One of my favorite examples of how anybody who is going to exercise power has to go in blind has to do with aviation negotiations and Richard Nixon.
It is impossible to imagine anyone being on top of being President of the United States going in. Most people go there from the Senate or was a governor or a general or a high level executive who knew next to nothing about the rubber or syrup or service his institution produced.
If there is any job that would seem to prepare you for being president, it would seem to be the only other elected national office, one heartbeat from the white House, the vice presidency.
But when he first reached the White House in 1969, having been Vice President for two terms 1953-1961, Nixon admitted he had no idea how to allocate his time. He spent one of his first days in the Oval Office agonizing over the details of a civil aviation agreement. Far be it from me to minimize the importance of civil aviation agreements, especially ones made way, way above my pay grade, But they are at absolute most the business of a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and just go to the President for initialing.
But it was on Nixon’s desk, so instead of calling on someone to prioritize for him he worried about it.
Even a former vice president goes in blind. But Nixon probably thought that, as a former senator and vice president, he was expected to know how to do his own prioritizing.
Wrong.
In one of the four thousand or so articles here I have talked about the Senior Executive Service (SES). Eventually, everything here relates to everything else.
Before the Civil Service Reform Act in 1978 or so, the government was not very up-to-date on some things.
Surprise, surprise!
Before the Reform Act the top three grades, equivalent to generals were called “super grades.” A person who was in supply in one part of the government, say office supplies, would advance grade by grade in that same area right on up to GS-18.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, a sizable typewriter company looking for a new Chief Executive Officer would not look for someone who knew all about typewriters. They hired somebody who had been a chief executive officer or his deputy somewhere else and usually in an entirely different industry.
It took less than a century, but the SES caught up with this. Before 1978 if you wanted to fill a slot at the top of anything you had to find someone who had come up in that area. If you wanted someone to take over office supplies, he had to be picked from the few people who had risen to a supergrade, GS-15 or above, in office supplies.
The Reform Act totally scrapped that. The old supergrades were changed to SES, the old GS-16 becoming SES Level I. Since 1978 an SES is expected to be able to manage personnel, supplies, or other things from one end of government to the other, from Defense to the Interior.
In other words, even the Federal Government finally realized that if you go in at the top, you go in blind.
And nothing is a better example of going in at the top than Mantra Thinking.
The specialists, the writers of times on both sides, hate it.
But if even the Feds can get with reality, so can we.
#1 by Dave on 05/04/2012 - 9:53 am
You cannot be blind to what determines fate. Fate is path dependency. The factors that determine fate walk on cat’s feet.
The “policy makers” of America are absolutely blind to what determines fate. They racially destabilized America and thereby threw America to the wind.
This has meant and means ruin for countless numbers white people, our people. Others among us will thrive in a world that has been ceded to a new kind of man.
And the evil punks in the Establishment who posture and style themselves as our “leaders” shall receive their just desserts.
#2 by Simmons on 05/04/2012 - 2:15 pm
We have an example of that in Bob himself. He literally was the last effective reactionary conservative (what a thankless job).
Now he is literally one of the founding members of White nationalism ver. 2.0.
Pretty damn good for an old man who by rights should be listening to Limbaugh and shaking his fists at “libruls.”
#3 by Jason Here on 05/05/2012 - 2:25 am
I’m starting to think of this as getting your sea legs. Some things can not be taught beforehand. You have learn by doing.
#4 by BGLass on 05/05/2012 - 6:54 am
They racially destabilized America and thereby threw America to the wind….”
We were told we grew up in a “social experiment.” That the country was a “social experiment.” Of course the founders mentioned no experiment with human life, and did not see the human subject as something self-described “elites” (or real ones, or even non-‘elites’ for that matter, or anyone) would simply experiment on.
The Hollywood movie, Edmond, is the premise.
Can propaganda and “social engineering” (now a completely normalized phrase that no children know to question) make Edmond a prison “bitch?”
—never considering movies such as this might be in the citizen’s mind (the “consumers” mind) as the t.v. personalities (“pundits”/ experts) talk about “hate.” If someone points it out, the messenger might be attacked— but more have noticed who are silent, so paranoia sinks in, fear of exposure.
In what kind of life would you tell little children they are growing up as an “experiment” with their social, emotional and psychological worlds and that they should feel proud to be a part of being used for such a grand enterprise?
For how many, for whom, is Edmond the great fantasy?— their triumph in the grand “social” experiment?
What ARE they?
And what kind of “citizens” do not mind being positioned verbally as “consumers?” (Mouths. Eaters. Consumptive–like a turbuculosis)
Why were we chosen for experimentation to see if we, eaters, could be made into Edmond? This is the sort of question that runs beneath everything, since many things boil down to The Edmond Premise.
#5 by Jason Here on 05/05/2012 - 2:34 pm
Bob mentioned some groups being more concerned with the truth (Germans) than others. Maybe some of us have trouble going in blind because we are so concerned with the truth. We want too much assurance of things before we start.
I was fascinated by Bob’s statement that Africans don’t have any real concern for the truth, as opposed to Germans who have an almost obsessive preoccupation with it. The more I think of it, I bet this drives a lot of human behavior, regardless of IQ. Are the Asians as fundamentally concerned with the truth? They seem more so than Africans for sure, but less than Germans. Maybe this explains there lack of scientific progress on their own over the last few centuries.
Among Whites it varies as well. The “sales type” guy is usually less focused on the truth and more on winning and making deals. For a movement like this to be successful, you need all types. You need a focus on the truth, but not to the extent that you sit and argue with one guy for days (tailgating). Yet, you must be tethered to reality in order for this all to work. Provocative statement by Bob.
#6 by The Old Man of the Mountain on 05/05/2012 - 11:41 pm
I am ready to go in at the top and start delegating:
Coach will be my Ambassador to Dixie.
Dr. Duke my Ambassador to Israel.
My friend Kradmelder Ambassador to Mexico.
And I will delegate the other appointments to my Secretary of State, Kelso– he will get it done!