“According to the cybernetician the purpose of a system is what it does. This is a basic dictum. It stands for bald fact, which makes a better starting point in seeking understanding than the familiar attributions of good intention, prejudices about expectations, moral judgment or sheer ignorance of circumstances,” (emphasis added). Stafford Beer.
Yesterday I wrote that you, the reader, should think for yourself. I want to emphasize that because our political system is largely based around a small, elite class of persons who mostly do the thinking for us. The elite class contains professional pundits and “experts,” as well as politicians.
This is a disastrous state of affairs, and it may be the biggest obstacle to “real” progressive change. The best explanation that I can draw from most people’s acceptance of manifestly contradictory actions and corporatist policies by leaders is that so-called experts are on television telling them that it is the right thing to do. If that is all people see, and they see it from “left-” and “right-leaning” commentators, people are likely to believe the expert advice.
Another way to put this is that people are easily manipulated. If that is true, then our own fates are in others’ hands. We surrender control over our own interests, basically relying on the good intentions of our leaders to protect them/not take advantage of us. I posit that bi-partisan deregulation, economic collapse, and subsequent bailouts (using tax dollars); foreign policies that are expensive in terms of human life and dollars, and that foment anti-American sentiment; and the gross inequality–which is growing–in our country strongly suggest that letting elites decide what is best for the rest of us is a failed strategy.
The strategy not only works against our own interests, it makes us capable of immoral action. As Thomas Paine said, “When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.” Change “professional” to “political,” and you have a nice description of most voters. Malcolm X echoed Paine: “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” If people do not want to be manipulated by those in power, they must stand up for themselves and what they believe in (not what others say they should believe in/endorse).
While on the subject of manipulation and falling for anything, let’s remember the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Here is how FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) summarized coverage by the mainstream press:
“It’s hardly controversial to suggest that the mainstream media’s performance in the lead-up to the Iraq War was a disaster. In retrospect, many journalists and pundits wish they had been more skeptical of the White House’s claims about Iraq, particularly its allegations about weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, though, media apologists suggest that the press could not have done much better, since “everyone” was in agreement on the intelligence regarding Iraq’s weapons threat. This was never the case. Critical journalists and analysts raised serious questions at the time about what the White House was saying. Often, however, their warnings were ignored by the bulk of the corporate press.”
This is just as true for people as for the press. As someone who never supported the invasion and argued many times that the evidence against the case for war outweighed the evidence for it, I am not very sympathetic to the notion, expressed above, that support for the invasion was excusable because “everyone” agreed about it at the time. Many who supported the war were persuaded by the “intelligence” reported by the media and disseminated by the White House. People were persuaded merely by power to ignore counter-evidence. This is inexcusable. There is no reason for a citizen to accept uncritically whatever the leader and his minions say – and many crucial reasons not to.
There is some interesting polling I want to include on this point. Published two days before the invasion on March 19, 2003, this Gallup report shows clear majority support for invasion going back to January 2002. Gallup reported in 2010 that a majority of Americans every year since 2005 thought that invading Iraq was a mistake. Interestingly, it peaked in 2008, the election year when Americans voted for a Democratic President. In 2003, anyone willing to think critically for him/herself should have known that the war would be expensive, long-lasting, lead to huge loss of life, that Saddam was not connected to 9/11, and that there were probably no WMDs in Iraq. It is much easier to question power when it no longer matters.
Finally, that brings me to what one of the current leader’s minions wrote yesterday. Andrew Sullivan contends that President Obama has a “high-risk high-reward two-term strategy” (Sullivan actually makes an affirmative case–albeit one that argues against itself–for President Obama’s re-election, unlike Van Jones in his Netroots speech). Like Jones, Sullivan supports President Obama’s re-election. Unlike Jones, Sullivan’s thesis is that Obama has a “long game” strategy: He has done everything right so far, all you have to do is re-elect him and reap the rewards for all of his brilliant 5 year plans (because we are about to reach “a crucial tipping point” and “a moment of truth” this December, he says).
The trick Sullivan plays is to posit a strategy that cannot be countered. If you disagree with him about President Obama’s intentions as evidenced by his actions (for example, by pointing out that Sullivan has his facts wrong), he can argue that you fail to understand that Obama “leads from behind,” so you do not perceive that Obama’s actions against policy X are in fact actions in support of policy X! Rather than thanking Andrew for explaining the secrets of Obama’s great prog-servative strategy, ignore him and think for yourself.
When you vote, spend less time trying to figure out unknowables (like whether the President’s intentions are good or bad), and more on what you know. You know what policies the President has pursued over the last four years, as well as what he said while campaigning in 2007-08. You know Mitt Romney’s history and the policies of other Republicans. What the candidates say while campaigning is relevant, but promises should not trump facts.
At bottom, candidates and their elite, partisan supporters will always paint the prettiest picture of what their administration will look like, and what they want for you. Such promises are simply not credible. As Stafford Beer said, if you want to understand how something works, start with what it does, ignoring “the familiar attributions of good intention, prejudices about expectations, moral judgment or sheer ignorance of circumstances.” Otherwise, you will just get tricked, over and over and over again.
This is one quality piece of writing.