t allow the Muslim children in. You’ll be safer and so will the children. The Jews didn’t survive all these years by acting like the Salvation Army.

These women are fortunate. Three years in jail is better than being stoned to death, a fate ardently desired for them by the Mullahs. Of course, the case is on appeal so it could get worse.

Someone ought to at least put on the table the notion of quitting while you’re behind. There is such a thing, surely even for lawyers, as knowing when to fold ’em.


Hat tip, Nathan in The Belmont Club comments.

*Hymn, How Can I Keep From Singing? here. The words were adapted by Pete Seeger and any mention of Christ was removed. An extra verse about tyrants was added to make the song more political. It was this second version that Enya recorded.

A Not-Very-Civil War

 
Varifrank is one of the best thinkers/analysts in the blogosphere. If I could I’d blogroll him twice. There is no one who can match him for content, style and authenticity. Very little of what he writes is for effect — and that itself is a major virtue in any writer.

Today we have this gem, taken from a list of things Varifrank says he learned from Katrina:

	I don’t know when it happened, and I don’t know how it happened but at some point people stopped watching sports and started watching party politics. Katrina and its after effects is where “political bashing” stops being funny. I think the corrosive nature of our politics helped contributed to the deaths of thousands by making people who should be working together suspicious of each other.
	Remember, the Civil War started first as a culture war. Try and think of “Bush Derangement Syndrome” as a new strain of “Lincoln Derangement Syndrome”, then go to Gettysburg and see where it might all lead.
	If we don’t step back from the edge, we could find ourselves in a second Civil War. We might be forgiven for the first Civil War, but we will never be forgiven for the second Civil War.

He has more to say on that topic, but this one stopped me in my tracks. Trolling around the other day, I’d been commenting somewhere (where? Find it) on a comparison between Bush and Lincoln. Ah, here it is, in the form of a response to a particularly deranged assault on Bush which appeared the other day in Shrinkwrapped’s comment section. Generally speaking, Shrinkwrapped has excellent commenters (she said modestly); you see very few trolls and most of those responding to his contemplative posts are quite thoughtful themselves. However, as the Baron is wont to admonish me from time to time, there are ticks everywhere, even in Eden.

Shrinkwrapped’s post concerned the necessity for maintaining a sense of perspective regarding Katrina. This makes his commenter’s venom all the more dissonant. Reading him, you get the impression he’s tone deaf. Here’s an excerpt, just so you understand what worries Varifrank and why he’s right to be concerned:

	We must be clear. Bush is no Johnson or Nixon. This president is not simply the least competent ever thrown up. He is also the most pathological. Every shred of evidence of the man and his rule, every witness, leak, and gesture reek of it. Freshman psychology students and amateur therapists smell it instantly. To quote a distinguished analyst who’ll remain anonymous for the sake of his Republican patients:
	George W. is a narcissistic personality. He is self referent. He sees things only from his point of view--and by extension sees and represents the America that reflects it. He is able to create a seamless ball into which nothing else can penetrate. As with other narcissistic personalities, he lives his entitlement and grandiosity--in his case even seeing himself as fulfilling God’s wishes on earth. He does not need to check any other reality. He knows that what feels right to him is right for everyone. The rules do not apply to him (college, the reserves, etc)--only to those who need rules to do what is right. Unlike Senator Frist, I tend not to diagnose in absentia, but with George W., all of us could go on and on.
	On and on is how the pathology will be manifest in the torment of Iraq. It hardly matters how vested Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the Generals, corporations, media claque, complicit Democrats. Bush is enough. The cowardice and blindness, craftiness and stupidity of the war policy, and of the whole myth-encrusted and corrupt mentality around it, will persist so long as Bush and all who used and accepted him remain in office. Despite the seeming death of politics, we have never known a crisis and opportunity more political. The moment cries out for politics fought as never before.
	Not for more wailing at how venally awful it all is, marveling at how the reactionaries did it, as if Churchill’s British spent the autumn of 1940 shaking their heads and endlessly writing one another about how it happened Nazis were at the gate. There is no time for that. The poet is right. For this generation of progressives, time’s accomplice is death-senseless, generations-haunting death in Iraq, and all the other deaths of body and spirit inflicted by America’s misrule at home and abroad. What to do is plain.
	Fight now. Fight everywhere. Take the battle first and foremost to where power lives.
	Progressives must contest all 435 House seats and all 33 Senate seats up in 2006, along with every governor, legislator and local official not unequivocally against the war and more, everywhere a Republican or a compromised Democrat presumes to govern.

Amazing stuff, and that's only a piece of it. The author received a stern rebuke from Shrinkwrapped, who points out the egregious behavior of the so-called psychiatrist who would (a) diagnose from a distance, or (b) know the person and thereby violate the boundaries of his profession.

What is of concern here, however, is the absolute certainty of the author. There is only one reality and that is unequivocal pacifism. Any other view makes one “compromised.” The fervor is matched only by the hatred of this person for his President and anyone who stands with him; you can hold your hand against the screen and feel the heat of his intense desire to see everyone but those who think like him out of power.

His vitriol brought to mind the kinds of things they used to say about Lincoln. They made fun of his wife, his appearance, his leadership, his speech, his social standing, his handling of the war. With Lincoln Derangement Syndrome, it was no holds barred. There was nothing one could say that was considered too scurrilous or below the belt when it came to lashing out at the loathsome Lincoln.


Bush Derangement Syndrome is just as ugly, primitive, and appalling. Shrinkwrapped takes this commenter to task and tells him to back his assertions with facts. Otherwise, he says, this is merely “partisan vitriol.” That seemed about right to me. Here is my response in the comments:

	I vote for partisan vitriol. Projection, perhaps? I could maybe buy the assertion that Bush is the most narcissistic etc., were it not for the images that have been seared --seared, I tell you -- of Clinton talking on the phone whlie Monica was under the desk on her knees. Gawd. And *Bush* is narcissistic?
	Wait. Maybe the new meme is narcissism because Bush's SATs were leaked and he scored higher than Gore or Kerry. He's also more educated than either of them, though less intellectually inclined. He reads for information; it's not his scholarly pursuit.
	"Stupid" and "slacker" don't carry their own weight anymore. And since there are no bimbo eruptions, no selling the Lincoln bedroom, no leaks or scandals, then it has to be something hidden. What better than narcissism? What could be more unprovable than that?
	The families of soldiers who have met with Bush find him warm and sympathetic. He cries easily, he has life-long close (and private) friendships. He visits church across from the White House unannounced, same as his visits to Walter Reed. There is no publicity and the press isn't allowed in.
	Eventually Bush will be compared with Lincoln in some ways: his folksiness, his grit in an unpopular war, his determination to act with integrity, his care for the soldiers, and the bitter hatred and paranoia the chattering classes of both eras directed against their leader.
	Lincoln never had the personal happiness Bush possesses. His melancholia, the loss of his beloved son, then dying in office ended it for him. Bush will leave eventually, go back to the farm with his dogs and Laura and pester the girls to get busy and make him a grandfather so he'll have someone to take fishing.
	Meanwhile, he will simply have to endure the mindless blather of vague reforms like those suggested by your previous commenter.
	I'm sure it goes right by Bush -- it can be real handy, that there narcissism: it means you don't even hear those "progressives." I think that may be my favorite new word, the best one since "pro-choice" appeared.

I hope Varifrank's concern is misplaced, but in my heart of hearts I fear he is merely prescient:

I found it striking how at a time when people were dying, the most important thing on some people’s minds, both left and right was how it might effect Bush. I would never have predicted that a month before Katrina. Last I checked, Bush isn’t running for anything, he’s won both his Presidential elections, and will never run again, why the preoccupation with his poll numbers? He’s not going to leave office until his term is over. With solid control of both houses of congress for the foreseeable future and a rock solid cabinet, there will be no impeachment, so what is to be gained here?

And what is to be lost? Civilization itself.

UPDATE: Here is Neo-neocon's response to this post. It has been moved here because it is disturbing and because it demands our concerned attention.

"...In early June I wrote a post about the parallels between the rabid hatred of Lincoln and that of Bush. Here it is. It turns out that the press's hatred of Lincoln was definitely a factor in motivating Booth's assassination of him. And here is an excerpt from the London Examiner published after the assassination:
'It must be remembered that atrocious as was Booth's deed, his 'sic semper tyrannis' was literally justified by the facts. The man he killed had murdered the Constitution of the United States, had contradicted and set at naught the principles under which the States came together, had practically denied the competence of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, and overthrown all for which Washington fought and Patrick Henry spoke.'

This is not only chilling, it is criminally libelous. Or slander. Or whatever sin you care to debate when someone is not satisfied that a politician with whom they disagreed is assasssinated. They further damage a dead man who was murdered by a a coward who ran away. They distort with hyperbole that with which they disagree. Like the fury of the commenter on Shrinkwrapped, they spew a murderous rage that isn't even satisfied with the death of their opponent.

This kind of infantile need to spoil and annihilate must stop. The MSM, in what is obviously a very ancient meme, is responsible for the death of many. If they do not stop their idolatrous, meticulous attention to every whack job who comes down the pike spewing hatred that mobilizes causes to which the MSM is sympathetic, then they must be held responsible for what happens as a result of their attentions.

I welcome suggestions -- not diatribe, but real, practical suggestions -- as to what might be done to change the direction, momemtum and aim of this train trying so hard to run Bush down and to harm our country. To unseat him or to kill him -- they don't seem to care which. If their adulation of Cindy Sheehan is not proof of that perfidy, then nothing is.

If nothing else, we could turn off the news. That's a small but significant beginning. Just because the MSM attends to Ms. Sheehan and her ilk, it doesn't mean we need to do so. Having given up TV news twenty six years ago, I promise you won't miss it. Having given up NPR about four years ago, I can promise you'll be pleasantly surprised when you're not being sniped at anymore.

Meanwhile, get a good biography of Mr. Lincoln. If you're used to listening to the news in the car, get a history book on tape or CD instead.

There is nothing so effective as making something irrelevant. Think of it as by-pass surgery. Do-it-yourself-by-pass surgery.