Ben Goshi's diary: MGOP: Buckling Under Its Own Groaning Weight
http://www.dailykos.com/...
was one of the more stimulating diaries I've read lately on dKos. I read his reference to Powell's memorandum to the Chamber of Commerce, and do see the seeds of today's conservative political stance in his writing.
But I was struck by a couple of things in that memo, that Mr. Goshi was not necessarily focusing on. One was how `spot on' the advice was, given the time it was written. Another was the complete lack of attack mode.
An even more striking thing was Powell's utter conviction that the enterprise system was good, that pro-enterprise could only be good, and that there was absolutely no question about it. In other words, promoting the enterprise system was appropriate, funding it was imperative and presenting it with a civil face, academic demeanor and `neutrality' were, of course, absolutely the correct things to do. My personal response was: How incredible a wolf in sheep's clothing this essay is! That may simply belie my own prejudices and naivete. And hindsight.
Looking back then on developments re: conservative infrastructure building, consensus building, and other `building' efforts, it seems pretty clear how effectively Powell outlined the `needs' of the situation from a conservative perspective, and a road to follow to get there.
It appears to me that delivered within the framework posited by Mr. Powell, that is, civility, reasonableness and fairness; scholarship, decorum, and accuracy or authority, there is little to criticize in the proposition. Assuming the basic premise--that enterprise is unqualifiedly good--is correct, what should result should be wholly respectable.
But, in fact, I don't accept that enterprise is naturally good. Like most things it has potential for good and bad. What has happened is that enterprise (conservatism) has put on a clean white shirt, suit and tie, reinforced itself with a goodly dose of piety and righteousness and proceeded to do what people do: wonderful, hateful, and excessive things.
The task we face as reasonable progressives, is to reveal the wolf's complexion underneath. We must continue to promote the fairness, and decency which typifies our goals. We must remember the excesses to which we were subject and conservatives have also succumbed. It is, perhaps, appropriate to adopt many of the guidelines suggested by Mr. Powell. His political followers have taken his advice and done remarkably well. There were many nuggets of wisdom in his memo. But we must avoid the pitfalls that await anyone in the political sphere, lest we find ourselves as progressives to be only a slight qualitatively different breed of cat. It is all too easy to accept the easy path of money, power and corruption.
As is so often the case, I do not have the answers, progressives need to accomplish this modern day miracle. I do have a few suggestions that might be useful.
=Sympathetic Contrarian--a progressive devil's advocate if you will. Part of every public body.
=Systemic changes which encourage feedback, that stabilizes trends or oscillations, based upon explicit standards as part of the system and which are subject to periodic and mandatory review and if agreed, revision.
=An even more fundamental systemic change, which codifies a means of controlling a government or branch of government that seems to have lost control--modern day firewall additions to the Constitution. Like the original, carefully considered, refined, and the product of the wisest of the wise in this country. Like the original, adopted only with the greatest gravity and deliberation.
We must avoid the mistakes that humans are so vulnerable to. How to do that has been the wisdom of the Constitution so far. And it needs nothing less to take us into the next era.
danz