I guess I'm fundamentally a word guy. Now, technically, everyone speaks a unique language, and we are only able to communicate with each other to the extent that they overlap (actually, most people speak several unique languages, but I only bring that up so no one else will feel compelled to). Words can multiple meanings within a language, especially if you include connotations and such, and because words fascinate me, I usually wind up writing things that are overloaded with meanings, but I'm sure you noticed that. For example, a look at the effectiveness of and an investigation into Bush's domestic spying program both reveal that it is warrantless. This delights me.
But while this may provide some insight, it's all just a teaser. I want to speak about, and interest you in a word that has been on my mind a lot lately. The OED spells it `janizary,' but in America, thanks largely to Jerry Pournelle, we say `janissary.' It refers to a functional model still in use today.
In the 14th century, the Osmanite Turks had some problems. Through a series of raids and annexations intended to stabilize the kingdom, the devoutly Moslem state had acquired, almost by accident, a huge population of Christians. These people could have no legal status in the highly structured society, but the teachings of Islam were understood to expressly forbid coerced (torture-based) conversion. Many converted in order to retain their wealth and freedom, but many others became idle government property. Meanwhile, the beylik's military was composed of tribal units with no loyalty to a central ruler. Osman solved the second problem with the first, and in one move created the Yenni-Tsheri (new-militia) and an empire in his name. Europeans have claimed ever since that in one move he created the Janizaries and the Ottoman Empire.
I'm not proposing this as a solution to our `immigration problem,' although Bush seemed to suggest it this morning. A military model that necessitates a constantly expanding underclass is probably not good for a democracy.
But I digress. There's already a much more accurate parallel to the janissaries in place and successfully functioning in America. College removes vast numbers of us from society, and as students begin to prepare for graduation, they discover that they hold no more place in American society than 14th century Turkish Christians did in theirs. But if you are bright and young and conservative in America, getting back in after college is not as difficult. There are organizations in place to swoop down and set you on a path of personal success. That alone creates an incentive for all young people to be more conservative than their natural inclinations. But more devastating is the affect on those who receive this gift of a future.
These gifts often come without any explicit strings. But common parlance in America equates the absence of a social future with physical death, so we obviously understand that providing someone with a future is the same as saving their life. And when someone saves your life, even if they're not doing it for compensation, that's a debt you cheerfully pay off forever.
I don't object to the practice of giving people a direction in their lives, even at the cronytastic extremes the right has taken it to. But there are no analogous structures on the left, no outreach whatsoever. Now, you can see how I feel about unpaid internships
here, and combining an obscure handful of those with a few dead-end, high-turnover fundraising and some short-term election-year jobs is never going to produce the kind of invincible foot soldiers the original janissaries represented, but rather something eerily parallel to the tribal infighting of a 13th century Seljuk beylik.
Too often humans examine a scheme and see only a single purpose. And maybe there is only one original reason behind each one, but the Republicans are the champions when it comes to beneficial side effects. I don't think the Clinton impeachment was about making interning for a Democrat seem unappealing, but that's what it really accomplished. So the K Street Project and the Abramoff thing; the big corporate-government giveaways and golden parachutes; the big religious-government giveaways and golden parachutes; the Heritage Foundation Brat Pack in Iraq; the cronyism; the parasite-friendly Republican Mission Statement of Corruption; even the stonewalling and lock-stepping; they may all be about different things, but what they're really about is turning people with no place in society into a well organized, highly trained, and always available corps of fanatical loyalists. And this isn't just about sniping all the good talent; it's really about showing the whole pool it pays to be conservative.
Initially I thought a liberal mirror of this set-up might save me from my growing irrelevance. But as a 24-year-old who hasn't finished college and isn't named Ben Domenech, I know it's too late for me, that it was too late for me even before the coup. There's a new crop every year for whom it's not too late. If you know what I can do about that, let me know, I'm out of ideas and certainly, no one's given me anything to do with my life.
And now, you know why young Republican operatives are sometimes called `young Turks.' It might not be the original reason, I don't know, but clearly it's the real reason.