My broader point is that progressives do themselves a serious disservice by frequently invoking government failure as the problem. All this does is feed the decades-long image of government, built up by right-wingers, that government is indeed the problem. BrooklineTom suggests that we must do better by “raising, not lowering, local government revenues” — but who wants to give more money to “these bums” in government who “can’t even do their jobs”? If the rhetorical context is always set in government failure — from both the left and the right — than the power of anti-government sentiment shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The purpose of this post is not to attack BrooklineTom, who as I mentioned wrote up a good post on the flooding issue, nor is he some sort of poster child for what I see as a broader problem with the strategies of the progressive movement. However, the post (innocently focused on the Boston-area flooding though it is!) is another small but good example of the fundamental problem in progressive rhetoric since at least the 1960s. In short, trying to build up government while rhetorically tearing it down isn’t a winning strategy.
I’m not sure exactly what the solution is, but we need to give people a reason to trust government and offer them belief that it can and will work if we ever want to ensure that people working in government get the resources and support necessary. The rhetoric of the progressive movement for many years now, focused as it is on “government failure,” does quite the opposite, little by little feeding in to the harsh rhetoric of the anti-government ideologues.
The headline on my diary targeted the media as well as government. In my followup comments, I attempted to elaborate on my observation that the failure cannot be laid solely at the feet of local government.
<
p>Voters will not support tax increases or increased public spending if the media fails (or refuses) to tell them the truth about the impact of cuts — the media has an obligation to do more than just reprint press releases from politicians of opposing camps and comment on whose winning and losing in the polls. Our media has failed, miserably, its responsibility to educate the public about the facts of local government and its funding.
<
p>Citizens have a responsibility to do more than read bumper-stickers and shout slogans. Government is not sports, and an election is not an athletic contest. Citizens must be able and willing to read, to follow a rational debate to its logical conclusion, and to accept the results of such a process even if they aren’t necessarily happy about the answer. I don’t like it how it feels when I learn that my roof leaks — I still have to fix it, whether I like it or not.
<
p>I don’t agree that my post is an example of “trying to build up government while rhetorically tearing it down.” Society is more than government, the failures of our society involve failures of more than government, and refusing to face the reality of those failures doesn’t help fix them.
<
p>The lack of trust in government — especially Massachusetts local government — is well-deserved, and that lack of trust is not, in my opinion, going to be assuaged by feel-good happy-talk.
<
p>In my view, we must, as a society, demand that we hold ourselves to a higher standard as a result. All of us — our government, our media, ourselves.
<
p>Christine Broderic, 45, was trapped in twelve feet of water on McGrath Highway yesterday. Milena Del Valle was killed when the ceiling of a newly-constructed tunnel collapsed on her car.
<
p>We’ve simply got to do better.
How about three examples of media failing to do its job relative to telling the truth about the impact of cuts. And then please define media. Is it the Globe and Herald or are you including broadcast media?
<
p>You and I are not going to agree on much, but if today’s Globe and Herald are any example of the horrible state of local print media, we are screwed and maybe we agree that local print media essentially sucks. Besides a somewhat interesting piece on Governor Patrick’s wife, the rest of what was in the Globe was completely useless. The Herald, well its the Herald. There is little distinction between the Sunday Herald and Wednesday’s edition. We used to get more from the Globe.
<
p>This is where I disagree. The levels of distrust in government — now at record levels, but quite low since the 1970s — is certainly not well-deserved. Instead, it’s way over-the-top, emphasizing perceived “government failure” at the expense of the many things government does right.
<
p>A big part of the problem is the media. One of the media’s roles is surely to expose deception, uncover problems, and introduce sunlight to the inner workings of the political system, and the media does it well. What it doesn’t do nearly as well is put all of this in context — by also recognizing the many successes of government agencies, strong leadership by political figures, and the hard work of millions of those working in the national, state, and local public sectors. These stories just aren’t as gripping as exposing the corruption of some hack politician.
<
p>I would agree that feel-good happy-talk is not the solution. Like I said in my post, I’m not sure what the solution is. But what I do know is that it’s awfully hard to convince people to accept a stronger government regulatory role, or more funding to carry out those regulations, if the rhetoric from the left as well as right makes it seem that government can never get it right. Why trust the government with such a responsibility if they are so remarkably incompetent?
We are not alone in recognizing that the public’s lack of confidence in their own governments is the major barrier to repairing and reforming the public structures that educate our children, keep our water and air clean, build and maintain the roads that business needs to transport goods, etc. etc. We at ONE Massachusetts have been working with the Demos Center and trying to rebuild the public’s confidence in Government by practicing their learnings.
<
p>
<
p>This article from Sunday’s Globe Ideas section (How facts backfire: Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains) isn’t too encouraging if we think this is a necessary piece of the solution.
<
p>
Political partisans are the most likely to make the new facts fit a preconceived narrative. I for one check Factcheck and Politifact from time to time even, and in some cases especially, when I already think I have an idea as to what the truth is just to be sure.
Who else but state and local government are responsible for the streets and roads? Can Joe Sixpack pick up his tools and fix the streets and drains at Route 28 in Somerville (without getting arrested? That section has flooded in the past…it’s not a new phenomenon.
<
p>Hoyapaul…not everything is about Democrats winning the next election. Sometimes, it really is more about doing the current job well. That’s a far more winning strategy than pretending everything is just fine in “Happy Valley.”
<
p>Now…put the Koolaid down and step away from the table.
<
p>This is a bigger problem than the Democrats winning the next election. As a liberal, do you agree with the persistent anti-government rhetoric encouraged by right-wingers? Probably not, but unfortunately that’s exactly what the progressive rhetoric I discuss encourages.
<
p>And, in fact, I think it’s not just about empowering the government to best address contemporary issues, either. It’s also reality-based, pushing back against the suggestion that government is constantly failing with the fact that the public sector(s) much more often than not does the best they can under the circumstances, which is often remarkably well.
<
p>My main question is simply this: if government is so incompetent, constantly failing and very frequently unable to meet their obligations, why should any more of the taxpayer’s money support the public sector? Why shouldn’t we privatize a great deal of services?
calling a “spade, a spade.” When government fails – I have no problem calling it out. When it is functioning well, again, no problem offering applause. But I do not, and will never, subscribe to the notion that we should look the other way when our government is failing for the sake of unity, regardless of which party is in control. That would be akin to awarding everyone a trophy at an awards dinner for adults.
<
p>You should be aware that Route 28 is in fact, a state road. It has historically had problems with flooding. The state has offered bandaids and ignored it. My question to you is this: is calling the government out when they failed always “antigovernment rhetoric” as espoused by the right-wingers…or is it just bloody common sense?
when repair issues are skipped for funding reasons but we perform jobs such as adding mile markers to highways which already had mile markers, is this good use of our tax dollars AND are we making the right choices on what gets done and what doesn’t?
We remember waiting for a late train because we have nothing else to do but ponder its lateness. Prompt trains are forgotten.
<
p>When done well, housework removes the unusual or out of place; messes missed by the person cleaning are disturbing.
<
p>Government successes are expected and unremarkable. Government failures are outrageous and, occasionally, disastrous.
My town has experienced severe problems from flooding over the last decade. After we completed every project we could to improve drainage, we came up against two big barriers.
<
p>First, much of the water that caused the floods came from other towns, in the form of rain run off into a river. My town is powerless impact land use planning in those towns, or to force them to spend millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements.
<
p>Second, a key part of our drainage control plan requires state environmental permits, which have been pending for years (since the Romney administration). Until those permits are granted, we can’t complete the flood mitigation plan.
<
p>So its not ignorance and its not cheapness. Some problems are regional problems, and our patchwork system of municipal planning makes regional planning impossible.
in government and our political leaders. I said at that time that we are so deaf to their lies and failures that nothing could get done until we started to believe in them again. This cannot happen from words alone. Obama has gotten people to have hope prior to his election and gained support from the faithful, much of which has rubbed off.
<
p>We need to start seeing people who can do something and we can believe in… and we need to stop hearing about the kickbacks, bribes, mistresses and back-room deals which reverse the good work of hundreds of good politicians/bureaucrats. Be it right or wrong, when we hear a story like Ted Stevens or Charlie Rangel, many of us get disgusted with the whole bunch of them. Part of that reason may be when they do get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the troops circle the wagons and often defend their brethren (unless they are in the “other” party). It’s kind of odd that pols who criticize and ostracize these offenders get slammed as “throwing them under the bus”… even when they should be thrown under the bus!
<
p>Give us people to believe in and we will gladly support them, even additional spending.
<
p>So much of the good work in government goes unreported and unappreciated. It’s not that it isn’t happening. Unfortunately, we’ll certainly hear incessantly about the other side of the coin, whether it be sex scandals or the hackery of a local politician.
<
p>It’s almost as if we take for granted things like the vast improvements in air quality since the 1970s (thanks EPA), the sea-change in civil rights views over the past 50 years (thanks DOJ), and the construction of massive transportation improvements. The public sector was critically involved in improving these and many other areas of contemporary American life.
<
p>Are things perfect in each of these areas? Certainly not. But if we characterize remaining problems as “government failures” without recognizing the many good things accomplished by the public sector, then progressives will be pushing a boulder up a hill trying to convince the American public that the right-wing’s critiques of government are misguided.
And this even applies to the things we like. The media does own a lot of the blame but we go along with it. How boring would it be for the media to go down to the Gulf and report a clean beach in Alabama… not. So they go looking for oil and when they finally find it the camera starts rolling. How boring would it be to show “normal” Americans who are fed up with the direction of the country and the amount of taxes that are paid (Tea Party protestors) but stick a few Obama/Hitler signs up and the MSM will film it and make it headline news. Teacher has sex with 14 year old student make a great headline regardless of how rare of an occurrence it actually is, but it still paints all teachers with a seedy brush.
<
p>On an individual level, how many brilliant careers ave been ended by single aberrant events? The thirst for something to believe in (which can be very dangerous) has never been stronger. The sea of change will come in November but in my heart I believe we will get another batch of people who will let us down. Yes, there’ll be good people coming in but unless we “see” a difference then we will be disappointed and lose a little more faith in all of them.
…that these things are what still make the news. The old adage says that the press won’t report the planes that land safely, only those that crash. We should probably be more worried if we get to the point where the positive actually becomes more newsworthy.
It’s kind of like starting a war in Iraq because you know where Sadam is, instead of finding Osama bin Laden.
Faith (as defined in Wikipedia):
<
p>Should we intentionally turn a blind eye to government performance? Demand no evidence of its productivity, effectiveness, or performance?
<
p>To the contrary, I’m quite encouraged that the governed increasingly demand high standards of transparency, accountability, and continuous productivity improvement. The last thing we should consider or advocate for the outdated notion of “faith in government” over engagement of the body politic and evidence of government performance.
<
p>If anything, we demand too little from our government, not too much.
I should of used the word “trust” rather than “faith,” because clearly I am not talking about “turning a blind eye to government performance.” I’m not really sure how that’s derived from my post.
<
p>Rather, I’m talking about trust that government can do the right thing with the tasks assigned to it. Right now, the level of trust is so low that nobody trust the government to do much of anything. It’s subsequently quite strange for progressives to argue that more tax money should go to, say, government enforcement, if government is inevitably going to fail anyway.
There was an article in Truthdig a little bit ago. It was about how corporations nullified the work of Ralph Nader and became the dominant political force of the United States. I wonder if it has always been this way.
<
p>Certainly events show there is more corporate responsibility at the state level than at the federal level (Yeah, still not enough). Here, we usually get at least an investigation when corporate malfeasance produces financial loss, injury or death. Our AG is responsible to the people unlike the federal AG. Even under Mafia controlled Boston in the ’40s there was some accountability handed out for the Cocoanut Grove fire (Yeah, not enough).
<
p>At the federal level we see a disaster admittedly caused by human negligence and eleven people dead and an ecology and economy ruined. (“Eh, just increase the corporate largess to our influential political friends.”) Is anyone even considering negligent homicide? Where’s the phalanxes of marching lawyers litigating damages? Is BP still paying Rahm’s rent?
<
p>For people to trust government there must be a quid pro quo. If governments mete out justice the people will consider the government just. Sometimes it takes more than public relations to influence the people. Every scammer says, “Trust me, I’ll take care of you.”
<
p>“When mistrust comes in, love goes out.” –Irish Saying
Yes, I know you all think I’m obsessed with Charlie Rangel but it has been quite some time since I’ve mentioned his name.
<
p>I did recently read this story about him in Politico. I talked above about how politicians who get caught doing something wrong will often times enjoy the “circling of the wagons” by their political/government friends. Charlie is a great example as we are approaching the “2 year anniversary” of the Congressional investigation which is still “on-going”. How absurd does it have to get before crowds must cry out for the investigation to end? Politico believes the “timing” of the results is really what’s going on since a negative investigation may kill Charlie’s reelection.
<
p>Anyway, file the Charlie Rangel story under “Why Americans have lost faith in their government” for a) Charlie’s crimes and b) The cover given him by fellow Democrats and the Democratic leadership.
<
p>
…and then let the voters decide.
That’s the way it should work. But I also believe in letting the voters know what their candidates have or have not done. Would Sal DiMasi have won reelection if the voters knew what he has been accused of doing? This 2 years delay on the Congressional Investigation is outrageous. Does it really take that long to decide if he has broken any laws or House rules?
…why we don’t hear more about this. Rangel is Chair of Ways and Means and thus a key member of House leadership. Maybe there isn’t much to report or else somebody like me who pays pretty close attention certainly would have heard. The media like a good scandal after all. I can’t help but think you’ve made a mountain out of a molehill on this one.
from huffingtonpost
<
p>Rangel Ethics Investigation Enters Third Year
<
p>First Posted: 07-14-10 08:04 PM
<
p>