Sunday, February 19, 2017

Corporate innocence meets democracy

     Let me get this straight, Donald Trump who has access to perhaps the largest intelligence-gathering organization in the world, blames Fox news for his gaffe about a terrorist attack in Sweden? 
     Meanwhile down the street the new Secretary of State wants  his briefing statements limited to two pages. And over at Education the secretary there is whining about all the criticism.
     What's so sad is they think they can get away with that, like something unusual is going on.
There are calls for psychiatric evaluations of the president and questions raised about his sanity.           It's unlikely that they are necessary or highlight a serious problem. The problem is more obvious than that and easier to battle.
     Keep in mind these people have been heads of huge money-making corporations, organizations where what they say goes as long as they keep the bottom line growing and the stockholders happy. They have ultimate control and are used to having people carry out their orders without question and without outside interference.
     They are not used to being questioned, they are not used to being challenged, they are not used to being held up to public scrutiny, and most of all they are not used to being told "no." And most likely they think they don't have to deal with those things and resent the fact that they do. They thought they were going to walk into the office and tell everyone what to do and that would get it done. That bureaucracy we love to hate may thwart them and their agendas better than anything else we've come up with so far.
   If Tillerson says Exxon is going to drill in Central Park there's no question, his minions go about figuring out how they can drill in Central Park. There's an old joke about Exxon that says if they go to work and haven't been sued by quitting time, it's been a good business day. Tillerson is the guy who pushed fracking in areas threatening drinking water all over the country but when someone wanted to do it near his house he sued.
     Trump says build a hotel and his minions go about getting that done, not flooding him with disagreement or challenging him to make a reasonable case for such a project and the outside world knows nothing about it until ground has been broken and by then it's too late.
    Who knows what DeVos does but apparently it doesn't take an education to run her company either, just hand down edicts from on high;
   It's obvious these people have never had their statements or decisions challenged, at least not in public and now they are placed in a position where every move is exposed, analyzed and depending on what it is, lauded, criticized or outright ridiculed and they can't handle it. Remember one of Trump's appointments quit even before he had to face a world like that.
     For all the promises made about how a good businessman could set the government in order, it turns out the business model just doesn't work. Think how it would work if they didn't have a majority in Congress like President Obama faced at least in his last few years.
    The head of a large corporation is about half a high-rise office floor short of a dictator. But that model doesn't work in what is supposed to be a democracy. These people are not used to being questioned, let alone being criticized or even worse ridiculed, or gasp held accountable for their actions in public.
    Now they are in public leadership  positions and reality is smacking them right between the eyes and they can't handle it. Trump refuses to attend intelligence briefings, Tillerson wants the Twitter version of State Department analyses, DeVos says all teachers need is someone to tell them what to do.
    Well, Madame Secretary, maybe you and your colleagues need a good lesson on what you are supposed to do and what qualifications are needed to do it. If you don't have the qualifications find a group of advisors who do have the expertise. And, be prepared for opposition. Government is built on compromise not edicts and everything is subject to public exposure.
     It's obvious already the dictatorial corporate business model doesn't work in government and the people who come from it don't have a clear view of what they are supposed do, let alone to carry out what they intended to do and that is their failure, not the psychiatry of the situation even if correcting that sounds easier and flashier.

Frack this NIMBY – Rex Tillerson and Exxon on fracturing
A coterie of cartoon autocrats – Miami Herald
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1 comment:

  1. Kitty FFebruary 19, 2017 at 8:06 PM

    So happy to have NOT gone back into teaching when offered a lucrative proposition about eight years ago. Education was—and is—a political football, as is always evidenced by the number of people who don't know anything about education, but think they are qualified to pass judgment on teachers, and lead students. Sorry for the kids, but knock yourself out, DeVos.

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The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

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When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.― Kurt Vonnegut

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The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

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A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

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I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

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Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

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It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

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