Four years, going on five of a constant refrain that goes something like this: we know with absolute certainty what we are doing, but it is too complicated for you to understand. Some people might be trying to call foul and make you think there is something we are wrong about, but those people are just ____. You should ignore those critics, those cynics, and just be patient; the thing we said was going to happen is happening--in fact it has already happened! The people out there, the people who control the filter, just haven't shown it to you. Just wait...or forget about it and LOOK OVER THERE!
Actually this is where the piece could be more reflective because there is a reason that the rhetoric and reality are only now beginning to part ways. What Lippmann refers to as the divide between "the world outside" and "the pictures in our heads;" what Galbraith, speaking of "conventional wisdom" called "the relations between events and the ideas that interpret them;" what Marxists have been calling the difference between ideology and material reality - each of them no longer depend on a clear connection with the everyday experience of people on the ground. In each of these theories there was an assumption, as Galbraith puts it,
"the enemy of conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events [. . . .] while the world moves on, the conventional wisdom is always in danger of obsolescence. This is not immediatly fatal. The fatal blow to conventional wisdom comes when the conventional ideas fail signally to deal with some contingency to which obsolescence has made them palapably inapplicable. This, sooner or later, must be the fate of ideas which have lost their relation to the world.
In some ways there is a charming faith here, a holdover from the progressive era, that says that people can see reality for what it is, unmediated. I am being reductive of course, but for the most part there is a belief that once people see things as they are, rather than as they thought they would be, things will change. But the fact is that few people have any access to the "reality" which the president talks about except through various mediators. The AP and their ilk--the fourth estate, as it were--are partially responsible for this misrepresentation of reality.
As are what communication effects scholars have called "opinion leaders" which we can recognize in the columnists and opinion leaders who also populate the media and interpret events for us, regardless of whether we've seen the "news" and the opinion leaders that we run into in church, in the workplace, and, now, on the internet, who help us selectively perceive and retain certain facts to keep our worldview stable. This is not just a top down process as we all participate in our own delusion: it keeps the cognitive dissonance to a minimum.
In other words, for many of us, Bush's rhetoric rarely matches the reality we are looking at. This is just the latest bungle in a series of boondoggles. The difference this time is that, unlike things like the economy and WMDs and Iraqi insurgents, the media is actually less able to play the role of mediator. Not because they aren't still selecting items for us, but because we KNOW what we're looking at. It doesn't take any careful study to see an absence of any leadership for five days, a descent into chaos, and no one in a high ranking level willing to do the two things we expect to see when something like this happens: no one is saying "Oh shit!" and no one is saying "Move your ass!" We didn't need anyone to explain that to us. And when people tried to "catapult the propaganda," as Bush has said, it just landed at our feet, stinking like the bullshit that it was. In this regard the story is right about what has happened in this instance on a public level, but that is not the Conventional Wisdom that has been challenged.
When leaders from the federal level did appear they seemed completely disconnected from any reality we'd been seeing. The echo chamber online was doing its level best to say that the problem was still the liberal media, out to get president bush, showing only the bad stuff, not blaming the black folks enough for the chaos. But the pres and Co. did not have this to fall back on, instead they tried to invoke the "cushion" that has insulated them from any blame for four years. This is where the conventional wisdom has been blown out of the water. (Or God help us it better have!)
The Conventional Wisdom is that being president is hard work and this guy is doing his best in the circumstances. To add to the line we've heard for four years, the moment before the statement above was made, something catastrophic has happened that is a holdover from a former time or is totally new and thus completely unpredicted. The way that the cusion works is that we are led to believe that it should inspire confidence that they now have a handle on things, even though yesterday something really bad happened for which they are not to blame.
Too abstract? Okay how about 9/11. Bush is not to blame even if he was informed about terrorist threats but didn't do much about it; even if he was on vacation for a full month beforehand; even if the only actions he had been taking was making bombing runs on Iraq and trying to figure out how to get in a conflict there; etc. this was unexpected and the last president didn't do enough to let him know about the problem or to fix it. It wasn't expected, he can't be blamed--but he's working with the situation on the ground now, he knows what's up, give him a chance and he'll fix the problem.
Iraq war--no WMDs? Well we didn't know, we were working with what we had--who could have predicted that he didn't have any! Even the last president thought they were there. Everyone thought they were there...
The same thing happened over and over again and every time we were supposed to believe it was just a litle bit worse than they thought or something unpredictable happened that threw the whole thing off kilter and it just went to shit.
And now, from the Mr. Burns over at homeland security we have this,
Defending the administration’s response, Chertoff said the double-barreled hit
taken by the New Orleans area — the hurricane, and the breaching of the city’s
levees — is what has complicated the government’s response. “We were prepared
for one catastrophe,” Chertoff said. “The second catastrophe, frankly, added a
level of challenge that no one has seen before.”
They really have a lot of nerve if they think it gets them in the clear. But why shouldn't they. It is the same strategy that they have used before and it has worked like a charm. Anyone who tries to criticize them is dismissed as crying sour grapes and being the politically motivated wolves their painted to be.
They did the best they could under the circumstances. This, evidently, is enough to get you re-elected in this country. Well fuck that.
If the conventional wisdom in this country has changed, if the reality really has burst through the rhetoric like those levees in New Orleans, the reality isn't that they are liars--though they may be that--it is that they are grossly incompetent and that is the message they have been telling us all along.
I can only imagine if I worked for someone and for four years straight almost every task I tried to accomplish was overcome with some unforseen event; if every time I came back and said, "gee, boss, I tried real hard but my intelligence was wrong...I didn't see that coming--but I am on the case now, trust me." I would be fired. I would be looking for work without a recommendation. And I would certainly not be given any more responsibility.
The last four years the fear has been ratcheted up beyond anything we've ever known and the promise made was, "we will protect you." That is why we've surrendered our freedoms and civil liberties; its why we've watched as we took on an elective, preemptive war; it is why we sat idly by as the president was given power to make these decisions without congressional approval. We will protect you.
As much as they claim to be promoting independence and freedom, this has been the message we were supposed to hear. And ultimately, whether it was protection from terrorists or married homosexuals, this administration vowed to protect this country.
Which is why this was such a disconnect from the rhetoric. It has already been pointed out that Bush cut his vacation short last year in order to fly into washington to stop one woman's feeding tube from being removed. That was ridiculous. But at least there was some hustle. For this, nothing. He plays the guitar while New Orleans drowns.
If you give a fuck about your citizens, you hustle. You don't make excuses and hedge your bets and wait and see; you don't blame the mayor of one town in the south because the Homeland security excuse of a Federal Emergency Management Agency, which you castrated two years ago because you don't believe in those sorts of hand outs, failed to respond for four days to a multistate catastrophe. You don't dish out platitudes and pablum and put on your shit eating grin and hope you can get by on that frat boy charm. People have died. We want to see repentance. We want to see tears of apology. We want begging for forgiveness. We want cupcakes and sno cones for every fucking kid on the gulf coast every day for a year served in their brand new schools with well trained teachers. We want admission that, perhaps, getting a blow job is less damaging to the office of the presidency than making excuses for standing by while a major city explodes into chaos, while people dehydrate, starve, run out of oxygen and insulin and still you stand by because someone else was supposed to be taking care of this. If that's the case--FIRE THEM ALL and get your ass in gear. You work for us motherfucker!
That is what should be happening. That is what we should see tomorrow morning. WE are in charge here. The state, the government answers to US. We don't need to stand for excuses and empty promises. If you aren't there to protect us, to organize the things that we can't do ourselves, then we don't need you...but that is exactly what you wanted us to think. Drown the federal government in a bathtub, eh, Norquist. Act completely incompetent until we come to realize that there are only a couple of things the state is good for and we can't even depend on you for that. Back to the wild west, to the glory days of brutal, no holds barred capitalism. Let the market decides who lives and who dies--you'll be safe on your ranches and in your mansions and on your private islands. Well news flash, assholes. I am a peaceful person most days, but before that happens, mark my words, there will be a Thermidor to your little conservative revolution. If the state goes down, you guys are going with it.
Hopefully it won't come to that. Some people are already seeing the misguided direction that this revolution has steered the country. It is a rare day that I agree with David Brooks, but for once I think he's right on:
Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of
the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are
entering an age of hardheaded law and order. (Rudy Giuliani, an unlikely G.O.P.
nominee a few months ago, could now win in a walk.) Maybe there will be call for
McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that
the political culture is about to undergo some big change.We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.
or maybe I just hope he is. Americans, you've already disappointed me once this week and several times this year: give me just a little satisfaction. Open up your windows...
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