Immigration and defense “experts” are abroad in the
land. At least a look through the
keyhole version of this seems to be what one see’s as part of media coverage of
the early debates on immigration reform and the senate hearing to confirm a new
secretary of defense. To paraphrase one
person’s summary of the latter hearing, the only thing more embarrassing than
Hagel’s answers were the senator’s questions and posturing. We expect some
meritorious discussion of topics, but instead we got what Chris
Hayes (of
MSNBC UP fame) described this way:
“Thursday’s Senate confirmation hearing for
Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel was an
omnidirectionally embarrassing debacle for everyone involved.
First there were the Senate Republicans who seethed with
such theatrical contempt for Hagel and his ideas you would have thought the
president had nominated Noam Chomsky for the post (who, incidentally wouldn’t
be my first choice to head the Pentagon but who I’d take over Donald Rumsfeld
in a heartbeat). Republican senator after Republican senator threw
questions at Hagel that even by the debased standards of a nominating hearing
were the cheapest kind of demagoguery and bullying….
If you were a visitor from another country and just listened to Hagel’s
Republican interlocutors you would have had to ask, where did this moral
monster Chuck Hagel come from, where had this seditious dissident been hiding
for the last decade? And the answer, of course is: mostly in the Republican
Senate Caucus!
We expect and deserve more as part
of our democratic republic by the elite folks we send to Congress, but of
course we have grown used to being disappointed by them.
In his
new book, The Twilight of
the Elites: America After Meritocracy, the above mentioned Chris
Hayes takes on a host of issues around our being mis-served by meritorious
elites. He has plenty of evidence to work with just in the recently completed
decade (2000–2010 -aka “a decade of failure”). He doesn’t seem far off in
arguing that every major societal institution has failed in some way. Early on
big businesses collapsed with Enron and Worldcom, and expert auditors and analysts
failed to catch it. The Supreme Court was
more partisan than serenely supreme in deciding Bush v. Gore. Just a bit later in the decade the
Bush administration and our intelligence apparatus failed to protect us from
the 9/11 attack. Who can forgive our corporate media who let us down as the administration
lied and mis-represented info to edge us into 2 wars.
Norman commented more broadly on the media and its weak reporting on who is accountable for what on MSNC:
Norman commented more broadly on the media and its weak reporting on who is accountable for what on MSNC:
ORNSTEIN (7/25/12): Figuring out who to hold accountable is fuzzy now and it’s the biggest one we have, given the way the parties are operating. They not only gridlock and do great damage, as you say, and it really is damage to the country, the fabric of the economy, but they leave voters with little opportunity to figure out who genuinely to blame. And frankly, the press corps is an unindicted co-conspirator to that.In those unaccountable wars the military failed to get us a “win” and when we think of post-war nation rebuilding, well it was a catastrophe. We had years of the RC church engaged in and covering up of sex abuse. Same for the football program at Penn State.
The Bush administration had an inept management approach
to the natural disaster called Katrina. We could add, as Chris does, a view of elite
athletes on steroids. We might cap it
off with the failure of oversight for the housing bubble and then the financial
collapse of unregulated bank practices that crashed our economy. Throw in a
decline in government practice and the elite interdependence, such as Big media
failing to effectively warn society of housing bubbles and leveraged default
swaps. It is a compelling picture of
failure.
Hayes book elucidates his hypotheses of why it all went so
wrong. Part of it concerns specialization and Sociologist Robert Michels’ idea
of the iron law of
oligarchy, published in his 1911Political
Parties. Michels noted (as had Plato and Aristotle before
him) that even political parties and groups ideologically
committed to equality and democracy (yes even in the freethinking community), became
more or less oligarchic in their operation like more unabashed elitist and
aristocratic parties of the right. Michels’ grim conclusion was that it was
impossible for any party, no matter its belief system, to actually bring about
democracy in practice. Oligarchy with its rule by a few, true elites is
inevitable because any institution has to “organize itself” for effective against
the opposition. This self-directed organization in turn requires delegation of
responsibility to someone in charge of specific things and thus with specific
talents (or resources). Institutions and thus society finds itself in a
dependent relation. Over time we are forced to trust and depend on a small
cadre with delegated authority. Thus natural forces lead to an “us and them” –
leaders and following, trusting masses of non-leaders. Of course immigrants are
main targets of such thinking. Michels speaks
of it a great ‘gulf which divides the leaders from the masses.’ The type of
thing we hear in both the immigration and defense confirmation debate and it
abounds in fundamentalist religions where the Mosaic elite speak with God and
the congregation sups on tableted words of wisdom from on high.
Of
course there are institutions who recognize the need for democratic practices
and open voices and I am happy to note that we in the humanist community are
among those that do. One has to go no further that the Humanist Manifesto II,
yes written by old fashion elite thinkers, to see many declared democratic principles and
warnings concerning elite power:
The beginnings of police states, even in
democratic societies, widespread government espionage, and other abuses of
power by military, political, and industrial elites, and the continuance of
unyielding racism, all present a different and difficult social outlook.
Images
Robert
Michels iron law of oligarchy, Political Parties: http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2009/06/newlabour-party-history-23-the-alliance-oligarchy.html
Leave
the thinking to us: http://gulfofmexicooilspillblog.com/2011/01/18/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-blog-iron-law-of-oligarchy-and-gratitude/
.
:http://www.toqonline.com/blog/sailer-on-podhoretz/