And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
E.A. Robinson
Imagine that 13 of us are in a training session on philanthropic and social systems. Roles assigned as follows:
- Jack owns a factory that discharges waste into the water supply of a small town. He provides low wages and no benefits, since, as he says, the alternative would be to shut the factory and move it to China, where wages are lower and environmental standards are low. He is one of the richest men in America and a major investor through philanthropy in political return on investment.
- Linda is an eight year old child whose parents work in the factory. She is dying of cancer caused by the discharge from Jack's factory.
- Susan runs a hospice for dying children. She needs grant money to find a bed for Linda.
- Alan is Jack's corporate attorney. His assignment is to prove that no proof positive exists that a) the factory does pollute or b) that the pollutants are carcinogenic or c) that if carcinogenic they are the only or sufficient cause of a rash of cancer cases around the outlet from the factory discharge pipe.
- Esperanza works for a public interest law firm and has sued Jack for endangering so many lives. The litigation has dragged on, and she is about out of money.
- Toby works for the EPA taking water samples and running tests that seem to indicate that the factory is a hazard.
- Tara is a political appointee high in the chain above Toby.
- Horace is a politician who appointed Tara. His biggest campaign contributor is Jack.
- Melisa is a judge appointed by Horace in the circuit deciding Jack's liability case. Her predecessor who had been unsympathetic to Jack had been summarily dismissed by Horace's Attorney General for reasons having to do with tardiness.
- Billy runs the local paper owned by Jack.
- Tom runs a small independent press that is covering the story about Jack. He has been sued for libel by Alan at Jack's behest. The litigation costs are about to bankrupt him.
- Samantha is a grant-maker in Jack's town. Where should she invest her scarce dollars to help her community thrive?
- Bill is a Think Tank Philanthropy Expert who works for The American Freedom Foundation, funded by Jack as his charity of choice. The Tank fights campaign finance reform, environmental protection, raising minimum wages, restrictions on free trade, campaigns against activist judges, and works to refute studies showing a link between pollutants and cancer. The Tank argues that taxes on wealthy owners of factories and or other properties should be lowered and that estate taxes should be eliminated. The Tank also argues that poor people bring it on themselves by being lazy or shiftless. Giving them government assistance makes them dependent and drives up taxes. Moral Clarity demands tough love. Bill has recently written a paper suggesting that liberal foundations are silly in attacking root causes. They should concentrate instead on ameliorating the final sad days of poor suffering children like Linda. Bill has a photo of Linda that he carries around with him. "How can you not do something for this lovely child?," he asks with tears streaming down his leathery cheeks. "There are so many like her. Please give generously."
The game is one in which we all take turns trading roles. We all do what we would do given the incentives under which we operate in that role. The gist of the game playing is that we all come to understand that nothing much will change until a good many things change. That is what some of us mean by working on Root Causes, Bill. But I think you know that. For you to say what you know, and for you to be free to say and do what you know to be right, the incentives have to change, for many people, including you. You too are victim more than perp, though talking points can be lethal to those who are most vulnerable. When change does happen you will be free to be a better person in a better world, as will I, Jack's Moral Tutor and his Family Financial Advisor, hard at work on a Dynasty Trust to preserve Jack's wealth and his family's power for 100 years or more. We are all in need of a change. Jack too, who told me just the other night that seeing what has come of his own daughter, who has cancer, has gotten him so depressed that death seems an easy out. I didn't try to talk him out of it. That is not my job.
This is excellent, Phil. I'd like to add:
14. Sally works at a liberal nonprofit or foundation by day and blogs by night.
Not a central character, I agree, but that's exactly my point.
Posted by: Stuart Johnson | July 13, 2007 at 08:01 AM
Right, and what does she blog about?
Posted by: Phil | July 13, 2007 at 08:37 AM
Here, you brute. Maybe this will satisfy your bloodlust.
Raging Bull
(It's not completely gratuitous. The pauses in the sequence starting about 7 minutes in reminded me of the recent ones at the main event, but then, I'm delusional.)
Posted by: O Lucky Man | July 13, 2007 at 08:15 PM
Was I even there? I sure hope I didn't offend anyone. I may have misunderstood. I thought the man was the #1 hitter for the Conservatives on Philanthropy. Maybe this was really a tea party to discuss the latest talking points from Bradley. I do hope we can have a real conversation, not for shared meaning, but for victory, as in politics or war. Two minds enter, one mind emerges. That is real dialogue, when you risk your conceptual scheme, your "being in the world," your shtick, in a game without rules. How to frame such a conversation? Where? Not with a referee always jumping in to say, "Wait! No calling Bill a hitter! No calling his work a Trojan Horse, no Satire, this is civil conversation! Show the man some respect. Take him at his word." Sean asked me for more possible interviewees. I should have mentioned Senator Dick Minim (D MA). They could agree easily on the ground rules. Bromides only. Piffle preferred. Solemn faces. For Philanthropy is a high class field.
Posted by: Phil | July 13, 2007 at 09:50 PM
This hoary old limpet thinks he's growing a pair. (The "conservative" dude in the video can hardly contain himself - bet his wife couldn't wait for him to get home, hilarious!)
And this guy loses 30 pounds, his hat, and old glasses and thinks he's some siren to titans? He's still a pathetic, fat loudmouth who cherry-picks facts. Who the hell'd listen to him?
there once was a lib'rul
you could easily eschew
now he's got so many videos
...well, hell, you can still eschew him!
I'm about to become your worst nightmare
Oh, help help, he's gonna eat me! Bwaaaaa!
Posted by: O Lucky Man | July 15, 2007 at 02:21 PM
I could be suffering from selective perception, but I think these guys think there's some kinda shift opportunity here...
Ma-roons. Pass the effin butter, my toast is dry...
Posted by: O Lucky Man | July 15, 2007 at 02:22 PM
Blogged the links, thanks. The question is whether we can begin to connect the dots in the philanthropy, wealth accumulation, mainstream media, think tank thinkery, political return on investment game. Treating these aspects of Plutocracy as separate topics makes it hard to see what is really going on in many cases. One Wealth Bondage Bordello with many scene rooms. Not that I am in a position to point any fingers. Candidia funds me too. She thrives on abuse, as in the tape with Michael Moore and Wolf Blizter. All good for the rating, and for the advertisers. There is no outside of Wealth Bondage, though Michael is certainly shaking the bars.
Posted by: Phil | July 15, 2007 at 03:27 PM
The dots are bloody well bleeding into each other, wouldn't you say, chief? And still the clueless bleating of sleepy sheep. The monarchial powers they've stockpiled will only ever be fully deployed under the cover of another attack on the homeland, right? Meanwhile, the king can say:
and the press babbles on about timetables.
The king can rave, and the press relay:
and still we bleat dreamily, baaaa...
Source
Posted by: ahfukit | July 16, 2007 at 02:25 AM
"Our country's destiny." Operation Divine Justice forever?
Posted by: Phil | July 16, 2007 at 08:30 AM
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions
sez
07/17/07 "ICH ' -- -- Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran.
Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of "executive orders" that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, "terrorist" events in the near future.
Many attentive people believe that the reason the Bush administration will not bow to expert advice and public opinion and begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq is that the administration intends to rescue its unpopular position with false flag operations that can be used to expand the war to Iran.
via The River
Posted by: ahfukit | July 18, 2007 at 04:24 PM
It's been coming, and if you've been paying attention the scenarioo described by Roberts is not at all hard to believe. Cheney, Rumsfeld et al have been honing the plans and the necessary moves for quite a while now.
Lots of USians still believe in American exceptionalism. I wonder why no journalists ever ask whether they (the Cheney boys) still believe in the PNAC ?
Posted by: JJ Commoner | July 18, 2007 at 05:05 PM
I have an image so private, I hesitate to share it, but often when I hear someone talk to me about what they learned the prior evening on Fox News, what comes to mind is Berlin bombed flat, with a few old women moving about the rubble. That is what a propagandized population will endure, to the end, for its delusions and those of its leaders. Some will follow our leadership all the way. Others of us will dissent. How that plays out will be the existential crisis that will mark the meaning of our lives. Then the philahthropist and patriot will be one in sacrifice. Art or artfullness has never in my lifteime been more needful. Now we will relearn to read works of literature written in dark times, not as illuminating texts, but as models to imitate as best we can as we face crises no less daunting than those of a satirist, say, in Imperial Rome, or Augustan England, or as Loyal Subject of the Crown in Boston, circa 1775. We must learn to write better and read better if we are to hold the mirror up to nature, and remain free as writers, citizens, and a people. God Bless America.
Posted by: Phil | July 18, 2007 at 05:38 PM
History is back ... and she's REALLY hungry !
Posted by: JJ Commoner | July 18, 2007 at 05:59 PM
Yes, "Writing under Tyranny" is a key text, by Leo Strauss, in the Neocon canon. I read it closely as a how to manual, and it has come in very handy.
Posted by: Phil | July 18, 2007 at 06:28 PM
Thank you for your strong words, Phil. That 4:38 post needs to be more prominent than a blog comment. Truer words are rarely spoken.
Posted by: Gerry | July 18, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Thanks, Gerry. Getting through to those for whom the present situation seems "normal" is so difficult. Give us proof! Give us evidence! Don't question the good faith of the Pundits! I take Smoky Joe at his word! What easy marks we are for the ruthless and what a high price will are paying. We don't yet have the skills to live under tyranny. Unless gullibility and going along without questioning things much are the key skills, and who knows, maybe they are. Those Dupes who act in good faith vis a vis the Knaves will be fine. Maybe they know that. Maybe they are far wiser than we. "Wiser are the children of darkness than are the children of light." The Good Soldier Schweik may be the one consensus role model.
Posted by: Phil | July 18, 2007 at 09:18 PM
Um, well... oh hell.
Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren't Listening
The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth and Guantanamo Bay is practically a holiday camp. The annual cruise organized by the 'National Review,' mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.
...
There is something strange about this discussion, and it takes me a few moments to realise exactly what it is. All the tropes that conservatives usually deny in public - that Iraq is another Vietnam, that Bush is fighting a class war on behalf of the rich - are embraced on this shining ship in the middle of the ocean. Yes, they concede, we are fighting another Vietnam; and this time we won't let the weak-kneed liberals lose it. "It's customary to say we lost the Vietnam war, but who's 'we'?" the writer Dinesh D'Souza asks angrily. "The left won by demanding America's humiliation." On this ship, there are no Viet Cong, no three million dead. There is only liberal treachery. Yes, D'Souza says, in a swift shift to domestic politics, "of course" Republican politics is "about class. Republicans are the party of winners, Democrats are the party of losers."
...
Then, with a judder, the panel runs momentarily aground. Rich Lowry, the preppy, handsome 38-year-old editor of National Review, says, "The American public isn't concluding we're losing in Iraq for any irrational reason. They're looking at the cold, hard facts." The Vista Lounge is, as one, perplexed. Lowry continues, "I wish it was true that, because we're a superpower, we can't lose. But it's not."
No one argues with him. They just look away, in the same manner that people avoid glancing at a crazy person yelling at a bus stop. Then they return to hyperbole and accusations of treachery against people like their editor. The ageing historian Bernard Lewis - who was deputed to stiffen Dick Cheney's spine in the run-up to the war - declares, "The election in the US is being seen by [the bin Ladenists] as a victory on a par with the collapse of the Soviet Union. We should be prepared for whatever comes next." This is why the guests paid up to $6,000. This is what they came for. They give him a wheezing, stooping ovation and break for coffee.
A fracture-line in the lumbering certainty of American conservatism is opening right before my eyes. Following the break, Norman Podhoretz and William Buckley - two of the grand old men of the Grand Old Party - begin to feud. Podhoretz will not stop speaking - "I have lots of ex-friends on the left; it looks like I'm going to have some ex-friends on the right, too," he rants -and Buckley says to the chair, " Just take the mike, there's no other way." He says it with a smile, but with heavy eyes.
Posted by: ahfukit | July 18, 2007 at 10:10 PM
I had seen that article. No amount of evidence will ever refute a fixed belief.
Posted by: Phil | July 18, 2007 at 10:18 PM