Ungovernable? You Bet!

During the last ten years, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the human race (whatever the culture) has pretty much become ungovernable, and this week’s revolt in Egypt helps prove my point. Blame it on the Internet. Even back at the inception of the Internet more than two decades ago, the really smart people realized that this new way of sharing knowledge was inherently seditious, and there’s no doubt that— if the governments of the world had known then what they know today— the Internet never would have been allowed to flourish. Even the best futurists back then, however, could never have predicted the impact of social mediums like FaceBook and Twitter, and WikiLeaks.

For ten thousand years or more, governance has always been a delicate dance between government and the governed. The United States, over the last 235 years, has arguably done the best job of consistently getting this balance right, but even this nation has experienced some monumental hiccups. Coming out of WWII, I believe that the American people were far too compliant and trusting of their government. The delicate dance was unbalanced, and McCarthyism and Vietnam were two pathetic results, both fueled by a government that exploited paranoia about communism and citizen trust to prey on the governed. The HUAC congressional outrages of the early 1950s could have been stopped before they gained any traction by just a few well-placed riots and a press that was willing to explain what was happening. Facebook and Twitter would have had a monumental influence as well.

The last two years have shown us street riots in France and Greece and England and Tunisia and, now, Egypt— but most Americans still think that it could never happen here. I say, “Wanna bet?” The U.S.A. is dead broke. The ultimate solution to the deadbeat status of the country is new taxation, most likely in the form of a national sales tax on everything but groceries and medicine. Problem is, now you’ve got the Tea Party (Taxed Enough Already), and these are some of the same self-proclaimed patriots who rushed out after Obama’s election and stocked up on guns and munitions in quantities never before seen by the American arms industry outside of a wartime setting. They weren’t doing this just to boost the economy. Wait and see what happens if the U.S. government, led by Obama working with the Republican congress, decides to try and implement a national sales tax. Wait until the Tea Party gun owners all simultaneously get cheesed off about a second presidential term for Obama, and they network with each other on the Internet. Wait until there’s a convergence between a new tax policy and a mindset that believes Obama is a Muslim and foreign-born (and did I mention that he has dark skin and kinky hair?)— and all of this is played out within a poorly educated, white trash population of people who can’t find a job or pay their mortgage. You think it can’t happen here? Guess again.

If It Was Fair and Balanced, It Wouldn't Be Essential

Ask the average person to describe the New York Times with one word, and most people will say, “Liberal.” Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. That’s not the word I would use, however. For me, the New York Times is “essential.”

There’s a legend in the folklore of politics about Karl Rove in his early days in Texas. He wanted a direct mail list of Conservative Republicans in the state, and because such a thing did not exist at the time, Rove bought himself a list of the subscribers to Field and Stream Magazine. He knew that such a list would be overwhelmingly comprised of Conservative Republicans, and he was comfortable in the knowledge that Field and Stream would not begin opposing the NRA just to broaden its appeal to a wider audience. Rove knew that publications all have their own identifiable and predictable constituencies, and this is true of newspapers as well as magazines.

The constituency of the New York Times is primarily composed of East Coast, urban intellectuals, and such a group tends to be politically liberal. News is a product, and a newspaper is a business, and the reader is the customer. And the first rule of business is to give the customer what they want. The New York Times does this well. To become more balanced and nonjudgmental, the newspaper could reach out to a broader audience of Conservatives by printing the daily diatribes of Rush Limbaugh, or quoting the rants of Bill O’Reilly, but decision makers at the Times are smart enough to know that red-meat, Right-wingers like to get their venom directly from the source by tuning in to the EIB Network or the FOX News Channel. The Times appeals to Liberals because Liberals are the ones who read the paper.

For me, the important question is not whether the Times is liberal, but is the Times essential? I believe that it is, and here’s why. About five years ago, I had the privilege of being part of a group discussion with Daniel Ellsberg, and Ellsberg told us, personally, why he gave the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. He said that the Times, in his opinion, was the only institution with the clout and the courage to withstand the predictable onslaught from the Nixon administration. Ellsberg confided that, prior to turning over the papers to the Times, he had experienced an “All-The-President’s-Men” moment when he genuinely feared for his life. The New York Times, for Ellsberg, was not just an outlet to expose the lies of the Pentagon about Vietnam, but it was also an ally to help guarantee his personal safety.

Here’s the essential thing about why such a liberal bastion is necessary. When power on the Left goes off the track, it tends toward the silly and the pathetic, and maybe even the tragic. I would cite LBJ, Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton as examples, annoying, but not really threatening. But when power on the Right gets out of control, it is downright destructive. Both ends of the political spectrum are not above punishing their enemies, but whereas the Lefties do it with some temerity, those on the Right do it with a kind of evil enthusiasm. Joe McCarthy, the Nixon administration, and Bush-Cheney are examples of this. Even an institution as strong as the U.S. Congress doesn’t seem up to the task of speaking truth to that kind of power. I don’t mean to imply that the New York Times is the only thing standing between us and outright fascism, but it does seem to have a good track record in helping keep the Right under control. If this offends some Conservatives, it seems like a fair trade-off.