If you’re at all like me and pretty worried about the neoconservatives in power in the States these days, you might be interested in this article about Colin Powell and the mechanics of real government.
We’ve seen the Melrose version of government portrayed by the entertainment media and we sort of take the Hollywood image for granted. We assume that it’s not that bad in real life. Or we suspect it is but we count on our leaders to be more mature than that. We believe that, at the end of the day, these larger-than-life heroes know better than us, are more grown up than us, and are far more qualified than us to Make The Right Decisions.
We see the Kennedy/Monroe thing and the Clinton/Lewinski thing as far outside the norm. Gross exceptions to the Rules. In BC we ended up with the Fast Cat ferry fiasco. In the States they’re almost finished Star Wars, an anti-missile system designed to intercept and destroy ICBMs. Umm… from where? And yet it’s getting rammed through by Rumsfeld-class (and era) mentality, and the media doesn’t seem too interested in more than $50 billion blowing away in the wind.
We forget that our (usually) duly elected leaders have seen the same movies and read the same books and struggled with the same social programming that we have.
You want your team to win. You want your ideas to get picked. You want to win the ribbon. You want everyone to think you’re the cool kid.
If you don’t like someone you will be disinclined to agree with them. If someone has rubbed you the wrong way or kicked your ass at cards or even attended the school that beat your school in the Big Game back in ’68… you will always lean a little towards disagreeing with that someone. If you are insecure you will resent the confidence in someone else. If you have failed you will resent their success. He’s more charming than you. She’s prettier than you. She’s worked here half as long as I have and she’s making more than me.
If all we’re talking about is what kind of pizza to order then so what. But when the same school-yard mentality is pulling the strings of the most technically advanced military force in history it’s a whole new ballgame.
The real danger of course is that these people each think they’re right. They think that the other guy is an incompetent boob who’s past his prime or too young to know better. Each one of these egomaniacs wants to kick ass and that’s how they got to their positions of power. And that same mentality of crush thy neighbour is now dictating foreign policy while digging trenches and burning bridges inside their own government and country. The worst is the guy at the top. He just wants to make a big splash for four years (or gods forbid- eight) and enjoy his notoriety after the fact. He’s going to walk away. He could care less about the long view. He’s like the parent with visitation rights once a month who spoils the kid rotten and lets the other parent deal with the wreckage. Adult enough to have a kid, but nowhere near adult enough to raise it.
The author of the article stresses the same fear I have- there are people in government who have never looked down the wrong end of a gun much less seen a buddy get blown to pieces by mortar fire, and these people are only too happy to throw the marines at anything that twitches the wrong way. What happened to “Lest We Forget”?
When England entered the first World War the troops marched off singing songs about the glory of War and what a fabulously smashing time they would have putting some Krauts back in their place and home in time for Christmas. No one had any clue about the magnitude of mortal horror human beings would inflict on one another for years, and then again only a few years later. Now we’re seeing the same cavalier attitude again and it makes you wonder why the hell we don’t just smack the Big Red Button and let the next dominant species sort it all out. Obviously we’re torturously slow to learn.
We’re only human. But that’s no excuse.