Sir Winston Churchill, statesman and British Prime Minister during the 1940’s and 1950’s was at his best when insulting others with his famous wit. He was an originator of the political “sound-bite.” He may also have been blind to or in denial of the obvious steep decline of the British Empire from World War One through the Independence of India. At best he tried to ameliorate its collapse as best he could without admitting his true feelings.
“A sheep in sheep’s clothing” was the description Churchill pithily made of a political foe, Clement Atlee, explaining that his mild and timid exterior was matched by an even weaker and empty interior as well. It was a clever turn on the original phrase “A wolf in sheep’s clothing” used to describe a person who is strong and cunning inside but hides behind a veil of meekness or friendship. The original phrase came from an ancient Fable by Aesop that had a noticeably different moral message.
Too many politicians are just sheep in sheep’s clothing. They talk a good game to get re-elected but then they go back to doing nothing. Many lack convictions, ideas, principles, or any inner strength beyond the overwhelming desire to remain in office. Even though some snarl and attack from time to time as if they were wearing wolf’s clothing, inside they’re still only sheep.
Most elected officials of both parties are afraid of themselves, each other, wealthy campaign contributors, large corporations, lobbyists, and the American public at large. They try to please everyone to ensure their temporary survival in office, but this short-term agenda is a recipe for complete long-term failure as a nation.
There have been many meritorious suggestions on how to change our dysfunctional Congress and national political system. Unfortunately, Congress must agree to reform itself which is wholly unlikely. Short of slaughtering most of the sheep at the polls, we are left with perpetual gridlock, paralysis and inaction while the rest of the world passes us by. Representational Democracy has its merits but it cannot devolve into a perpetual debating society incapable of taking any actions, or only responding to the requests of the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations in the country.
Churchill is credited with making two ambivalent and conflicting comments: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter” and “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.” At the time he was comparing the European Parliamentary Democracies and the American Constitutional system to the many variations of totalitarian dictatorships that permeated the globe in the middle of the 20th Century under the guise of absolute monarchies, Marxist-Leninist communism, Nazi-style socialism, and other similar regimes wholly unaccountable to the people they governed.
Too many people have misused the second quote to enshrine our U.S. Constitution as superior over all other types of representational forms of government in addition to all the rest. Most of the founding fathers of the U.S. rejected the idea of direct democracy by the uneducated masses in favor of a more dispassionate representational Republic.
Churchill was a conservative within the British system that is significantly different from the American political system. He was not particularly concerned with specific economic or social policies as chosen by the people through their representatives within a democratic system. He was more concerned about the preservation of an educated free debate by elected representatives, astute political compromise, and the periodic accountability of all leadership to the will of the people that the United Kingdom and the United States had developed over a long time.
Most of the people in the world embrace the superior social and political value of a fully accountable freely-elected democratic system. However they do not embrace the rabid rugged individualism, and extreme gun-toting, anti-tax, anti-government, and unregulated free market capitalism worldview as espoused by the well-funded and uncompromising conservative element in the U.S. This simplistic, childishly militaristic, anti-social, radically amoral, and practically sociopathic ideas are laughable to most educated people on the planet.
Over the past 30 years, Republicans have shifted so far to the “right” and have become so frozen in their worldview that they have destroyed any national balance with respect to rational political and economic thought. What was once a middle-ground or moderate position on the political spectrum 30 to 50 years ago is now viewed as extremely liberal? Paranoid Conservatives have run out of sufficiently demonizing words to describe all other viewpoints in America.
This American Conservative mindset is frequently uncompromising and intolerant of different viewpoints. It has devolved into a religious dogma that partially reflects its many right-wing “Christian” members. To non-believers, it is a perversion and an anathema of the country’s long parallel and competing humanistic and more tolerant Judeo-Christian heritage. Strict, inflexible and blind adherence to this political-religious ideology over the past several decades has caused America’s global decline and continuing with such policies will likely lead to its final collapse.
No matter how loudly and frequently its adherents scream its worthless polemics and irrationally criticize all contrary viewpoints, it remains a discredited political and economic philosophy. It appeals to many ignorant, uneducated, frightened and angry Americans because it reduces the complexity of real life to some simple, yet false, ideas. But as religious dogma, it cannot admit any mistakes even if the facts and reality have completely discredited it.
As a result of extreme conservatives, our country’s political process has degenerated into a disturbing theological battle where there is no middle ground upon which compromise is possible. Any and all criticism of its ideology and policies generate angry denunciations and accusations of “anti-Americanism.” Short of a national civil divorce and complete separation of the warring camps, there is little possibility things will get better anytime soon.
Sadly we resemble some of our enemies in the Middle East – a region hopelessly divided, paralyzed and backwards due to extreme and uncompromising fundamentalist religious strife. Fortunately we have not fallen towards nihilistic, vengeful, violence and terrorism against each other as have some parts of the Moslem world. Only because of our long-standing democratic processes, our constitutionally-protected civil liberties with respect to freedom of speech, religion and thought, plus a grudging tolerance of dissent, have prevented us from falling further into chaos. But perpetually agreeing to disagree that the other side is the devil or an infidel with whom no compromise is possible, is not an adequate long-term solution for the U.S.
Another quote attributed to Churchill is “America can always be counted on to eventually do the right thing, after it has exhausted all other possibilities.” This is considered a hopeful and positive comment on our slow-moving, highly-divided political system back in the middle of the 20th Century. Historically it merely summed up the slow progress the Roosevelt Administration made in finally joining the War Effort against Germany and Japan by 1941. Churchill might rescind that statement if he could see America at the beginning of the 21st Century.
We have gone from trying a variety of different policies over the years to not doing anything of consequence for most of the past decade, except to march into 2 foreign wars at immense cost in human lives and public wealth. We are wholly incapable of having a sane debate with ourselves on any proposals from the right, left or middle. We as a people, and reflected in and by our elected officials, want no accountability for our actions. Some of us are so ideological, partisan, fearful, blindly emotional, uneducated, untrustworthy, self-centered and close-minded that we cannot make any meaningful decisions for our collective long-term best interests.
In January 2009, America came completely unhinged psychologically, politically, economically and socially. All signs point to this madhouse continuing in 2010 and for the next decade. This process began in the early 1990’s, built up steam after 2000, and completely went off the tracks by the start of last year.
The ubiquitous Internet, 24/7 mass media, countless numbers of well-funded and well-organized narrow interest groups, selfish narcissism permeating the souls of many Americans, an utter lack of empathy or concern for each other, a pervasive ignorance of history, economics and civics, extreme political and economic religiosity, and an unhealthy fear of the future and each other, all played major roles. We have become an endless cacophony of mindless vitriol, idiotic shouting matches, baseless accusations, grandstanding umbrage, blame-throwing, and overall superficiality in our national discourse.
Individual Americans and our various public and private institutions have embraced the chaos of direct democracy. The founder’s vision of a deliberate legislative branch set apart from the daily pressures and influences of money, badgering single-minded constituents and lobbying groups, and the perceived need to constantly please everyone, has been turned on its head.
Some commentators have suggested America is somewhere lost in the 1969 Kübler-Ross “Five stages of Grief.” These stages are (1) Denial, (2) Anger, (3) Bargaining, (4) Depression, and finally (5) Acceptance. All Americans are grieving various things, such as losses of innocence, power, wealth, jobs, security, prior happy delusions, discredited ideologies, and everything else that rapid global change has produced and for which we as citizens and our political system have not been able to rationally address. Americans are also scattered all over the 5 steps and moving at different speeds towards resolution and sanity. Many people around the world are rightfully distressed, angry, confused and concerned in watching the world’s lone superpower have a very public, dramatic and complete nervous breakdown.
President Obama – a cool, calm, reasonable, non-ideological, and very intelligent person – is the reluctant warden of this exceptionally unique national insane-asylum. The reason he can’t talk sense or lead anyone is because (1) in some parts of the asylum the inmates have taken over, (2) in a few parts the people are just too uneducated and stubbornly intractable, and (3) in the largest remaining part of the asylum the inmates are still freaking out in one of the 5 stages of grief and are not interested in having any rational, calm, dispassionate discussions with anyone. The sad reality of a population locked in grief and insanity, coupled with a bankrupt, corrupt, weak, and sheepish Congress, has the President completely constricted on anything he proposes. The recent Q&A sessions with members of both parties are only initial therapy sessions and are far from the difficult steps needed to get this country moving in any sane direction.
Whatever the numeric election results are in November 2010, neither Republicans nor Democrats can or will win anything of substance. The only winner will be unhinged insanity which completely reflects the American people today. We get the government we deserve. Real change only comes from within and it takes time.
Submitted by Marc Pascal, happily ranting from sunny Phoenix, AZ. This post and 3 prior TMV posts this week are variations on the overall theme of U.S. national decline.