The God That Fails

[Joanne98]

During the middle third of the 20th century, Americans had impressive faith in their own institutions. It was not because these institutions always worked well. The Congress and the Federal Reserve exacerbated the Great Depression. The military made horrific mistakes during World War II, which led to American planes bombing American troops and American torpedoes sinking ships with American prisoners of war.

Umar Farouk AbdulmutallabBut there was a realistic sense that human institutions are necessarily flawed. History is not knowable or controllable. People should be grateful for whatever assistance that government can provide and had better do what they can to be responsible for their own fates.

That mature attitude seems to have largely vanished. Now we seem to expect perfection from government and then throw temper tantrums when it is not achieved. We seem to be in the position of young adolescents — who believe mommy and daddy can take care of everything, and then grow angry and cynical when it becomes clear they can’t.

After Sept. 11, we Americans indulged our faith in the god of technocracy. We expanded the country’s information-gathering capacities so that the National Security Agency alone now gathers four times more data each day than is contained in the Library of Congress.

Snipped to conform to DU's fairuse policy for copyrighted material - Lithos, DU Moderator
Continued>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/opinion/01brooks.html

I don't really like David Brooks but he nails it. The childish hysteria over a FAILED terrorist attack is ridiculous. The MSM started this and I dare them to keep it up next week. Maybe 2010 will be the year the media finally gets what it deserves. We can dream.

[Lost-in-FL]

1. There's nothing else in the news.

This is the time when non issues become something. This also explains why the MSM cares for Cheney's opinion.

[BlueJazz]

2. There was some idiot Senator on the news this morning, talking about how..

..."Heads should Roll" because of the Underwear Bomber.

I sat in my chair amazed at the total idiocy of the statement this person was trying to pass off.

So....in any organization, if someone screws up, all the people above him/her should be punished??...even if the organization is composed of 10 million people??

With that kind of thinking...the lowest person on the totem poll can cause the rest of the group to have a shitty day.
On the other hand, if you are in the top 10 people, you can just about do what the hell you want without fear of upsetting the cart very much.

[rasputin1952]

3. I was just coming here to post this...it is an excellent piece...

I found the most poignant part the las 2 paragraphs:

<snip>

At some point, it’s worth pointing out that it wasn’t the centralized system that stopped terrorism in this instance. As with the shoe bomber, as with the plane that went down in Shanksville, Pa., it was decentralized citizen action. The plot was foiled by nonexpert civilians who had the advantage of the concrete information right in front of them — and the spirit to take the initiative.

For better or worse, over the past 50 years we have concentrated authority in centralized agencies and reduced the role of decentralized citizen action. We’ve done this in many spheres of life. Maybe that’s wise, maybe it’s not. But we shouldn’t imagine that these centralized institutions are going to work perfectly or even well most of the time. It would be nice if we reacted to their inevitable failures not with rabid denunciation and cynicism, but with a little resiliency, an awareness that human systems fail and bad things will happen and we don’t have to lose our heads every time they do.

Most people do not click on the links provided and read the entire piece, which is truly a shame, because without the full context, it is difficult to take in the whole situation.

[Joanne98]

4. Thanks!

[rasputin1952]

5. My pleasure, it is an excellent read...

:hi:

[TygrBright]

6. Dear Member-

Please be aware that DU copyright rules require that excerpts of copyrighted material be limited to four paragraphs and must include a link to the original source.

informatively,
Bright