You should make Sarah Palin your mentor

Dear Kevin, thank you for your answer. I understand that you are saying that there are certain skills and strategies that one needs to have in order to become successful and it is certainly a given that somebody who has become president of the US has to have some of these redeeming qualities. These are neutral skills that one can acquire, I understand. So I get that in order to learn neutral skills that one needs for being successful (like a cute hairstyle), and I think this is what Penelope suggested with her post, one needs to leave the content aside and just look at “how did they manage to reach their goal”, never mind the goal.
I guess that is a fair approach for a blog community called “brazen careerist”. However, I got the impression that the post started to make this approach a basis for electing a new president? Getting excited about how well a candidate plays the different tools for success and applying these neutral skills in a “fresh” way doesn’t qualify them necessarily for Vice or president, does it? Shouldn’t there be some “content”? For electing a president I feel it is not true that ” the last thing to look at is their perspective – €“ how they see the world – €“ both in terms of how it is and how it could be.” Or are you saying that president in your country is all about letting people play around with the tools of power, never mind their goals?
Our imagination creates this world. We have to look at how they imagine the world, especially and primordially in the case that they have their skills in place, because then it is very likely that they manifest their imagination! Your collective imagination to be a country of “unlimited possibilities” is the cause of your financial crash, because money is a synonym for possibility. If you want unlimited possibilities = unlimited money fortunes, deregulation becomes a necessity and you got the best people up there to do it, they HAD the skills. You got what you/they imagined, whether you knew it or not. If your imagination would be to create a country with “fair reality for everyone” instead of “unlimited possibility”, the same skills would create a different situation. Election is a content question and I guess I had the perception that it was made a question of “how well they play the career tools”. Thanks for the clarification.

I, for one, am tired of the rural gun crowd running my country. They’ve had a long time in charge, and look where it has gotten us. They want to brand people like me an elitist, because I read books and newspapers. But who’s the real elitist? They actually think they’re better than me BECAUSE they’re ignorant.

Every time Palin talks about being from the “real” America, I want to ask her why New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, etc. are not “real” America. After all, major urban areas are creating most of the tax revenue that the rural towns get to spend on erecting 10 Commandments monuments at their courthouses. We have poor people. Working class people. Honest people doing an honest day’s work. What makes rural people more American than me?

These same “folk” call themselves “values voters” which is a veiled suggestion that anyone who doesn’t vote their way doesn’t have values.

I don’t think killing innocent people in foreign lands is moral. I don’t think taking money away from poor and working class and giving to the rich is moral. I don’t think shoving your religion down other people’s throats is moral. I don’t think denying people civil rights because of a selective interpretation of the Bible is moral.

And their representatives, Palin included, are not the down home, hands in the soil, working folk they pretend to be. George Bush was born with a platinum spoon up his a$$, rich beyond imagination, father in the CIA and then later the White House. Yale educated, handed business to run into the ground with no consequences. There are few people who are less like the voters he appealed to.

It’s time educated eggheads like us took over the debate again. There are very objective qualifications for the Vice Presidency. Palin has none of them. We need smart, intellectually curious, truly moral, and inspiring leadership, not Bush with heels.

We need to expose McCain’s choice of VP for what it is: a slap in the face to women everywhere. A clear demonstration of his desperation for winning any votes he can grab. And, most importantly, an even clearer indication of the kinds of people McCain would likely surround himself with if he were to be elected. Panderers to his “base.” The very people responsible for the mess we’re in right now.

Hi all. I’m at a AAA hockey tournament in Salt Lake City, so that makes me qualified to talk about Palin right? Just kidding, but I am doing the hockey-dad manager thing this weekend, and I could tell you some horror stories about hockey-moms. Some great comments by all. Wish I had more time to digest and comment. I think that our lives have been commandeered by Hollywood, at least politically, not just because practically everyone gets their information fed through television, but because election campaigns have become performance driven. We all can argue the merits of experience,etc., but the sad truth is that the party with the deepest pockets, the best actors, and the most media exposure is most likely to win. It’s really hard to take an objective view of the KSA’s of people who ultimately want to destroy what you consider to be your way of life. I go back to my original comments(Penelope’s ist blog on Palin) re Karl Rove picking Palin to neutralize the women voting in this election. The biggest division in this country is the emotional intellegence divide

@ Peggy. Let’s hope she doesn’t “Just have fun” Nuking Moscow. With the people we’ve had running the defense dept. for the last eight years, they’ll probably hit London.
Steve C.

Suki, YOU are the breath of fresh air . . . I suspect that your ability to look at our culture/politics from the vantage point of another culture has made your observations so refreshing . . .

Briefly, when you asked why we do not have more intellectually curious and moral applicants for the top leadership jobs, I think there are lots of reasons.

Money. You need to be able to be a fund-raiser par excellence to run for office. I’ve lost count of the millions spent on the campaigns–a lot of people without basic healthcare could have gotten it, had those monies been redirected to them. Sigh.

Experience I. Many of the best applicants have grown up in political families–the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Bushes . . . to name a few.

Experience II. These guys have had experience in lesser political roles that set them up, so to speak, for their advancing on to the top positions.

The Drive to Lead, to Win–almost like a calling.
Sad to say, this Drive often includes arrogance, bluster and bluff.

Finally, and I hope Penelope will tackle this at some point: What IS a leader, a top leader, and how does s/he get to the top in order to fulfill his/her destiny? There are other ill-defined qualities and “charisma”.

CAK

@ Kevin
Very well said – appreciate the logic.

@Juki Schor

Wouldn’t that be a task for some “smart, intellectually curious, truly moral
and inspired person” to develop one?

Actually, more than one. The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, established a set of requirements to be qualified to hold the office of President.

– €¢ You have to be a natural-born US Citizen (a citizen from birth – but not necessarily born in the USA, which is a common misconception).
– €¢ You have to be at least 35 years of age.
– €¢ You have to have resided in the US for the last 14 years.

They understood that having a minimum of qualifications – €“ basically someone who understand the country's problems and has the country's best interest at heart – €“ creates the largest pool of people who could compete for the job.

That we subsequently create a whole class of pseudo-requirements in order to rhetorically disqualify people, and then drag everyone who applies through a sort of personal demonization to boost our own egos, means we get much fewer people interested in the job than is optimal.

Come on! Pakistani President Zardar called Sarah Palin gorgeous……That’s what she is and nothing else…Dont risk electing the man who selected her as his running mate! Someone who cannot select his VP well does not have what it takes to run your country!

@ Juki. I’ve used the analogy of captain before, and would point out again that the real problem with this country and the political system that has evolved is that it favors those who are best at being elected captain, rather than those who are best at steering the ship. As any good captain knows(or should know), the hard part of that job is the “troubled waters” part, not just when you encounter “troubled waters”, but how to avoid them whenever possible. There is also a reason for pilots in every port of call. They are the local experts who guide the vessel safely into port and then back out to sea again, and it’s not just for the safety of those on the ship. The consequences of ignoring the skills and services of pilots are obvious to all but the most ignorant, or really stupid, people. If anyone in the country should get that, it should be the Alaskans.
Our current “captain” never really got that part of the job.
As for being saved, well, wait just a minute there, Juki. We’re the great Americans. We do the saving part, not the other way around. That’s why we don’t need pilots..we’ll just make our own freaking harbor, ya know? How did McCain and Rumsfeld put it? We make history, not the other way around, or something like that.
Besides, if you think about it, who would come to our rescue? Even if they could rescue us, who would really want to? I suspect that most of the people in the world would rather see us crash and burn, if they thought they wouldn’t be dragged down with us.
@ Kevin. I don’t have the confidence to presume what the founding fathers did or didn’t understand, but maybe a job description isn’t such a bad idea. “Wanted, leader of free world..” Nah, that doesn’t sound right. How about, “Seeking applicants for the position of President of the United States…”? As directors of HR, we could start off with the “No Assholes Rule”, and work from there. “Ms. Palen, could you describe an unpleasant work experience you’ve encountered, and tell us how you handled it”?
I’d love to sit in on that interview.
In the long run, maybe it would be cheaper and way more honest to use the corporate model. :-)
Steve C.

Hello Penelope – I do agree with you. I find myself liking her in spite of myself. She’s great TV. She’s the kind of person you can’t ignore.

No, I wouldn’t vote for her. She’s out of her league, and her values are just plain bizarre.

But I do admire her.

If you’re going to bother to do something, do it extraordinary.

“Is this post sincere”

Thanks Kevin for Palin-Obama comparison. Atleast Palin has some executive experience.

Juki and Steve are talking about “saving” . . . which leads me to believe we haven’t (yet) defined leadership in a comprehensive manner. Leadership should be pro-active–so that “saving” would seldom be necessary.

There is room for disagreement on this–there is a time for saving a situation as best we can; a time for prosperity; a time for laying low, etc.
Flexibility in leadership would address all these eventualities.

The final question in the 2nd presidential debate (Juki, have you seen any of these?) was “How will you learn the things you don’t know now?” The spin-doctors/press generally agreed that neither candidate gave a great answer: Barack acknowledged Michelle, his wife, who apparently calls his attention to important items. I don’t even remember what John McCain answered . . . probably because it wasn’t memorable. But I think that the answer to that particular question would point to the issue of flexibility and creativity in a leader. It isn’t all laid out–there are lots of surprises. The astute politicians have early recognition of these (this may be tied up with experience, and the ability to make applications from previous surprises); and they are early responders . . . which may be as close as you can get to being pro-active in some situations.

In summary, being proactive, being flexibile and reacting calmly and quickly to unexpected situations should be added to the definition of leadership. IMO.
CAK

Hi all. Juki, as soon as I hit submit on that last post, I had the feeling that it might sound confusing to you. A bit of tongue-in-cheek but also trying to be dead serious at the same time, and didn’t really pull it off. The comment about saving was my little parody of how things have been run in The White House for the past 8 years, or at least until they let Don Rumsfeld slink off into the netherworld. It’s kind of the traditional “Ugly American” picture on steroids and LSD at the same time, a very “my way or the highway” mentality. The attitude this administration has formented over the past eight years has been a bulldozer attitude, regardless of whether we were dealing with Allies or enemies, perceived or otherwise. This is what has put us into Iraq over the objections of virtually all the people with knowledge and expertise regarding the middle-east. Rather than having Saddam as a counter-balance to Bin Laden , Al Quaida and the Talibani, or at the very least a distraction to them, we had to go forth, kill the guy, and occupy a country at great cost and suffering to us AND to the poor people trying to live in that country.
We have been creating the very “Troubled Waters” that our captain and crew should be protecting us from. This is why Sarah Palin is so troubling to so many in this country. She is Dick Cheney in drag, but not nearly as smart and experienced as Cheney. She is a small-time politician, in a backwards state, and may have energized the Rush Limbaugh set(I’m assuming you know of this right-wing radio talk show host), but she is nowhere near being qualified to step in as president if the need arises.
It is simply amazing that while staring right smack-dab into the face of problems(financial and otherwise)that have been created by putting under-qualified individuals in such critical positions, the republicans want to embrace yet another unqualified individual.
I don’t care what organization you are dealing with, people in positions they are unqualified to hold create most of the problems that the organizations have to correct. Managers, parents, HR people, teachers, you name it; poor job matching is at the root of most of the grief and aggravation we end up having to deal with and suffer through in life. These issues are multiplied enormously when they become part of public policy, of leadership. The problems eventually trickle down to our personal lives and realtionships. Witness the current mortgage/financial crisis. This is caused by, not the result of, an abject failure of leadership in the corporate and political landscape, manifested in, among other things, the greedy compensation packages throughout corporate America. Once the leadership shows the way, everyone feels licensed to participate in the looting. Some simply have to participate in order to to maintain status, the ultimate driving force among the wealthy and powerful. Once Ronald “I don’t recall” Reagan led the way, well, look at the recent testimony of Bush’s Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, the United States Attorney General for crying out loud! And here we are trying to teach our kids not to cheat on their homework and tests? Anyway, another topic for another day.
My other comment about saving was one borrowed from a trucker in Florida who picked me up Hitch-hiking a couple of years ago. Who would really come to our aid, if we needed saving? I’m not just questioning ability here, but rather desire and will, not just because of political expediency. You can only go around pissing everyone off for so long before they just don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore. If only some wise old Texan had gotten George Bush aside years ago, and reminded him of the old axiom: “Son, it’s hard to ride tall in the saddle when you owe everyone in town”; he might have taken us down a different path.
Steve C.

Hallo Chris, these are very valuable remarks for me. It shows that we probably are talking about completely different things. You are concerned with the question which qualities make a good leader.
I was concerned with the question whether “leading” is a reasonable mode of operation between president and people in a democracy. I write here only because I feel that “wanting to be led by a leader” is imo a strange attitude for a democratic society towards their government. I thought it is about representation or at best “managing”?

When I hear leading I see a cowboy with a horse on a rope. A leader implies to me that there are followers he will lead. There are of course good leaders and not so good leaders, but truth is, once somebody is a leader, he determines where the followers are going, that is what leading is about. And I thought in a democracy the people lead, the sovereign, through representatives?

Basically, I see that the people in your case is like a horse that sits down with a person who wants to become their leader and they try to find out where this person wants to go with them before they agree to give him the rope for leading them. In addition I had the feeling that the horse doesn’t have clear criteria how to determine whether that person is going to be a good leader or not, as you also pointed out. Once the horses hang on the rope or are harnessed in front of a carriage, all they can do is hope that the leader keeps his promises and knows what he is doing.

I thought democracy is the other way around, the president and his crew being the horses that pull your carriage according to your directions. Or, if you like to be horses, President and his crew would be your employed “stable managers” who organize the structures in a way that you, the horses, can do their work in peace, raise your foals and create value. They get their directions from You. Saying, when you are in bad shape (as a nation), you are not going to win the races you planned to win, so they have managed you badly and will get fired. With the president being a leader, he will give You directions where he wants to go with you or with your help and when you get bruised, that’s too bad, but as he has the leading rope, there is not much you can do.

My perception might be completely wrong. I perceived that the sovereign, the people, in your country actually resign from using their directing power when they ask for a president to “lead” them. At least to me it seems that you are looking for a person from whom you would be willing to “take directions”, because this is what “leaders” are about. And I somehow thought, this is weird for a democracy. But of course, it is your choice as the sovereign, if my perception is correct at all. If so, I agree that you need a good method for assessing your leaders. So the horses don’t get bruised so much or need to be saved all the time :-)

Hi Juki. I think you have hit the nail on the head, as we say in this country. I too appreciate the conversation as well, especially your insightful perspective on leaders and followers. Very interesting viewpoint. I think there are others posting who are very appreciative as well. These posts of Penelope’s regarding Sarah Palin have attracted some very articulate and thoughtful participants from various political and philosophical persuasions. Yours are the most interesting I think to all of us as you have such a unique perspective. You are correct I think in that as a country, we are very confused as to who is really in charge, what we really want/expect from democracy. We do not have a very good track record of teaching accurate and unbiased history in our schools, and if you gave a pop quiz to most of the people in this country as to how the political system actually works, most would fail, myself included. In fact, I would venture to guess that you know more about how our system works than we do. I should say that most of the comments you are finding here are not typically main-stream, where Obama is accused of being a terrorist, etc. But the good news is, most of us writing to this site can spell and write in complete sentences. I know, I know. I’m being an effete snob ;-).
Steve C.

More on the question of leadership in a democracy:

To pick up on the horse/cowboy analogy . . . The problem is that there are many, many horses over a vast territory. This is unwieldy or unmanageable. That is why in some issues the 50 states have retained some sovreign powers–the federal government cannot manage such a large group. States keep control of many issues. In some issues, states share power with the federal gov’t (the Medicaid program is the best example I can think of).

The individual people (being led)have a representative democracy. They elect representatives who present the views/wants of the constituents when policy/laws are being formulated. Each individual cannot hope to assert his/her individual rights/wishes/opinions. The majority will rule–or the representative will try to honestly represent his constituents (often the most vocal, those who communicate with their senators and representatives, will have their wishes asserted, even if they are NOT the majority).

Example: the people don’t wish for more taxation, but they want roads and schools and libraries, which are paid for by taxes. So, there is a push-me-pull-me to determine what level of taxation is tolerable/desirable. This “debate” about taxes has been evident in the presidential campaigning.

American history is thought to have had, as an early principle, “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” and “rugged individualism”. But we have social programs, for the commonweal, and we must knuckle under and pay taxes to support those programs. We are NOT individuals, entitled to our own individual sense of democracy. We are a large and unwieldy and diverse group. We must do things for the common good that we might not choose if we were individuals . . .

Juki, does this fit in to your perceptions at all? Or are we just not on the same page?

CAK

Hi Chris,
I think we are very much on the same page, I just seem to look from a different angle, sitting in Europe.
Steve wrote: we are very confused as to who is really in charge.

My perception is that there are people in your country who are absolutely not confused, and they are in charge. My point was that those, who
are at present confused, are the ones who should be in charge, but as they are confused, that is hard to accomplish. These confused people don’t seem to know “what they really want/expect from democracy” as Steve writes. This is what I sensed when I asked for “criteria” how to evaluate your president as I felt the ones given were really
confusing with respect to a president of the US, at least to me.

As long as this is as it is, those who know what they want from your “democracy”, will get it, at your expenses. And you are actually not having a democracy imo.
I am even going further. Keeping a large part of the population confused about what they want and how it works guarantees a large enough potential of supporters for “leaders”, who love to lead confused people towards their own goals and raise funds on the go. Leadership, as I define it, is all about “leading confused, threatened or ignorant people out of perceived danger”. It has not much to do with democracy.

I think the reason for my entering the conversation is that I feel that the right thing to do in a democracy would be to “unconfuse” people, not continue “leading” them, confused as they are. If Steve is right when saying that “We do not have a very good track record of teaching accurate and unbiased history” and that many people don’t know “how the political system actually works”, this would be the first two issues I would want to see in the programme of a person applying for presidency if you really want democracy. In addition, I would expect the election process to contain some kind of public, verifiable assessment centre where you make sure
that the candidates themselves have an unbiased view on his-story and know how the system works (you might learn something as well :-)).

You wrote that “the people don’t wish for more taxation, but they want roads and schools and libraries, which are paid for by taxes. We must knuckle under and pay taxes to support those programs. We are NOT individuals, entitled to our own individual sense of democracy. We must do things for the common good that we might not choose if we were individuals”.

What I read from this is that “democracy” as it operates in your country in the moment is not in harmony with your “individual idea of democracy”. Now, the issue about democracy is that YOU decide how it operates. If you want schools, libraries and roads and you do not want to pay taxes for that, then find another way how to pay for them or build them by yourself, I guess that is “pulling yourself up by one’s bootstraps”. In order to get there you need to have a political program and representatives who push it forward. But, you need to also honestly look at the question whether you do not want to do things for common good because you are greedy, egoistic, careless or “Darwinists” at any expense in relation to weaker people’s difficulties. Or whether your individual sense of democracy senses accurately that the so called “payment for common good” is not serving those who are in need but just financing something else, right? Taxes are very handy, like a general allowance to milk the cows whenever the State feels like it. In a democracy you have to argue about taxes, I think it is good news that you do.

You mentioned that “American history is thought to have had, as an early principle, “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” and “rugged individualism”. And there seem to be “many, many horses over a vast territory” of this type which is “unwieldy or unmanageable.” Fact is, horses might have different shapes and colours, but with respect to their basic needs and wishes for life they are quite similar. They want enough to eat and drink, feel safe, have company, reasonable work, facilities to raise their kids and every now and then a party. Considering the early principles of your country, most of your horses would be pretty much able to manage all this by themselves, if left alone by taxes and the State, otherwise you wouldn’t exist any more. For the horses it doesn’t really matter that they are wide spread. They might discuss, what is “enough or too much food and what to do with the horse shit”, but they even would settle this conflict among themselves. All the state needs to do is supply the boxing ring and watch that they don’t kill each other right away.

Therefore the question is: For whom and for what purpose is it “unwieldy and unmanageable” that they are many and widespread? Which takes us back to the leadership question: for a cowboy it is much easier to have them all herded in a round pen, then open the gate and just yell “go” (behind me, of course). Typically, how they get you into the round pen, is through “crisis”. But that is not democracy, at least not in my perception.
I would be interested to learn how a democracy would look like that would “embrace your individual idea of democracy”? What I get from this conversation is that you actually would have a huge freedom to design your own democracy over there. But out of confusion you have left this designing process for years to a few families with distinct interests of their own. That’s not good news, I feel. :-)

Hi Chris,

:-), thank you very much for the offer to participate in a “think-tank”. Not sure what you mean by this, where that would be (probably not on this site) and for which purpose? But if you feel that “challenging questions” for your issue would help, I am happy to supply and discuss them. Hope we have fresh air in the “tank”? Waiting for details…:-)

I actually had decided to stop posting for a while, feels like I have been over present here lately and kind of carried away with the fun of mind games.

Just one last comment with respect to Maine and “individual” wishes to alter the system. The most important factor in achieving goals is imo a 100% positive motivation FOR something. One reason why “greed” is so successful is that it is 100% “positively” motivated, “positive” meaning here that people “have no doubts that they want it”, more money, bigger car or house, better lover, whatever individual goals they have.

Pursuing “altruistic” goals like “universal health system”, good schools for everybody, social welfare or healthy environment is normally not that effective because the altruistic motivation of people is not as strong. It is not necessarily “learned helplessness” why they fail.

Very often these initiatives come from a negative motivation like “we undertake measures to prevent climate change because we don’t want to suffer the consequences”. People want a universal health care system because they are afraid to be without help when they get sick. They donate to social welfare because they want to avoid being accused of being ignorant, egoistic or careless.

These motivations are “around the corner” so to speak and much weaker. In order to be successful with altruistic goals there needs to be at least one person who makes it a 100% personal “positive” goal to achieve it.

“Altering the present system of big government” as a goal is very difficult because big government is of course much stronger. Trying to alter it because you feel helpless or overwhelmed in it is again coming from a negative motivation and thus quite weak, may be only nurtured by desperation. It would be better to look at what your true wishes are (like wanting to be free to do something) and go for them 100%. If you really wanted to change big government, you would be studying it in detail, get yourself acquainted with the procedures necessary to do the change and collect people to achieve it.

One has to start with a positive motivation FOR something and I think this is why republicans have been so successful. They have clear motivations FOR stuff, more money, more power, more space, more influence, more research, more weapons, whatever (never saw them wanting less :-), apart from taxes ).

Democrats tend to “not want” certain circumstances and then try to come up with repairing strategies. Something like:

They do not really want a good school system out of a positive motivation FOR educating kids. It’s more that they don’t want to suffer from the consequences of a lousily educated population so they opt for improving the school system.

Republicans seem to be much more straight forward ( I might be wrong, it just appears that way). They want the best schools for THEIR kids so THEY are competitive, consequently they work their ass off to pay fees for private schools and forget about the rest of the people. This is a strong, clear, “positive” (=unobstructed) motivation. I haven’t seen much of this in the “altruistic” section of politics. Many people pay also for a good education, but the motivation is that they “don’t want their kids to be in low paying or dragging jobs”. Although what they do looks the same, it is not. It has less power and motivation.

Being a little provocative here: people tend to think in an altruistic way because they feel it is cruel to not think that way. But if they had a chance to mind their own business without having to feel guilty for being “careless”, they would be happy to forget about all the poor, ugly and dirty sides of the world. That is not a positive motivation FOR a better world.

In that sense I perfectly understand why PT recommends Sarah Palin as a model for a mentor. SP has an absolutely positive = unobstructed personal motivation to grab this chance and get as far ahead as possible with her political career (republican, right?). I still wouldn’t make her my mentor, but I understand if somebody with similar interests and mindset would.

Hi all.
I am enjoying the discussion and was just thinking that it’s funny that this dialogue began with Penelope’s post about Sarah Palin as a mentor. I wonder if SP will ever see this blog? This would be what is known in academia as a “seminal” work, the starting point for a much larger discussion, a`search for truth, regardless of the validity of the original hypothesis. I guess SP would say,”just goes to show, ya never know,” or something like that. I hope the discussion doesn’t turn out to be like putting one’s initials in fresh concrete: they are there for a long time, but no one except for you really gives a damn.
Again I agree with Juki and Chris have said, but I wanted to point out though, before we give SP credit she doesn’t(probably) deserve, that Amy B. correctly pointed out the difference between a “role model” and a “mentor,” and I agree with her that SP makes a lousy mentor, unless you happen to be attending the Carl Rove/Lee Atwater school of character assassination.

Anyway, I agree with Juki that the motivation for self actualization is generally far more intense and efficient than for altruistic goals.
My own quick and dirty summary of this is also a partisan one: Republicans want to make the world a better place to live in, Democrats want to make the world a better place to live in, for everyone. I suppose I should expand that to include Greens and Independents as well, it just takes away from the conciseness of the definition.

I would suggest though, that with respect to the environmental issues, the gap may be narrower than for other “common good” type issues. Resource Economists study study these motivations under the context of contingent valuation, an attempt to discover how much people will actually pay to, say, protect the spotted owl in the old growth forests, even though they happen to live in a condo next to central park(the people, that is). Placing a value on national parks is another example, how much are you willing to spend(all expenditures included) to visit Yosemite or Acadia National park. If you narrow the choices to between giving the spotted owl a place to live or being put out of your condo, well, let’s not be silly here, the owl is dead meat.

My initial thought when talking about altering “big government” was that it was sort of like trying to steal a lot of money: if you try to steal a whole lot from a small number of people, they will notice right off what is going on and will call in the cavalry. But if you steal a really, really, teenie amount each from really, really huge number of people, you’ll probably get away with it long enough to get a good head start on whoever finally figures out that they’ve been ripped off, and you might stash enough away and hide out long enough to get away with it. In our political system, you have to have a really, really large number of pissed off people to have the same effect as a handful of really, really influential(read: deep pockets) people.
So this phenonmenon is being seen in a couple of ways today, the backlash which the republicans are facing politically, and the current financial meltdown, where the plan was working just perfectly until too many scammers got into the game. One can’t resist linking the two events, but I believe it is at least possible for them to be independent events, although that is not my opinion of the situation.
A few years back Ralph Nader said that in his opinion, things would have to get really, really bad before enough people paid enough attention to what is going on politically and economically in this country, and actually started to try to do something about it. I am worried that his prediction is about to be realized, and it is very unsettling.
I agree that it is always more effective to act from a position of strength and conviction, and in this country where capitalism has essentially attained religious status, we operate on the basis of the “Golden Rule”: He who has the gold makes the rules. So in order for the populace to actually attain the kind of influence enjoyed by the very wealthy individuals and corporate/institutional interests, we practically have to have an uprising of some sorts. Fortunately, I believe that we might be seeing something on that order only it is happening in the context of an election, and at the same time are living through an implosion of our economic staus quo driven exclusively by greed that will expose a large number of crooks and loopholes. Yes, there was plenty of stupidity going around, but stacked up against the greed factor, stupidity was a distant second in terms of causing this fiasco.
Having said that, the most dismaying factor to me is the level of stupidity in this country, given all the resources available to us. Ignorance can be excused because it can be created, by withholding facts from those who need to know them, or spreading false information, but stupidity? I almost think that in this country we have replaced the notion of “Common Sense” with the reality of “common stupidity.”
I think that is the dilemna we have to grapple with first, because without people smart enough to see what is good for them, it is just a matter of time before those who cannot distinguish between freedom and license swoop back in again to manipulate us and game the system. I don’t know what form of government or leadership will counteract that situation.
Steve C.

Well, I guess I haven’t stopped posting, too interesting :-)
Thanks Steve for your last emails, unfortunately I feel I am at a loss in some respects.

First of all: What do you mean with stupidity? Mental incapability to learn something, emotional insensitivity, confusion of consciousness? I have difficulties to look at America as a country “full of stupidity”, I always thought that you have quite a few smart people over there. I wouldn’t mind if they had different intentions sometimes, but smart they are, no? You wrote that capitalism has become almost a religion in your country. I consider capitalism to be a kind of outer expression of an inner “disease” which results in people behaving in a stupid way and doing stupid things with respect to their own and other peoples and organisms lives, including the Earth. I would call it a mixture of “disconnection from their natural instincts and impulses” and “confusion about who they are as humans” + a decent amount of self hatred. The reason why I am asking is that, in order to “counteract” anything by a government, you need a clear understanding of the problem and “stupidity” is just too general to come up with any solutions, at least for me.

You wrote:
“So in order for the populace to actually attain the kind of influence enjoyed by the very wealthy individuals and corporate/institutional interests, we practically have to have an uprising of some sorts.”

That is the normal American way of looking at it, fight and “overrun the enemy”. Another possibility would be to “reduce the populaces susceptibility to the ‘influence’ of money and thus wealthy individuals or institutional interests”.
I understand that money has the status of a fetish in capitalism, which means it has power over all people who believe in ‘it having power’. That is part of the disease I mentioned above. Thus, people who have money have power over those people who believe that money has power. Resolving this illusion is much easier then “gaining the same influence as wealthy institutions” because the latter involves extra struggle. First of all you have to attain money and then you have to fight against their resistance towards you to gain influence with it. Ever tried Aikido? It is especially effective for people who are weak as it uses the power of the powerful to end the fight. The power of wealthy people is not coming from the money they own, but from their ability to induce into or keep up illusions in people, for example that “money has power”. What it would need is to grow the ability in people to “uncover illusions” and let this illusionary power “go pop”.

You wrote:
Republicans want to make the world a better place to live in, Democrats want to make the world a better place to live in, for everyone.

I think that is not true. Democrats also want to make the world a better place to live in for themselves, they just have a different idea of “better”. The reason why they are not so successful is in my opinion that they try to reach their idea of “better” inside the same system as the Republicans. But this system strives exactly on destroying what the democrats consider to be “better”. They are kind of trying to make a tiger to behave and think like a cow and that doesn’t work. What they needed to do is create strategies that are appropriate for cows and at the same time strong enough to keep the tiger out until that guy has found the turn off switch for his insatiable hunger.

About Maine, you wrote:
I forget what the intentions were that started the process, but the result was that wealthy people, exercising their rights to discretionary spending, sucked it up and put off building that bigger boat, or any boat. In the end, most of the boatyards large and small either closed up shop, or drastically reduced operatons, putting the bulk of the workforce out of work.

Sorry, I don’t get what happened and how this was possible and what exactly made it a flaw. And I think it would be important to know the intentions behind this measure, intention is everything. Would you mind to explain it to me? I am not an economic, but I really want to understand how these things work. Thank you for your input, great stuff :-).

Hi Juki. I am trying to take the easy way out by simply lumping so many people into the stupid category, as there is so much more going on. It is just the first thing that comes to mind when people clearly indicate that they are selecting the next president based upon the cute glasses that his running mate is wearing, or “ooh, I just love her, she’s so cute, where did she get those shoes? I’m voting for McCain.” It really begs for the stupidity response.
Here the election seems to take on many of the same characteristics as a sporting event. This is complicated by being mislead and manipulated by media, all of whom have some hidden or not so hidden agenda or motivations. It really is difficult to know who is telling the truth, how much of what is being said is really opinion versus fact. A lot of people invest a lot of money and time and energy into these elections and they have no qualms whatsoever about lying and cheating to get their candidate into office, or keep a candidate out of office. These are the ones here who are not confused and know exactly what they are doing, and you are very correct about this.
The biggest problem is that no one else is really able to find or figure out what it is that they are really after, or no one has the time, energy, or wherewithall to get at the truth. Vice President Dick Cheney is a prime example of this.
Here is a Vice President who refuses to release documents revealing who he communicated with and what his office actually did regarding some major actions by his office, one of which was purging the Justice Department of lawyers who refused to participate in political witch-hunts designed to undermine democratic candidates around the country. This on-going rules dispute has already resulted in the resignation of the U.S. Attorney General, and is really just the tip of the ice-berg in terms of the influence his office has had on the actions of this country throughout the country and the rest of the world.
I believe you are correct in that much of what ails the people in our country is inner-angst and self-loss, a disconnect from a more natural life, and all would benefit from an immersion in Aikido or yoga. However, I think we would be lucky to wean the populace of a steady diet of junk food and fast-food, let alone get them involved in a discipline like Aikido. I would venture to guess that switching from one fad diet to another would be the extent to which we find our general populace delving into structure and training. There are many who do strive for a more connected life, but I am certain that they are greatly outnumbered by the MacDonalds/Jerry Springer crowd(do you see this TV show there?). Unfortunately, now we are constantly confronted by ads from the pharmaceutical companies peddling drugs to do the job for us. These companies develope drugs and then invent diseases and ailments to treat them with.
We also have a real problem here with the blurring of the line between entertainment and reality, I think.
The taxation issue in Maine was designed to transfer money from the coffers of the wealthy into the coffers of the state where it presumably could be redistributed for the greater good. The wheels fell off when the wealthy refused to participate, by deferring their consumption, or simply taking it elsewhere. My point is that in this country, it is politically possible to undertake a program such as this, no matter how ill-founded or ill-advised the program is, and with plenty of resources and expertise available to clearly forsee the likely result. Somebody lobbied for this, somebody opposed it, it was passed, an in the end, everyone in Maine lost out. I’m not advocating against taxing the wealthy, but rather to do it in a way that doesn’t harm the contituency you are intending to help, and actually gets the money from those who have it.
So the comment about our system/country being complex and unwieldy is really quite valid, in spite of the fact that, like the horses we talked about, our very basic individual needs are pretty much the same. I think we invent a lot of needs, or have them invented for us by marketers and advertisers. We are constantly bombarded by marketing and advertizing in this country, no matter what media you choose to get your information from, but from television especially. So it is unfair to denigrate Americans on this basis alone, but there is a significant “dumbing down” effect happening in our country

75%(give or take a few %) of the econonmic activity in this country is consumption based, buying shoes and cars and stuff, as well as entertainment, so there is a lot at stake here for retailers and entertainers and the people who work for them, as`well as for the governments(supposedly us) who tax them. That’s where a lot of this angst comes from. For many, shopping is the release that brings the sense of well-being others get from yoga or drugs or alchohol. It is a circular economic system, where the same dollar gets moved around among the participants, counted and spent many times. There is some leakage or syphoning as every dollar that comes in is not immediately re-directed into consumption, but you get the picture. When the dollars stop circulating, a lot of stress gets generated very quickly, witness our current economic malaise.
It is not all bad of course. At least we have the ability to have these dialogues, and don’t get beat up for voicing our choices ala Zimbabwe. But still, ours is a very large and unwieldy system, almost seeming chaotic at times. For better or worse, this country runs on dollars and ideology, and it is unfortunate but true that for many, the only time they really pay attention(no pun intended), is when their pocketbooks are empty.
Steve C.

Hello Steve, thanks for your reply. You wrote:
“The biggest problem is that no one else is really able to find or figure out what it is that they are really after, or no one has the time, energy, or wherewithall to get at the truth.”
So that would be the first thing to tackle, getting a clear picture of how the truth really looks like and then spread it so at least those people who are interested in the truth can judge who is telling the truth and who is not. As you seem to be a culture that is hooked on entertaining, make it entertaining to find the truth. Why not start a TV programm? Something like “Truth about…(financial system, political system, meat production, candidates etc.). And then you could have a quiz where people can answer questions like: is it true that…. Would train everybody’s sense of reality. Just joking :-)
“We don’t engage in debates or disputes to get at the truth any more, we do it to win.”
I think everybody can do differently. If one journalist asks questions that are really focussed on truth, it will be hard for the politicians to concentrate on winning. Problem is, why looking for truth if you can make money just by winning? It would be those who loose out who would need to find the truth, but they don’t have “time, energy or wherewithall” to get there, as you said. If I ever tackle the truth about the money system, I would be really happy, but probably also broke.
Otherwise I feel that the system is the same everywhere, it is just the degree of “freedom” for the tiger that might be still different between the countries. I mean, controlling for banks has been much stricter in Europe than in the States, also credits are not easy to get without own capital base. But nevertheless, banks have trouble now because some did buy into the illusion of “winning” more and more money. .
With respect to McCain and his hidden wish to fly back to Vietnam, there is an interesting book about “re-enacting trauma” called “Waking the tiger, healing trauma” by Peter A. Levine. You could be right about this, there is actually a chance that we are at the moment collectively re-enacting the trauma of last century economic crisis and 2 world wars, unless people wake up and resolve it instead. Penelopes remark in the latest post about “Nothing goes at Wall Street when Jews are off for Yom Kippur” is so incredibly “last century stuff” that it knocked my socks off.
Thank you for the interesting conversation and lets see how it continues from here. I am gone for a week now, so good luck with finding truth :-).

George, thanks for straightening me out on that. Sorry to tag your name all over that. How is it that I associate that tax with you when it was a Bush who rolled it out? I should snap off all my fingers.
Steve C.

In your post you state that not taking risks and getting out there might be what is holding some back from the career that they think they deserve and are capable of achieving. That's certainly a fair point. But, surely you should recognize that many people don't want to "get lucky" or get plucked from oblivion to do a job one is incapable of doing. Most people PREFER hard-fought battles where only their most lucid and creative thinking ensures triumph. Sarah Palin has not shown us anything but a recitation of facts and figures, many of which are misleading, and most of which she herself probably does not believe.

Simply guessing the correct spelling of a word at the spelling bee that the moderator leaked to you in advance does not guarantee that you can use it extemporaneously in a sentence.

Responding to Brandon:

Yes, Brandon, it seems as if you’re describing bluffing. I, for one, would always want to be on firmer ground; and certainly would not rely on bluffing when the stakes are so high. (Bluffing happens on the job and at the job interview, too.)

CAK