Here:
Government, clergy, journalism, high finance, the legal system, the military, all of it, has stopped functioning properly.
For some definition of "functioning properly."
Now, I know from epiphenomenon, power structures, it's always about force, yadda yadda yadda. So in some sense, nothing has ever "worked" since the invention of agriculture and the rise of kings, priests, and money. I have something in mind that's simpler and more basic:
Except I can't find the source. Anyhow: Imagine you're in a city and you ask directions from a street vendor on how to get to the Post Office. And the vendor gives you directions, and off you go. But before you go, the vendor reaches into the cart, comes up with a stamped envelope, and asks "As long as you're going there, will you mail this for me?" Now, if, as you were reading along, your first thought was:
1. The vendor's lying about the directions!
and your second thought was:
2. The envelope's probably got anthrax in it!
then congratulations! You've adapted successfully to America in 2010. And you must have been dealing with elites a lot. Because the high officials, the bishops, the "big foots", the banksters, the judges, and the generals all think exactly like an evil street vendor instead of a normal one: They'll lie to you even when it's easier to tell the truth, and if they can, they'll use you as a weapon against somebody else.
It's like that. Like a horrible dystopian first person shooter game. And no, it wasn't always like that, at least not for everyone.
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I'm not at the point where I think evil is an active force in
the universe. I continue to cling to St. Augustine's argument that evil is merely the absence of good.
Now, to focus on a quote from Digby:
What "institutional system" was there that ever "forced elites to work at least somewhat on behalf of the people"? The Constitution? Still there, basically, perhaps, just barely. The government? Still there, and still in the form of three separate branches? The Fourth Estate, i.e. news media? Still there, but, clearly, dysfunctional.
What I think has broken down are the ideas of general welfare and the common good. They have been under sustained assault since von Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom in the early 1940s. Unfortunately, the rise of national socialism in Germany and militarism in Japan made von Hayek's book seem prescient. So, today, we have so-called conservatives who howl at any mention of the general welfare and the common good, screeching that such discussion is the first step "libruhls" take in enforcing majority rule on and unwilling white minority.
The loss of the concepts of general welfare and the common good is paralleled by the loss of the idea of noblesse oblige. I think that the whole concept is captured in one brief scene in cinema, in the film Kingdom of Heaven, when the character played by Liam Neeson, gets up from his death bed to knight the character played by Orland Bloom, and charges him to defend the weak.
Oh, I think it does
We never would have adapted to be able to recognize evil and/or produce it in nature if it didn't exist. It co-evolves with good.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
a small revolt
When I was working in a law firm, we were expected to put in a (to me) sizable chunk of change to buy a holiday gift for the Partners(!). This idea has never made sense to me, and I would not go along. I told the Office Manager that I would be donating my share to charity in the name of the firm. When we received a 'Thank You' I posted it, since it was for all of us. Only one person there (who liked the idea) ever said a thing about it.
I was raised on the concept of 'noblesse oblige' even though I am not 'noblesse'. I think that today, a lot of people have no idea what that, or 'the general welfare' mean.
As if the Partners needed it!
I had the same(but somewhat more Draconian) experience working for a state agency.
We actually had a whole level of middle management who would look for opportunities, not only to collect money to throw fetes for upper management, but also to actively collect us to attend these same fetes en masse. Their performance ratings actually depended on it so, as you might imagine, they were quite enthusiastic. It had a lot in common with the Information Ministry in Brazil.
We used to privately demean them as cheese-eating rats until I saw a documentary on the middle management of the Nazis(I don't know the link). It offered the hypothesis that the most common characteristic of the administrators of extermination programs was their desire to ingratiate themselves to Hitler.
I never saw my boss after that time that I didn't visualize him with a monacle and a riding crop. But I never back talked him either.
Isn't it interesting how economic uncertainty will Get your mind right?
Management as a profession
In fact, the oldest profession. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Digby's
premise is wrong. There are no 'arcane workings of high finance' that need to be mastered. I think it was Evo Morales who said "We all can't be rich but we could all live well".
par4
The function of
"Government, clergy, journalism, high finance, the legal system, the military," is to enforce the status quo.
That's why coups (like the soft coup we had in 2000) are so effective -- once the coup is fait accompli, these establishments all start supporting the new overlords.
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alas is crocheting daily at http://memorycrochet.blogspot.com/