Peter Greene writes that what makes America special is that we do things the hard way, not the easy way.
The hard way is democracy. The hard way is to discuss and debate and protect the voices of dissenters.
He writes:
“When it comes to running a country, the easiest way to do it is to put one guy in charge and let him tell everybody how to do everything. He can be picked by heredity or tradition or power or wealth; he can be installed by a committee of Important People, or by the roar of the crowd, or even a legitimate-ish election. But the important part– the easy part– is that once you have him installed, you just let him run everything. No debates. no discussions, no big arguments about What To Do Next– just let your Grand High Potentatial Poohbah decide it all…,
“We have always been annoyed by our own system. We’re irritated by the way it fosters unending debate on every little thing– even things that we thought were already decided. And good Lord in heaven– can’t the people who are Dead Wrong just shut up and go away? We waste time, energy, and money on processes that are inefficient and inconsistent. There’s hardly anything in this country that we don’t do the hard way, loaded with argument and controversy and inefficiency and ambiguity.
“On top of that, our peculiar brand of running a country ties all of our citizens together, so that people in one community have to worry about, be involved in, pay taxes to finance decisions in other communities. Gah! Can’t we just take care of our own and let those Others go hang? Having to be all tied together is just hard!
“And so we are always bedeviled by folks who want to get America to do things the easy way. And with the unleashing of Citizens United, many of our wealthy citizens are doing their best to move us to an easier system, a system where the people who are Better just go ahead and settle issues for the rest of us. Also, why shouldn’t I be able to just close the doors on my gated community, pay for my own police and fire company, and just not have to give a cent to those Other People?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Infinite diversity in infinite combinations! Star Trek had it right. Democracy is messy, slow & maddeningly difficult to comprehend, it is also the best system in the world.
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In the 1970’s, as the popular rebellions of the previous decades were dying down but still haunting the Overclass, Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard prof and prominent national security hawk during the Vietnam and Cold War, co-authored a study for The Trilateral Commission entitled “The Crisis of Democracy,” in which elite fears and distrust of democracy led to the following bureau/technocratic aphorism: “An excess of democracy leads to a deficit in governability.”
Ponder that one for a moment, and the assumptions behind it, and I think you’ll see that mindset everywhere around us.
For Huntington and his patrons, and those who’ve followed, democracy is to be penned in, the way demonstrators are isolated and corralled in “free speech zones” when they attempt to protest, a perfunctory ritual grudgingly permitted by the Overclass and their militarized, Praetorian law enforcement agencies. They have sought to assume ever-greater power at the expense of citizens and workers, and so-called education reform is an integral expression of that. it’s one reason why both legacy political parties believe in it and implement it, whatever other disagreements they have. They only differ in that the Republicans want to destroy the teacher unions immediately, while the Democrats want to leech campaign cash from them a little longer.
It’s no accident that the hostile takeover of public education under the guise of so-called education reform demands the destruction of local, democratic control of the schools; destabilization and destruction of public schools, along with and inseparable from charterization, are most advanced where democratic control of the schools has been usurped.
We need to reverse the dynamic that was being ushered in when Huntington wrote those words, restoring direct democratic action and redefining the “governability” of a system increasingly focused solely on increasing the wealth and power of a heedless Overclass that seeks to enrich itself by cannibalizing the Commons and the Public Good.
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“The Coliseum”
What’s easy for elites
Is difficult for rest
Cuz we perform the feats
And they enjoy the fest
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Excellent commentary as usual.
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Our system is a perfect, imperfect system of government. Our founding fathers created an intricate system of checks and balances to ensure that no one branch of government prevails. In theory it is a government of, by and for the people. What our founding fathers could not have foreseen is the introduction of copious amount of money throwing a monkey wrench into the perfect design allowing the few to dominate the many. We have got to work to limit the money in politics; the Danes have successfully accomplished this. It has resulted in one of the highest voting rates in the world because the people know their vote counts.
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I think WWII required a collaborative effort never before seen in America. Industrialists were required to build weapons for soldiers. Doctors treated those from the front lines. People served along side each other. After the war, a future captain of industry or state politician would have likely known a mill worker or shop owner. If July 4th was our independence, 1941 was our maturity. But that spirit is lost. Now, the 1%ers look down with scorn on working Americans. The elite believe their wealth (quite a bit inherited) is an entitlement over those they see as expendable and inferior. The Greatest Generation has yielded to the Greediest Generation. The “I’ve got mine” mentality is only eclipsed by those now benefiting from socialized government screaming “Less government! (… just not MY government)”. Those that have the most, seem to spew the most hysteria over tyranny, “takers”, and hardship. Whether Donald Trump ranting about immigrants, Tom Perkins suggesting more wealth means more votes, or just about anything out of the current Republican candidates’ mouths. The most perplexing thing, is voters keep letting this happen. Why?
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A message I sent to all my e mail friends. Some of you may find it interesting.
My message for Independence day. No better time than now to review our own Declaration of Independence to see what the makers of this document wished. Today on the Diane Rehm show a professor read it, explained many parts of it. As she said, ONLY with citizen involvement can democracy exist. Thus my following thoughts which I hope you will read and think deeply about.
Use it or lose it. If you wish democracy to exist, educate yourself and then write, call your political representatives, vote. Without that, democracy does not exist, cannot exist.
As an educator it seems imperative to try to continue educating. The following are my ideas. My hope is that all of you will read them. I have NOT made any political statements, only basic ideas for you to consider in making your decisions.
The most basic, critical consideration is “where does one find TRUTH”. Humankind’s best minds have struggled with this for centuries and my short work here could not begin to adequately address it. BUT
Some people find truth in religion; Bible, Koran, Talmud, whatever. Some in political parties: Republican, Democratic, Independents. Some in science or in some philosophical belief. Some views involve narrow parameters labeled Conservative, Liberal. etc.
Allowing such strictured compartmentalization too often leads to “I have the truth, ergo, you do not. Around the world one sees the results of such labeling. An ethnic, religious or other group once so categorized can easily be vilified. History is replete with examples of this and the horrific consequences following that
As an educator, it is my belief that the best indicator we have is that which unbiased, scholarly, in depth research by qualified scholars findings as vindicated by other unbiased etc scholars tell us, verifiable facts.
A good example of this is science itself. In depth, unbiased research scholarly approach is used. Science and scholarly research allows for ever expanding understandings, not static, – now I have found final truth, no need to go further. Aristotle developed ideas based on what knowledge was available to him. Galileo found deeper understandings. Others followed. Einstein opened entirely new understandings but even he was followed by the Scandinavian school. But, science itself is bound by the study depicting existence only on physical terms. Love, poetry, beauty etc is not included, in fact by looking at these kinds of ideas as objects, in scientific terms can destroy the essence of love, beauty etc. Only when you go to a medical doctor will most people wish to be defined as an object. Otherwise, I know of no one who wishes to be considered an “it”, an object, whatever.
Education, truth is a never ending search. Education is a process, not a destination in which one is ever “educated”.
Research can be tricky. Unbiased is a major key. Tobacco research interests promoted their views. Today corporate media promotes corporate agenda. Corporate TV allows for 10 or 15 second sound bites allowing a distorted opinionated view on very complex subjects.
Thus, likewise in my view, we need an open mind, searching for those elusive truths. It is imperative to view as many different perspectives as possible to educate ourselves. My favorite is the Diane Rehm show on NPR. She devotes her 1 hour show, Monday through Thursday to one major item. She has intelligent, some of the best informed people, usually 2 to 4 people presenting disparate viewpoints. She has a very incisive mind asking very intelligent questions and demanding an answer from ALL sides. These are not debates but merely discussions presenting well thought out, intelligent views on all sides of the question. Many, most of you will not be able to hear her but that is the kind of open mindedness to which I refer.
Also, I would add Booktv which appears on C-span on Saturdays and Sundays devoting itself to non fiction. Scholars studying material for many years write their books based on their findings. Liberal, Conservative, all kinds of authors on all kinds of subjects. If you go to booktv.org you can find past broadcasts. I have learned so very much from these. Some authors are better than others but over time you will be able to discriminate. Just because someone writes a book does not ipso facto make their views worthy of a lot of time devoted to examining their views. A Chinese saying: one does not have to eat the whole egg to find out it is rotten. Just keep an open mind. Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of wheat.
With the elections coming up and ALL the one-sidedness often based on important but more superficial issues while the fundamental issues are side stepped. This gives a distorted image of the people running for office. Also I would say look at their history on issues. Bernie Sanders with liberal views, many Republicans with conservative views have proclaimed the same views over the last decade or so. Others equivocate, watch which way the political wind is blowing and/or say what they believe will get them elected. That is the kind of history to which I refer.
Some politicians are abysmally ignorant. I cannot believe that people elected them but they did and we suffer the consequences.
Where I began, if you are concerned about the world which our children inherit it is essential you find the time and exert the effort to dig beyond superficialities promoted by politicians of all stripes. Educate yourself beginning now and then vote, get involved, write your political representatives. Please do not limit yourself to just Fox or MSNBC which promote views on just one side of issues. You may think that they are the end all. I would strongly disagree
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Beautiful essay!
“As an educator, it is my belief that the best indicator we have is that which unbiased, scholarly, in depth research by qualified scholars findings as vindicated by other unbiased etc scholars tell us, verifiable facts.”
Scholarship and cognitive elitism and acumen are no longer in when it comes to so much policy. It’s not about the ability to critically think with multiple intelligences as much as it is about the ability to protect the power structure to keep people in their place, high, low, and in between.
Spiro Agnew once declared, “We don’t need a nation of intellectuals!”
We have a secretary of education who was a basketball jock in Australia. He does not have a degree in education. He does not even have a Masters degree. We did have Kathy Black, a senior editor of various glamorous Conde Naste magazines, as chancellor of schools in New York City. Bill Gates did not complete college at all.
But you are right again when you said that democracy cannot exist without the participation of the citizenry. THIS is one of the hardest lessons for the average passive, facebooking, mall shopping, cable TV watching, refined sugar slopping, car driving American to learn, but he/she is slowly but surely finding out that passivity, individualism, and lack of well rounded information are not working. I would posit that the last item is the hardest one to overcome.
When for many years the tall strapping moose has been tethered to a fence in the desert with little water and is then set free to be in his best environment, he does not know better to drink from the lush pond in the forest and avoids it, thinking it does not exist. This is the exact metaphor I use for people who have so much excellent information around them and just don’t know that it exists or how to use it. And they are so limited in their mindset that when they even hear (mind you, not god forbid READ!) about some news from a breath of fresh air, they don’t process it well because they can’t critically think and connect vital dots that explain their misery and suffering. Hence, people – poor and working class – end up voting against their own interests because big mommy and daddy corporate media outlets portray a politician this way or that way when all along, the voting record can be researched and digested objectively. There are even many, many educated people who behave this way also when it comes to making a decision about who to vote for. This uninformed and under-informed mindset is not limited to people without higher education by any far stretch of the imagination.
How many people, for example, REALLY know what ALEC is and what it signifies?
Dumb is as dumb does as dumb thinks, but one must have empathy and sympathy towards the American people, not judge them. One must always relentlessly educate them both inside and OUTSIDE the schools.
Only then do we all have a better shot at keeping our democracy alive and healthy.
Eleanor Roosevelt said that government is not “them and us”; it is “we” when we get involved and participate . . .
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Peter, I’d change that “people who are better” in the last paragraph to “people who are richer”…
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Cross posted to Peter’s site
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-The-Hard-W-in-Best_Web_OpEds-America_Argument_Citizens_Community-150704-300.html
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I doubt that the underlying forces that move the US are based on democracy. In the name of taking care of the economy (whatever that means), politicians, businessmen always choose efficiency over democracy. Democracy in this country is pretty much a fiction, isn’t it?
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wierdlmate, the public can choose to be governors of the republic or handmaidens of corporate power. The latter has the money to buy TV ads to persuade people to vote against their own interests. Grassroots organizing can defeat corporate power. Defeatism is what corporate power hopes for. Democracy works if we make it work. When educators don’t vote, when voting rates are low, we abandon democracy. It is ours for the having.
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But we do have to have valid candidates to vote for. These past several presidential elections have indicated that monied interests are really dictating who gets nominated in the first place. Americans have to vote for a candidate who WILL change the campaign finance reform laws to restore democratic balance.
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bernie sanders is what you are asking for.
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Diane writes “Defeatism is what corporate power hopes for.”
I didn’t mean to express defeat of the people. Democracy, on the other hand, is barely breathing. I think this is a more realistic description of the state of affairs than what I felt Greene has described in the article.
In my opinion, what makes things difficult is that the goals of capitalism are quite contradictory to the goals of democracy, and nowhere is capitalism as strong, as freely roaming as here. Bernie Sanders’ gaining momentum in the polls may indicate that people start waking up. The question is how far they are willing to open up their eyes, and how much they still want to stay in bed continue dreaming their traditional American dream.
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People like efficient government, until it efficiently dismantles something they care about.
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like….
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Reblogged this on Creative Delaware and commented:
I love this! The American Way is the hard way! So we ALL need to get involve and fight for what we believe in!
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