Jim Grisanzio

Strong leaders and effective organizations derive their power largely from being highly focused. They narrow and concentrate their efforts. But they also depend on their enemies being completely atomized. So, instead, focus to create power. Fight back. See Gene Sharp and Ralph Nader.

Be afraid, Americans, be very afraid. It’s all about fear. We are on our own.

Can’t help but think that bad stuff is going on out there …

Some reporters are perfectly transparent …

Fascinating that Ron Paul is considered “dangerous” out there. Dangerous to who?

Iowa: The Meaningless Sideshow Begins, Matt Taibbi. This piece is not only about Iowa. It’s about the entire American election, which runs on cash and access and not on ideas or any well defined processes of the Republic. It’s really an excellent article. But for even more documentation that Taibbi is correct, see The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Politics from Tom Ferguson at the University of Massachusetts. Politicians are skilled rhetoricians and their propaganda resonates pretty well among the general population, but all their messaging and hand-shaking in the world only counts for a paper thin veneer of a meta marketing campaign. It’s the spin. The suggestion that you count. That you matter. Well, you don’t. The only people who count in this process are the people who can afford to simply buy the politicians outright and have them implement policies that rarely support your interests. There are (a few) exceptions, of course, but the rule is clear. If you think otherwise, read Taibbi’s articles and watch Ferguson’s film. The entrenchment is nearly complete.

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We ask our soldiers to fight on our behalf. They risk their lives. They get hurt. They die. And when the survivors return home? Well, for far too many of them there is no home. Puts patriotism in perspective.

“Another lie that the American people believe is that presidential elections bring about regime change. This is sheer nonsense. The Obama state is the Bush state. The Bush state was the Clinton state. The Clinton state was the Bush state. The Bush state was the Reagan state. We can trace back and back in time and see the overlapping appointments, bureaucrats, technicians, diplomats, Fed officials, financial elites, and so forth. Rotation in office occurs not because of elections but because of mortality.” Lew Rockwell, The Fascist American State. Rockwell is certainly correct about the changes that simply do not occur between presidents. The other parts of his talk about the American slide into Fascism resonate clearly as well. It’s a disturbing speech but one I find painfully difficult to argue with. But at least it’s a good thing people are paying attention, right? Right.

It’s always amazing when American politicians — in a desperate effort to sell their endless wars — preach that we should support the troops when they do exactly the opposite. The people support the troops. Always have. The politicians don’t. We’re not fooled. See Gary Null: U.S. Government to Gulf War Vets: Drop Dead!

Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, does a bit of analysis of President Obama: What Happened to Obama? Good column. Worth a read.

Westen outlines the failure of Obama to express any reasonable narrative from the moment he took office, whereas the president seemed pretty articulate during the campaign as a candidate, right? Hope. Change. Community. Grassroots. Rebuilding. Civil Rights. Granted, it was all bullshit, but that’s not important. The important thing is that it all basically hung together at least enough to sell millions of people to vote for him over the other guy. That’s my view, anyway, but back to Westen, who argues that Obama should have used that momentum from the campaign to then go after the people who caused the problems in the first place, like Roosevelt did, instead of putting the bad guys even more in charge of the economy. But here I think Obama’s actions are easily understood: Wall Street put Obama into office (#1 source of funding) so Obama’s putting them in charge makes perfect sense politically. You reward the source of your cash or that source dries up. Next Obama may have become too centrist, Westen says, or another possibility is that Obama is just not up for the job and his supporters simply missed his lack of experience. I think that last point is obvious (and Hillary was absolutely correct on the point as well).

Although I don’t agree with some of Westen’s comments on why Obama went wrong, I do agree entirely about why Obama’s rhetoric fails. Westen: “When he wants to be, the president is a brilliant and moving speaker, but his stories virtually always lack one element: the villain who caused the problem, who is always left out, described in impersonal terms, or described in passive voice, as if the cause of others’ misery has no agency and hence no culpability. Whether that reflects his aversion to conflict, an aversion to conflict with potential campaign donors that today cripples both parties’ ability to govern and threatens our democracy, or both, is unclear.”

Jackpot. Imagine Alinksy missing this point? Never! Imagine Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, or Clinton with no villains? Can’t do it. They all had and used villains to a great degree throughout their stories. Heck, all those guys were villains themselves so they certainly understood the rhetorical value of demonetization. It’s used to focus attention on your point and to distract attention from your opponent’s point. Or, to cite some positive examples, consider King and Gandhi. When you read those guys you know quite clearly who’s good and who’s bad. So, how could Obama possibly have no clear, strong, personal villains grounding his rhetoric?

Here’s an excellent talk from Bobby Kennedy Jr at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. He really goes after coal primarily but also nuclear and oil as well. These are extremely expensive, inefficient, and dirty technologies. And they are heavily subsidized and far too dumb from a technological and social perspective to meet the needs of the human population in the future. Our health and survival depends of power technologies being sustainable and Kennedy cites the smart alternatives emerging in the marketplace. He’s a bit of an Obama partisan for my taste but you have to consider his political roots. However, given the content he’s pitching — which is solid — it’s clear he’s already way beyond the intellectual capability of most American politicians. So, in that sense his partisanship, although bothersome, is largely meaningless. It’s also quite a kick watching him so effortlessly gut the propaganda of the industry, which, unfortunately pervades the mainstream media in the United States. It’s a talk well worth a listen. Or two.

I’m not much of a Maggie fan but I love that she won’t be used as a prop for Sarah Palin: “One Thatcher ally told the Guardian: ‘Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.’ Great quote. See: Sarah Palin snub by Margaret Thatcher aides infuriates US rightwing and The Revisionist Ride of Paul Revere.

Image: Tokyo, Japan, 2011

Here are two interesting videos of Saul Alinsky engaging some potential activists in the last 1960s:

Encounter with Saul Alinsky – Part 1: CYC Toronto
Encounter with Saul Alinsky – Part 2: Rama Indian Reserve

He called them “community organizers” back then but I think it’s clear from his instructions he’s really recruiting agitators to fan whatever flames they can find. This is Alinksy. It’s war. I’ve said before that I felt Alinsky was little more than a gangster exploiting others to grab power for himself and I haven’t changed my opinion recently. I wouldn’t have liked the guy had I met him. But I study him and recognize his tactics can be valuable in some limited and extreme circumstances. But be careful with his stuff, though. If you fully embrace Alinsky and implement his Rules for Radicals in detail you will only become the power you attack. Then someone will have to organize against you! Just look at most politicians for that lesson. They start out humbly building “community” at the “grass-roots” to help people and instead end up constructing an empire for themselves on the backs of those very people they claim to champion. That’s politics. Or war by other means. The best part of reading Alinsky (or Machiavelli) is that you can more easily understand attacks against you and can spot those organizers building merely to exploit. I wouldn’t respond to Alinksy with Alinksy, too. That can get messy. I’d use Sun Tzu. I tag Alinsky here.

Image: Tokyo, Japan, 2008

All presidents go off script occasionally and force their staff members to spin things back on track. Many times those moments provide some humor as the emperors expose themselves as mere humans. But other times going off script reveals more serious positions that can be jarring at best. That’s how I view Obama’s recent comments declaring Bradley Manning guilty before any trial has taken place. Jarring. It’s especially disconcerting given how aggressive the president’s supporters are in pitching just how much smarter he is than the rest of us and that he’s a lawyer and law professor on top of being smarter than us. If he were so smart he certainly wouldn’t have said something so legally inappropriate so I don’t buy the brains bit. And while most people will pass off his little declaration as simply an unfortunate lapse of judgment in an informal setting I don’t buy that either. I think the statements could reflect his true feelings about the situation since they are consistent with how his administration has been treating Manning. That’s the scary part. That’s why when leaders veer from their prepared messages we should pay attention.

This trend of the Left and the Right collaborating on issues of fiscal/monetary policy, foreign/military policy, and civil rights is interesting. Watch it closely going into the 2012 presidential election. Add health care to that Left/Right connection (which has not really happened yet), and things could get scary for the mainstream — especially since Obama has turned out to be nothing more than a 3rd Bush term. See Ralph Nader and Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, Andrew Napolitano and Ralph Nader, and parts of the right wing Tea Party with left wing civil libertarians on the Patriot Act.

I realize mainstream Republicans and Democrats do not fear the people at the links above and push them to the edge in their respective parties. But the problem with that strategy is that many issues the edge articulates happen to be gigantic and affect the vast majority of the country. So, the issues themselves are actually quite mainstream. And the fact that they have to be driven from the edge in both parties demonstrates only that the big politicians we all know and love are totally out of touch or just working for someone else. Also, the privileged elites are not affected by any of this since there are special rules protecting them and their administrators in government. So we can not expect much change from them. For them life is good. No need to change.

Will that situation last forever, though? Have the people — who actually support all this — had enough? Probably not yet. But when small blocks of the center in both parties start breaking Left or Right they may find common ground with each other. And that would be dangerous for Democrats and Republicans holding power since they could find their old parties gutted to the point of rapid collapse. How wonderful that would be, eh?

Most important, though: who will organize this nascent Left/Right connection?

I was watching The Trials of Henry Kissinger recently, which is based on the book by Christopher Hitchens. Kissinger was the National Security Adviser and Secretary of State for Presidents Nixon and Ford. He was also a Ph.D., a warmonger, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Interesting combination. He’s very rich these days and well known in global national security circles. And he’s actually still respected by some people but despised by many others. For the historically inclined, the documentary about his life is deeply intense as it explains his aggressive deeds over the decades. At best he was a horrible man. One hopes he’ll get his due some day and end up in jail. He’s very old, though, so I somehow doubt that justice will be done. Perhaps he’ll get it in the afterlife, who knows.

Nevertheless, when watching this depressing (but important) program you’ll hear one bit of humor that had me jumping out of my seat in laughter. It comes very early on, actually, at around the 8:15 minute mark in a clip with Alexander Haig, who was Secretary of State in the first Reagan term. Haig, who was as articulate as a rabid wild dog, was asked about Christopher Hitchens and the old general damn near popped an artery. He was visibly shaken. He just couldn’t contain himself as he squirmed around in his chair. And then he blurts out this gem about Hitchens: “He’s a sewer pipe … sucker … he sucks the sewer pipe!” And then he nods. Yeah, you told him, Al.

Sucking on a sewer pipe. That’s great. That certainly makes my list of top 10 quotes of all time. The best quotes are from Nixon, by the way. Kissinger’s buddy.

Robert Scheer at TruthDig didn’t like Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address very much (here, here, here). I didn’t, either. Surprise. Scheer’s column is excellent for pointing out what Obama simply forgot to mention in his prime time television show. To me the speech was typical presidential pablum any administrator and a staff of writers could have crafted. Read 20 or 30 State of the Union speeches back to back and you’ll see they are largely the same speech puked up over and over again for us to shove down our throats. Yum. The details may change here and there over time, but the themes are pretty much the same. There are many bits to poke at (as always) in this latest version of the State of the Union, but I’ll just pick two that jump off the page to me (I couldn’t stomach watching him — yet again — so I just read the text from the White House website):

One: “Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail. (Applause.) This could allow you to go places in half the time it takes to travel by car. For some trips, it will be faster than flying –- without the pat-down. (Laughter and applause.)” First, note that our leaders boldly and publicly laugh and applaud at sexual assault (enhanced pat-downs) and cancer (naked body x-ray scanners). Of course, they don’t have to endure either procedure, so I suppose it’s perfectly natural in their narrow little minds to just laugh at us. I mean, after all, who the hell are we, right? Irrelevant. That’s who we are. Second, if you believe you won’t get groped and/or irradiated at the new American bullet train stations in the future than you are as stupid as Obama thinks you are.

Two: “Over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change. (Applause.)” First, would those be the same pile of lobbyists you hired when you took office? Or are they different ones? Second, so those lobbyists just rigged the tax code all by themselves, eh? Nifty trick. I thought it was you and Congress who were responsible for writing the tax code that the government implements. What, did you guys just leave the damn document open for anyone to walk in and write whatever they want? Do you think we are that stupid, Barak? Don’t answer that. You’ll just laugh, I’m sure. But we all know you guys are responsible for the mess. And if you can’t do something as brain dead easy as shutting out the damn lobbyists then you should be replaced. You are simply not up to the job (just like the guys who went before you).

I also love the “21st century government that’s open and competent” reference, too. That’s rich

Steve Kroft at 60 Minutes interviewed Julian Assange of WikiLeaks on Sunday. If you didn’t see it you didn’t miss much, but you can see the transcript and multiple video clips here.

Assange looks perfectly confident in his positions throughout the main program, including the little web extras 60 Minutes provides. Kroft, however, seems totally unprepared to handle Assange, which isn’t surprising given the distinctions in their backgrounds and also what they both currently do for a living. So, as a result Kroft comes off looking like he’s simply supporting the government rather than telling an interesting story of a fellow reporter’s experiences or even exploring the ramifications of the information being released. Also, Kroft doesn’t handle several exchanges very well at all. When he tries to challenge Assange about what happens if the government let’s WikiLeaks get away with publishing this material he only trips himself up when he realizes that they are actually talking about free speech. So, if the government successfully shuts down WikiLeaks then all publishers will be affected — including the mainstream media, of which 60 Minutes is one of the biggest components. It’s surprising how awkward Kroft looks walking into his own trap.

Kroft also doesn’t seem to think there’s any problem at all with extremists in the U.S. calling openly for the death of Assange, as he passes off this rhetoric saying, “Well as you know, we have a First Amendment and people can say whatever they want, including politicians.” That’s perfectly pathetic, Steve. But for me the biggest shocker of all comes when Kroft asks Assange if he was surprised by the reaction of the government, and Assange answers yes. Then Kroft follows quickly with this: “But you were screwing with the forces of nature. You have made some of the most powerful people in the world your enemies.” Really Steve? It’s so nice to know that one of the most respected journalists in the United States feels that the U.S. government is the “force of nature” and, presumably, that we should all be afraid of those “most powerful” people who have such control over our lives. I mean, you don’t “screw” with mother nature, after all, right? My goodness. I can’t believe Kroft allows that bit to air in this program. He tapes more than six hours of footage, and he let’s us see that quote? Amazing. Does he not realize that quote compromises his own credibility as a reporter?

In general, from a WikiLeaks content perspective the interview was not very interesting because 60 Minutes largely ignores the substance of leaks themselves and instead focuses on Assange. Don’t get me wrong, Assange is an interesting character but not nearly as important as what all those documents reveal. Anyway, that’s what jumps out at me about the interview. For more, see David Swanson. Also, Democracy Now and Glenn Greenwald (just to name two obvious and prolific sources) do a much better job at telling this story because they cover Assange, the content of the documents being released, and the larger context of the reactions from the government and the media. 60 Minutes doesn’t even come close.

I was looking forward to opting out of Obama’s fancy new cancer scanners at SFO, but for some reason they sent me through the old clunky metal detector instead. I set the darn thing off and had to go back through again. Success! I was clean! Then after I put on my shoes and jacket and strapped on my belt and collected all my crap, I sat and watched for 20 minutes dozens of people quietly walking through the naked body x-ray machines — legs spread, arms and hands held high. No one opted out. Not a single person. Remarkable.

Allan Nairn makes an excellent point in this interview on Democracy Now. The context is paying reparations now to societies your country exploited in the past. People in the present, however, complain they did not take part in past exploitations so why should they pay today? Good point. But then why should people today continue to benefit from the spoils of past exploitations (and by extension why should those exploited in the past continue to suffer today)? Those who exploit pass along big benefits — an inheritance, basically — to future generations, and oftentimes the exploitation becomes institutionalized and continues right to the present. So, to be consistent, shouldn’t we pay reparations or give up our inheritance? That, too, makes sense. But the comeback generally this: if we pay reparations for past sins that is an attempt to make outcomes equal, whereas we should be supporting equal opportunities.

To which Nairn responds:

“I tell you, the poor of the world would be thrilled to settle for just equality of opportunity. Forget equality of result. If you really had a regime of equality of opportunity, that would mean all children start from the same place. They all start with nutritious food, with clean water, with free schooling, with a safe home, etc., and then, let the chips fall where they may, run the race. But that is so far from what we have now in the world. It’s obvious. It’s obvious to everyone. In order to achieve that equality of opportunity and in order to be evenhanded in applying the principle of what to do about the theft and the inheritance accumulated by our forefathers, you would need massive reparations, a massive flow of money from the rich world to places like Haiti, to places like Afghanistan. And that’s just through applying consensus principles that everyone accepts.”

Good point.

Also, the discussion about future drone attacks in US cities is sobering as well. Watch the video or read the transcript.

Barak Obama continues to take the United States down the road toward more secrecy, more insecurity, and more fear. He’s got it all exactly backwards. He’s a prettier package, granted, but he’s basically embracing and extending Bush. The point was to change direction. Remember? Not accelerate in the direction of the cliff. Glenn Greenwald states the obvious quite correctly: “This is all supposed to be the other way around: it’s government officials who are supposed to operate out in the open, while ordinary citizens are entitled to privacy.” That’s a charming thought in light of the latest Washington Post investigative report probing how the U.S. government is spying on American citizens. I know, all this is supposed to keep us safe from the terrorists. Got it. Read the series in the Washington Post and decide for yourself. Watch out for Top Secret America coming to PBS Frontline in January. And do not forget your government is watching, too. They are watching you, that is. Yeah, it will be ok. I mean, really, we are not doing anything wrong so what do we have to fear. Right? It’s the terrorists they are after.

Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, uttered the best set of quotes of all the sorted characters involved in the recent Cablegate mess in Washington. Here are the best bits:

“Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments — some governments — deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.”

Well, now that’s an interesting communications strategy, eh? Actually, the strategy makes perfect sense when you have all the power to dictate your desired outcomes. But the message is quite different from that being pushed by others in the Obama Administration and especially by Hillary Clinton, who is reacting much more like how Gates reacted the last time around. Is this all planned? Whatever. I just think the quotes are remarkably revealing — especially the “indispensable nation” thing. I also wonder how reactions from the Administration will evolve over time. They always do.

In February 2009 I wrote about Obama and his background in community organizing. At the time I thought his history in community development sounded interesting given he had become president. I wondered if he would bring any of that organizing experience from Chicago to Washington. Now, community organizers do not generally rise to powerful positions in American society, but in this case we now had a president who used to be a community organizer, a guy associated with Alinksy and all that so-called radical stuff. Could be interesting, right? Well, no. As it turns out, Obama seems to have dumped the community and gone mainstream. He became the power he once organized against. In my own terms, he turned out to be just another pol. Personally, I doubt he’ll get a second term given the state of the economy but who knows. Presidents are notoriously tough characters to rip from power.

Yet there are some interesting articles coming out with advice about how Obama can turn it all around by getting back to his roots in the community (after all, look at what the Tea Party just did, right?). See “What Obama 2010 Can Learn From Obama 2008” and “How Obama lost his voice, and how he can get it back.” I find these articles somewhat odd under the present circumstances, though. It’s well known that Obama’s key source of funding was Wall Street (here, here), and his actions during the campaign and immediately after getting elected were hardly consistent with his rhetoric of change on any number of issues. Even if he did change direction and reorganize the community to get elected in 2012, what makes anyone believe he would keep the community around for his second term? And what would that community do in his second term? Perhaps as his team prepares for the election we’ll get a clue about how they plan to reconstitute the community. My gut tells me they may end up taking a more traditional approach in the next campaign. Should be an interesting bit to watch.

But much of this is not really new. When the Newt Gingrich Republicans took over the House of Representatives in the mid-1990s, they offered all sorts of promise to change things. And they, too, did a lot of grass-roots community organizing. Yet when they got to Washington they pretty much went mainstream. Then came the Democrats storming back in 2006 and then even bigger in 2008. Result? They quickly blended back into the Washington power elite. Then we got the Tea Parties this time around in 2010, but I bet that crew merges back into Washington as well. The reason for this trend is simple: communities are no longer needed after elections. The candidates won. The job is done. They got the vote out. The only thing that matters for post-election operations is the financial influence from small groups of concentrated power — not individual donations raised on the Internet or from community organizing activities.

So, sadly, what the last few elections may demonstrate about community organizing in politics is that there were many honest, hard working, and innovative activists (here, here) from multiple political perspectives driving grass-roots campaigns that ended up benefiting politicians who did nothing to support or lead their communities after getting elected. The organizers thought, genuinely, they were building communities to drive change and that they would have a stake in the outcome long term. But in reality the political establishment simply needed a temporary community to provide marketing and communications support during the election. They needed a story to sell, basically, not a community to manage. The Obama community was supposed to be different. It wasn’t. And the Tea Party is only the latest instantiation of this process (here, here). I doubt it will be different either.

What to do about this? Simple. Stop organizing for politicians. Instead, organize to solve problems for people at the community level — from the bottom up, not the top down. Most successful communities do this anyway. Organize to create communities that are self-sustaining and do not need a God-like central figure as a temporary leader. There are exceptions, of course, but even people like Gandhi and King recognized the value of distributed and active leadership to maintain communities over long periods of time. The visible leaders wouldn’t even be possible without everyone else doing the work (those are the real leaders, actually). Or organize to pressure politicians to implement various policies, if you are so inclined, but the point is to stop organizing for politicians. It’s a waste of valuable time and resources. See Grace Lee Boggs: “We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for.”

For Bill on Lawmaker Trading, Delay Is Long and Short of It: Wall Street Journal: “The legislation, by Democratic Reps. Brian Baird of Washington and Louise Slaughter of New York, would prohibit lawmakers from trading in financial markets based on nonpublic information they learn on the job. It would also require them to make their financial transactions public within 90 days of a purchase or sale. Currently, those disclosures are filed once a year, and insider-trading laws generally do not apply to lawmakers, leaving them free to trade on nonpublic information.”

Insider-trading laws generally do not apply to lawmakers? Did I get that quote right? Ok, let’s see, if I’m privy to insider information and trade big based on that information and make a boat load of cash in the process then I go to jail. Period. Seems fair enough. I’d be breaking the law, after all, right? But if our brave leaders in Congress do the exact same thing they get to skip the jail part and just go straight to getting rich — no questions asked. What a kick. In the stomach, that is. More info here and here. Go gag on it.

TSA uproar moves to Capitol Hill: As part of a Congressional briefing, the TSA does a demo of their fancy new pat-down procedures deep in the basement of the Capitol. The reaction? From The Politico: “The dumbest part: they did two pat-down demonstrations – male on male, and female on female,” the House staffer said. And they used a young female TSA volunteer “and in front of a room of 200 people, they touched her breasts and her buttocks. People were averting their eyes. The TSA was trying to demonstrate ‘this is not so bad,’ but it made people so uncomfortable to watch, that people were averting their eyes.”

Averting their eyes? They couldn’t even look? How utterly brave of them. And these are the guys who talk tough about sending us to one never-ending war after another. I wonder what would happen if American leaders were subjected to the exact same laws everyone else has to endure. I doubt they could take it. They are simply too weak.

Nice analysis from Noam Chomsky on the 2010 U.S. mid-term elections a few weeks ago: Outrage, Misguided. He states the obvious: people are royally pissed, they have every right to be, both parties are to blame, and the mess is three decades in the making. But there is something we can do about it — organize. Get active. Lead. He has spoken about these concepts repeatedly over the years. Just search YouTube for his talks, but here is a good one from earlier this year. When you listen to Chomsky consistently, you get a virtual blue print for building communities. That’s his perspective and he’s been consistent for decades.

Part of Chomsky’s view these days comes with a warning against ridiculing the Tea Party, which has become sport on the left. Those who ridicule, he argues, not only miss the core issues, but more importantly they also miss the opportunity to organize people to discover and implement badly needed solutions. The anger and passion being expressed in the U.S. today will be organized, just as the anger and passion expressed during the 2008 presidential election was. The only question is by who. And that is the risky part.

To help mitigate risky trends and get focused on solving real problems, Chomsky talks solutions with Paul Jay on The Real News. It’s an excellent conversation. Chomsky articulates what he outlines in his column above — why people are angry, why they are getting answers from the Tea Party, and what we can do about it. Warning: The solution is radical. It’s democracy. Radical democracy. Which, in American terms, means a functioning democracy where people come together locally to form communities, make decisions to solve their problems, and put forth candidates to implement those decisions. In other words, the candidates come from inside the community, they don’t come from outside the community. This is basic to community leadership. So, when national politicians fly in with their massive PR teams making all sorts of promises they can’t keep, the community should say, that’s fine, but implement what wesay or you get no vote. We have Democracy completely backwards when we follow politicians instead of leading ourselves or at the very least making them follow us.

Another interesting point Chomsky brings up — and this, too, is radical — is that the people who work in the factories should run those factories and produce products the community (or country) needs. So, why wasn’t the auto industry retrofitted to build high speed trains in Detroit for Americans countrywide? Seems like a brain dead easy solution to the employment problem in the old rust belt, right? Instead, GM was bailed out and the old system that failed before remains in place today, while Obama officials travel throughout Europe and Asia looking for high speed train technology. That may make sense for Wall Street bankers and their servants in Washington, but it makes little sense for people in Detroit who need jobs or for all Americans who need a modern public transit system. Again, basic democracy would go a long way to decentralizing power and distributing resources more appropriately to solve these problems locally.

President Obama gave the Oval Office a little makeover while he was relaxing on vacation recently. It’s a tad brown for my taste, but what the hell do I know about high-powered White House fashion in these modern times of wealth for all. I think it looks quite nice. Certainly much better than the last two guys they had in there. And I guess I didn’t pay for this update, which is good, because I would have been more than a little pissed had he used my money to buy new “fawn-colored cotton velvet sofas, a mica coffee table and a rug ringed with inspirational quotes” among other necessary items. Anyway, I’m sure all the oligarchs strolling through the place will be happy. Good for them. And keep in mind that most new presidents touch up the Oval Office a bit when they get in, so this is perfectly normal. But some presidents have particularly interesting redecorating tasks when they take office. Take President Ford. According to the New York Times: “President Ford had the room de-bugged, and the walls were so full of bugging wires he nearly had to tear them down to get them all out.” Funny. I wonder what else President Nixon left lying around for Ford to clean up?

In the Shadow of Power by Kike Arnal. The images of those in need are striking. Especially given their proximity to some of the most powerful people on the planet. Yet it doesn’t matter. If you don’t have cash you are invisible to power in Washington, DC. I’ve only been to the District of Columbia a few times, but I somehow missed what Arnal very clearly saw. Must have been all that marble and granite. It’s all very … bright. Anyway, here’s a darker bit from the introduction of Arnal’s book:

Washington, District of Columbia, is home to six universities, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the buildings of the executive branch starting with the White House, world-famous museums and theaters, sports arenas, spacious hotels and convention centers, embassies of foreign countries and swank offices filled with an ever-growing number of lobbyists, lawyers, government contractors, consultants and public relations firms. While the city is experiencing widespread gentrification, it maintains its dubious status as having the highest rate of low-income children in the United States (54%), the highest child poverty rate and the highest AIDS mortality rate in the country. The capital’s hospitals, medical schools and clinics have co-existed with the lowest life expectancy of any of the fifty states. Scores of countries have higher life expectancy levels than what prevails in the District of Columbia. – Ralph Nader

For an interesting conversation on the book, see Brian Lamb on C-SPAN talking to Arnal about the images in detail for an hour. Also, see Nader and Arnal discussing the book on Democracy Now. I tripped over this book while watching a recent Nader video where he directly challenges the politicians in Washington. Good clip.

Actions represent a remarkably effective way to deliver messages. Words, however, don’t necessarily deliver messages very well at all — especially when used in isolation. And the reason is simple: messages have to actually resonate somewhere to affect change, and actions are generally much more difficult to disregard than words so that’s why actions resonate better. Also, people lie so easily that we just don’t believe words anymore, but when we directly experience an action than that’s real. No words necessary. In that case, the action is the message and we have to deal with it. But although actions affect things directly, their effect can be limited to only those involved. What about all the other people to whom you’d like communicate your actions? How do you get your message to resonate with them? This is where words come in. Words extend and support the message delivery system of actions. They offer context to the people who are directly affected by your actions, and they help prepare those other people for when your actions eventually engage them. The further and further you get from the actions, though, the weaker and weaker your words become. So, make sure you always extend your actions along with your words in ever increasing concentric circles.

This actions <-> messages <-> words <-> resonance relationship is basic to effective communication. But it’s surprising how many people in leadership positions don’t get it. They think words deliver messages, and that’s simply not true. For a really good example of a guy who got it, consider someone like Martin Luther King. He was a great speaker, right? One of the best, actually. But that’s not why he was so effective in building communities. He was effective because he helped build a national organization where leadership was distributed widely, where people were inspired to take action for themselves and contribute back, and where after his uplifting speeches people in his movement saw him take direct action. He marched — at the front of the line. He confronted the politicians. He was arrested. He went to jail. He got out. He delivered more speeches. He got back in front of the line. He organized. If he didn’t take those very visible actions then his speeches could have been passed off as mere rhetoric. Another example is Thay Thich Nhat Hanh in Vietnam. And, of course, Gandhi in India. And there are many others.

I’m interested in this stuff so I think about it a lot. Good communications can help extend projects and communities much more than people realize, and bad communications can thwart things fast and lead to missed opportunities to build in new ways. That’s the context in which I read an article this morning about how the Obama White House is responding to the oil spill in the Gulf. See White House message machine spins faster than ever. It’s a long article but it’s very interesting. And it’s striking the extent to which the White House communications team — which is hundreds of people — goes to make sure they get the boss’s message out to all channels available to them. And fast. They are using all sorts of new media technologies to get ahead of the story and get around the mainstream media. But this is where I think they make a mistake. Instead of trying to work around the mainstream networks, the White House team should treat the networks as just another communications channel. I realize the White House feels the mainstream media is an unfriendly filter, but all communications channels have limitations so why not treat them all equally? Or at least just use them all to whatever extent they can help deliver messages describing your actions. Also, if you use alternative media to navigate around the mainstream media you only piss off the mainstream media. That’s dumb. Yet many communications practitioners engage in just this exercise of selective dissemination. I don’t get it. If you are building a community or managing a project, use all the available means of discourse at your disposal. And finally, I have no idea if the White House communications team is delivering words consistent with the actions the government is taking to deal with the oil spill, but just the communications part of the equation is fascinating enough. It’s instructive. They recognize they have to engage. They have to talk. They have to demonstrate they are doing something. They aren’t letting events drive them into a defensive position. They are, instead, attempting to drive events at least enough so they are seen (as much as possible, anyway) as implementing positive solutions. Time will tell and we’ll see if their words do in fact represent their actions.