The Age of Chaos

The document dumps heaving from the Bush administration in relation to the Department of Justice scandal reveal, according to press reports, an internal mindset of unorderly incompetence. One "e-mail exchange -- part of about 3,000 pages of internal documents turned over to Congress this week -- show[ed] a confused and divided Justice Department under siege in a political crisis largely of its own making." A bit farther down the news account reiterates that "the dismissal process itself ... was chaotic and spiked with petty cruelties."

Those items reminded me of a book I had read a few years ago -- whose title and author, unfortunately, I cannot recall -- that devoted itself to dispelling the myth of the "ruthlessly efficient" totalitarian government of Hitler's Germany. No, we don't live in a Nazified U.S., and I'm not suggesting we do. But there's no question that the boys in charge today envy the kind of total control wielded by that one-party government of yesterday. If only they could do everything their way, things would be tidy.

That's what Nazi bureaucrats thought, too. But things, as they turned out, didn't quite hum along. Instead, because those boys in charge represented, fundamentally, a bunch of unaccountable political thugs who needed not fear any checks and balances, the day-to-day operations of the Fueher's government rapidly devolved into a cauldron of confusion, division, crises largely of its own making, chaos and internal cruelties. Nazi Germany was, in short, a bureaucratic mess -- an inept, official free-for-all; anything but an operation of the "ruthless efficiency" so commonly associated in the mind with totalitarian governments.

The Bushies operated with similar freedom for six years, and we're seeing similar results. Which serves to reconfirm a simple paradox that the Founding Fathers understood but is too often suppressed, with the electorate's approval, in efforts to "get things done": For a people to be free, their leaders can't be. Simple as that. They should be made to look over their shoulders every minute with a cautiousness that borders on the paranoid.

Some of this was at least tangentially related to another book I just read (and rather belatedly, seeing how it was published in 1999). But since I just read it, I can at least tell you the author and title. It's George Stephanopoulos' All Too Human: A Political Education, whose personal journey through the Clinton years is irrelevant here, but whose observations about the early '90s Democratic Party -- the one still charged with bodyblocking ... see above -- are still quite relevant.

"After forty years of dominating Congress," wrote Stephanopoulos, "our party had become a complacent feudal kingdom no longer bound by fervent belief.... Each member was master of a barony, each chairman, lord of a duchy. Our majority was more a tactical alliance of autonomous factions than a political movement based on shared values and a coherent governing philosophy."

For those reasons "Republican strategists were able to [strike] at our weakest seams" -- "North against South, suburb against city ... Our various factions didn't trust each other, and we were deeply divided on matters of tactics and strategy."

Stephanopoulos experienced firsthand the consequences of his party's incoherent governing philosophy, its muddled tactics and strategy -- and all of us lived with the opposition's yearning for totality for six years, followed by another hair-raising six years of realized totality. The results? Again, see above.

Republicans can't govern because government itself is anathema; but they know how to win. Democrats, on the other hand, usually govern with at least some semblance of competence; but their competing philosophies, combined with factional tactics, inhibit their ability to soundly check a unified opposing front.

All of which leads to another paradox: For the Democratic Party to effectively counter the opposition's peculiar tendencies, its leaders must be free to limit the freedom of its members. Internal control is vital, yet lacking; hence the party's still-scattered positions on urgent matters, such as war, sadly suggests we're on a long, chaotic, two-way road.

Comments

[Daniel Mitchell]

Sounds about right. The Democrats can't agree on the time of day or the color of the sky. The republicans, on the other hand, stand as a united front. ust at the 36% of the country that still think Bush is doing an OK job. That's mind blowing. If a Democrat had 1/4 as much manure spread on him as Bush does, his approval ratings would be in the Dick Cheney area.

[Chris Herz]

The two major parties are united in their determination to sock it to our own working people and to plunder others around the world. I personally prefer the Repulsivecans, for they mix their greed with the greater level of incompetance.

Americo delenda est.

[Vic Anderson]

OR both could simply and genuinely care for We the People, their fellow Americans.

[RubyGlare]

This is because we have followers camoflauged as leaders in the Dem party, not true leaders who can dominate the group into its own best interests, using a wide variety of tactics. Domination has such a lousy rep nowadays, but here I mean it in the best sense, as a leader of the pack.

[Marty]

Read John Dean's book "Conservatives without a Conscience". There are about 20% of Americans who are fearful, uncritical thinkers who love and worship Authority. He calls them authoritarians.....every wingnut I have confronted exemplifies these types and I am sure you all have observed them too. They are oblivious to facts, or reason. Truth is what their RNC tell them it is. These people are the blight of MoronAmericans, and we will never be rid of them. Unfortunately the christian fundys..the antievolution, antigay,anticlimate change are strongly based in the Repub party