The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

The Beauty of Obama’s Clapper Appointment

As you’ve probably heard, Obama has appointed James Clapper (the man who lied under oath to Congress about NSA spying) to review NSA spying.

I am in awe, few things have impressed me this deeply.

This isn’t just a middle finger to everyone to everyone who is against blanket surveillance (aka. the majority of Americans), it is Obama saying “Kiss My Ass.”

It’s really hard for most people to understand just how much contempt our lords and masters have for us.  They really don’t give a fuck what’s good for us, what we like, or what we think.  They are rich, or powerful, or famous because they deserve it, and if we aren’t any of those things then they don’t give two fucks what we think.  By not being rich, powerful or famous we have proven we don’t deserve any say.  After all, if we had any qualities that were worthwhile beyond the sort of qualities you praise in a dog, we wouldn’t be peons, would we.

In this, Obama is very similar to Bush, actually, but in general it’s a characteristic of everyone near the top of our current society.  Starting at about the Senior VP level, people decide that they deserve everything they’ve got and everyone else doesn’t.  If they did, they’d have it.

The media is full of studies showing that power decreases empathy, and I’ll bet that’s true throughout history. But I’ll also bet this, the degree to which it is true is social, and in many times and places it has been less true.  Over the last couple generations we’ve seen a significant, measurable fall in the general level of empathy in the population as a whole.  If you have an ideology which glorifies greed and which claims that society is a meritocracy when there is copious evidence to the contrary, those who win will believe they “deserve” what they have, and everyone else “deserves” what they have.  Add to that objective circumstances which amount to dog-eat-dop (there simply are not enough good jobs to go around) and people will either band together, or turn on each other.  Generally, we’ve chosen, for ideological reasons, to turn on each other.

This isn’t necessary: it isn’t what happened in the US in the Great Depression, for example.  It’s a choice, and our choice is to be bastards to each other.

 

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45 Comments

  1. People around here are going to jump on me for this, but it’s true: in the USA, it is (largely white) ressentiment over the gains of so-called “identity politics” that was a major if not the biggest trigger for the reduction in empathy. It made much of the population susceptible to the existing message (to which fits well with certain aspects of American secular mythology) that the unproductive and undeserving are eating your hard-earned lunch.

    Better to go without health insurance if it means that they don’t get health insurance.

  2. Compound F

    Post-number 1001 of Why I Read Ian Welsh Aside from the Music Which Ain’t Bad.

    I’d consider myself insane in your absence, yet it appears I’m not.

  3. Of course Obama doesn’t give a fuck (but he’s so charming! and he’s black! and he’s for gay rights! and Michelle is pretty!).

    But try to get that point across in most of the so-called liberal blabbosphere and you’ll be shouted down. The Obamabots are alive and well. “Democrats good, Republicans bad” is about the extent of their political sophistication. Not that Repubs are any better, of course; we’re talking mirror images here.

    As for the attitude of having what you deserve, whether you earned it or not, the mantra of many Americans is simple: “I got mine; fuck you.”

  4. Jump

    Agreed, it is a choice. The scope of the choices have been prescribed by the elites to maintain their interests. It is which big screen television to buy, not whether or not you even need or want one. To get beyond consumerism and competition requires some thought (highly discouraged) and a sense of self (usually beaten out of you).
    If you manage to escape then you can ‘start with humanity’. Can you drag people out of the cave?

  5. Celsius 233

    @ Ian Welsh;
    You said, “It’s really hard for most people to understand just how much contempt our lords and masters have for us.”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Now that’s an interesting observation; from my POV; it so obvious that it’s like “the sty in my eye”.
    But I do agree; the majority just don’t fucking get it.
    I think it’s like the WWII epithath by Martin Niemöller, who was a German pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. ;

    First they came for the communists,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
    Then they came for the socialists,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
    Then they came for the trade unionists,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
    Then they came for me,
    and there was no one left to speak for me.

    To my POV; that is America today. I’m not Christian; but I will say; gods help them; surely nobody else will…

  6. Celsius 233

    My comment hit moderation; isn’t that special…or not…

  7. Nailed it on the consequences of meritocratic thinking.

    And on our complicity, once again.

  8. someofparts

    Also on this topic –

    http://nymag.com/news/features/money-brain-2012-7/

    http://www.lyricsdepot.com/randy-newman/my-old-kentucky-home.html

    and the related topic of “crackpot realists” (tip of the hat to C Wright Mills) whose immersion in comfortable bubbles of disinformation render them willingly blind to reality, this post –

    http://real-economics.blogspot.com/2013/08/when-in-doubt-ignore-problems.html

  9. When the Great Depression hit us we were a growing nation with a future in front of us. Today we are “the world’s sole super power” with nowhere to to go but down and clearly on the way there. We feel that sinking momentum and so we throw the weaklings out of the boat, not realizing they could have helped us row it ashore.

  10. Strangely Enough

    When the Great Depression occurred, there was still a sizable enough chunk of Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, etc., to prevent an “I got mine; fuck you,” domestic policy agenda. We’ve had the evils of collectivism knocked out of us since then. One more lesson to relearn…

  11. But if you were a friend of Jim Clapper you’d see what a great guy he is!

    What can we do for a difference? Who is worthy of support in the nex election? What’s our gameplan?

  12. Greg T

    Great post, Ian. This was a brazen FU to everyone who wanted accountability and stricter policy guidelines on surveillance. It’s entirely reasonable to want that, but the elites in government are furious that the peasants would actually question the wisdom and constitutionality of sweeping data collection.

    It perfectly exemplifies where the President is on this. He’s on a manhunt for Snowden, even going as far to endanger the life of a Bolivian head of state to capture him. He gives the finger to Vladimir Putin because Putin won’t simply hand over Mr Snowden to the US. And he appoints the man overseeing the entire NSA surveillance program to reform it. That’s like asking Jamie Dimon to oversee bank reform.

    You are correct in your analysis. Elites have little to no regard for the concerns of non-elites. And it seems-sadly- that we would rather fight each other than push for a better country.

  13. S Brennan

    As I said on my FBook when I heard the news:

    “Did we have an election in 2008? …or is Dick Cheney still President?”

  14. The Dude

    American politics in a nutshell: the left has been emasculated by its stupidly blind support of craven, sellout “leaders” like Obama and Hillary, while the right just keeps getting angrier and more resentful. Since the economy continues to grow more unequal in distribution of wealth every year there will be an explosion at some point, but its going to be a right wing explosion and it is going to be UGLY.

  15. Larry D

    Right on, Ian. A great Robert Mankoff cartoon in New Yorker sums up Obama’s attitude beautifully:

    http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Smallest-fish-about-to-be-eaten-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8562837_.html

  16. anon y'mouse

    Mandos—yes. “my middle class life is becoming unsustainable to me. I work harder and harder and end up with less and less. it isn’t the owning class that is fucking me over, it is all of these nappy headed losers who have kids they can’t afford sucking on the gov’t teat.”

    talk about gross misattribution.

  17. Well, at least Obama gives us the finger in a thoughtful and nuanced way. And give the man a chance . He’s only been in office five years.

  18. Alcuin

    @Lambert: Are you serious????

  19. Alcuin

    Hey Lambert, your man said that Clapper isn’t going to head up the review after all. My faith has been restored in this great republic. Sorry to question your sanity in my previous comment.

  20. Jeff W

    Clapper isn’t going to head up the review after all

    Well, assuming that’s over and done with, I have to say I rather enjoyed The Register’s take while it lasted:

    Obama appoints intelligence boss to run ‘independent’ review of NSA
    Presumably in the spirit of irony

  21. Bri

    I read Lambert quite a bit and trust me, that’s pure sarcasm from the big L 🙂 He’s also spot on with that sarcasm too. Just read Jeff W’s comment too. Looks like Obama realized that 1/2 of the U.S. just guffawed over his ‘choice’ for that review so he retreated rather quickly??? Seems like it.

  22. Jessica

    Yes, definitely sarcasm on Lambert’s part, rest assured.

    If Obama is retreating from his choice so quickly, is it possibly that he genuinely did not see anything amiss in appointing Clapper in the first place? Could it be that it wasn’t an extended middle finger, but intense cluelessness about life among the hoi polloi?

    By the way, when the elite is empathy-less, that is “I’ve got mine, fuck you”, but when we are like that with each other, I think “Do it to Julia” (from “1984”) is closer to the mark.
    I wonder how much of this decay of empathy is due to structural factors. There used to be so much more uniformity built into people’s lives. Many people worked in huge factories, an entire shift of thousands of people going in and out at the same time. We watched the same TV shows on the few channels available. (In the Depression, it was radio programs.) We watched movies when they played at the theater or didn’t watch them at all. There was only one kind of Coke. Everyone used the same black phone from the same phone company.
    And didn’t that greater uniformity of life promote a stronger sense of commonality, which provided a basis for empathy?
    I agree with all the other factors people have mentioned. But I suspect that these structural changes in our lives are what is really driving things.

  23. Edger

    It may be that it’s really hard for most people to understand just how much contempt our lords and masters have for them, but really easy for most people to understand just how much contempt our lords and masters have for everyone else.

    It’s also probably really hard for many people to understand they they have a very limited understanding of understanding?

  24. It may be that it’s really hard for most people to understand just how much contempt our lords and masters have for them, but really easy for most people to understand just how much contempt our lords and masters have for everyone else.

    There’s a huge presupposition here that I’m pretty sure is wrong. The problem is not “understanding how much contempt our lords and masters have for” us, it’s that a lot of/most people don’t really care. You (and not just you) seem to be under the impression that if people knew they would rebel, because that is your mentality, but in my experience many people respond to contempt for themselves by their betters with (a) relative understanding and (b) emulation.

  25. Celsius 233

    Mandos
    August 14, 2013
    You (and not just you) seem to be under the impression that if people knew they would rebel, because that is your mentality, but in my experience many people respond to contempt for themselves by their betters with (a) relative understanding and (b) emulation.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    That would actually explain a lot about the current behavior of “the people”, to the current situation they are facing; actually, not facing…

  26. Polito

    Lack of empathy and a crumbling civilization. Thank you feminism.

  27. Edger

    There’s a huge presupposition here that I’m pretty sure is wrong.

    See?

    If not, googling the definition of “sarchasm” may help. But may not…

  28. Edger

    So, it looks like “Director Clapper will not be a part of the group, and is not leading or directing the group’s efforts,”

    But instead will “only” choose the people who will make up the group?

  29. Dave

    “Starting at about the Senior VP level, people decide that they deserve everything they’ve got and everyone else doesn’t. If they did, they’d have it”

    Amen Brother. I’ve been – only slightly sarcastically – blaming the Wharton MBA for the collapse of ethics in business for years.

  30. The Tragically Flip

    It’s recently been striking me how often the meta debate is really just about a bunch of assholes versus everyone else. It’s the pith of right wing politics: Being an asshole. The destruction of empathy (and beauty) is at some level deliberate. It’s an ugly, mean and cruel world these fucks want to build. I’m tired of dealing with mewling centrists who want to pretend everyone has the same basic goals to make the world better, and we just disagree over the specific means to do that. We don’t. The left is trying to make the world better, and the right is trying to destroy all that.

  31. David Kowalski

    The Huffington Post has an interesting article in its business section, “12 ways the rich are different from you and me.” Among the differences:

    Less empathy, more selfish
    Less willing to follow rules
    More aggressive drivers
    Like their jobs
    Happy with their life
    Contain chemical toxins that dispose them to a healthier lifestyle (that smugness about being thin is the benefit of genetic inheritance)
    Nearly twice as likely to vote
    Far more concerned about deficit reduction and and taxes
    It’s easier for them to become American citizens
    Less likely to be concerned with raising the minimum wage
    Get different ads on the internet and Facebook sent to them
    More likely to by brand name drugs and less likely to buy generics than the rest of society

    I think that society would be improved if these people could not vote, contribute to politicians, or hold office. They are, in fact, a smug, self serving drain on the body politic. We need more “traitors to their class” (like FDR) and fewer sell out wannabes.

    What this does not say, but should, is that the rich excel at office politics and sell out others as a pleasurable and profitable experience for themselves.

    Whast’s the difference between having Jamie Dimon run the economy directly and having Tim Geithner, Alan Greenspan, and Larry Summers running the economy for Dimon and his bankster pals?

  32. Jeff W

    You (and not just you) seem to be under the impression that if people knew they would rebel

    I’ve had the impression that—whether he is talking about contempt, as here, or how Democratic politicians hate the left or how President Obama is “a bad man”Ian is trying to give a coherent, corrective narrative about the behavior of the élites who supposedly represent us and support our interests, one that runs counter to other narratives (e.g., the President/the Democrats are well-intentioned but “weak,” the country is “center-right”). What people do when (or if) they understand (or if they care) is a different issue.

  33. VirtualNomad

    “Generally, we’ve chosen, for ideological reasons, to turn on each other.”

    From way on high, we might see the opening sequence of the 21st century as the culminating battle in the war against Tribalism. The neuronal evolution that allowed bipedal mammals to thrive within the porous membranes of communities (unions, sects, clubs, leagues, societies, guilds…) has been overtaken by a rigid and brittle system that requires total information awareness for its survival.

    My question is: can the neural pathways that bred tribalism regenerate after the last has been suffocated by the one-percent, or, is their extinction a matter left to evolution?

  34. Alae

    The sociological studies of neoliberalism concur in saying it’s bound to breed totalitarianism, since it’s a “law of the fittest” theory. Hence the end of democracy we’re witnessing. If we don’t do something with whatever weapons we still possess (like voting the right way), we will be done for.

    For the ” bad right vs good left” bots, forget all that: we’re onto left and/or right neoliberals vs NOT neoliberals.
    Or better said, left and/or right predators vs preys.

  35. Formerly T-Bear

    What??? You folks are still talking democracy stuff? Democracy suicided itself way back in the days of ‘Law and Order’, now going on nearly a half century ago. It has been almost one and a half decades since the Republic was overthrown. How long will it take to digest that event? None have the slightest notion of what rules your country, it is far more important to have some private opinion fed the public through the mass media. You have learned well not to trust your lying eyes but to believe the disinformation that permeates your every waking moment. Your memories have atrophied to useless under the deluge of the moment, fading into the inconsequential within weeks of having an experience. Your education has deprived you of knowledge of the richness and breadth of the human experience contained in the written word, a heritage that ha been traded for the latest electronic gizmo’s power to enchant the eye. You revile excellence, rail at wealth, rubbish knowledge and those who posses experience of knowledge, and rebel against your betters, forgetting there are always betters. You want liberty and you accept bedlam. You want security and you accept slavery. When was the last time you looked into a mirror and saw what was actually before your eyes. Did you ever wonder why it is said vampires were never seen in a mirror? Did you ever consider mirrors do not reflect lies? How much of your life can be reflected in that mirror, what fraction is real, what fraction has been consumed in lie. You get to grade yourself on your answer, only you know what that really is.

    The nation have been addressed by their installed leader assuring their security. How credible are that leader’s words. Did anyone see this leader’s performance in a mirror? NEVER vote for a Republican to hold a public office. NEVER vote for an incumbent Democrat to hold a public office. DO devise another way of conducting public affairs. BEWARE of comfortable myths pretending facile answers. MAYBE you will find integrity a better measure of a public officeholder that either a pretty face, fine hair or happy agreeable words. Good luck …

  36. S Brennan

    “With So Many Job Openings, Why So Little Hiring?
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-13/with-so-many-job-openings-why-so-little-hiring-.html

    This article details what is the Propaganda Ministry’s official party line [OPL] for “smart people”, please read it with an open [and unquestioning] mind. Remember; OPL’s are required memorization to obtain work permits in jobs that are above poverty pay grade.

    After complete memorization please send a special thanks to Comrade Orszag for his well received repetitive regurgitation of OPL 17.07.689 “Americans are now lazy, worthless, scum and deserve all the bad things that we do to them for our own trivial amusement”

  37. Formerly T-Bear:

    You revile excellence, rail at wealth, rubbish knowledge and those who posses experience of knowledge…

    No offense, but who exactly are you speaking to?

    …and rebel against your betters, forgetting there are always betters.

    Oh, well, fuck that. Betters? Really? Honestly… I’m pretty sharp and lucky with my intelligence and various skills, and I have never once felt like I was a “better” to anyone. What’s that like?

  38. Celsius 233

    Petro
    August 14, 2013

    No offense; but I think you just made T-Bears point…

  39. Celsius 233

    T-Bear’s…

  40. No offense; but I think you just made T-Bears point…

    I’m not quite sure I understood T-Bear’s point. Is it one of those points for which, if you don’t understand it, you make the point you didn’t understand?

  41. Celsius 233

    Mandos PERMALINK
    August 15, 2013
    I’m not quite sure I understood T-Bear’s point. Is it one of those points for which, if you don’t understand it, you make the point you didn’t understand?
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    LOL; I’ll let the Bear speak for himself.
    But I thought he was pretty succinct in his meaning; we’re pretty much responsible for our present predicament.
    That’s my take at any rate…

  42. Celsius 233

    …and we’re still prattling on about the past as though it was the present.

  43. Formerly T-Bear

    FWIW that comment was using a technique sometimes referred to as a ‘train of thought’. Seems to have left several behind at the station.

    Have noted of late that increasing usage of entertainment productions as means to communicate complex thoughts as if entertainment has become the sole shared experience between people, a position language and comprehension of words once held. Now it seems a Hollywood filter has been placed between the public and the real world – if it isn’t in the script, it cannot exist. The decay of the ability to read and understand is all that remains between controlling one’s destiny and the collapse of the ability to use language. This may be an indicator of how far gone the culture actually is.

    @ Petro
    You need to obtain a copy of Carley Simon’s classic that contains the lines to the effect:

    You think this is about you, don’t you, don’t you.

    and play it often. I’ll pass commenting at the disparity between your self-perceived excellence and what is actually produced. I think 233ºC’s comment relating suffices.

  44. Formerly T-Bear:

    You need to obtain a copy of Carley Simon’s classic that contains the lines to the effect:

    You think this is about you, don’t you, don’t you.

    and play it often. I’ll pass commenting at the disparity between your self-perceived excellence and what is actually produced. I think 233ºC’s comment relating suffices.

    Well, no, actually – I certainly couldn’t have thought you were talking to me, since my only appearance on the thread was to query you as to whom you were referring. I was just curious about what the others had said to provoke your judgment.

    But that’s pretty obvious.

    I think I glean that you were being ironic. If so, my bad. No need to be condescending or insulting about it (that’s a “people skills” thing – oops, now I’ve gone and done it myself.)

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