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The Dysfunction of Government – Read It and Weep

Paul von Ward is in my carass. In the world we share, he describes himself as an interdisciplinary cosmologist.


WHAT IS INTERDISCIPLINARY COSMOLOGY?

It offers a “bigger picture” than science’s conventional view of reality. In addition to empirical research, it includes intuitive and other sources of knowledge, but subjects them to verification by the scientific method.

paul-von-ward

You can read about his bigger picture here: http://www.vonward.com/home.html. Paul just sent around a blog entry, “Government For the People From the People (Link),” that has nothing to do with anything in our outside the box reality, and I wasn’t planning to pass it along. However, the experiences with the web of dysfunction that Paul was privy to, in a career in government from 1959 to 1980, and his “view that the problem cannot be solved by those who created it,” has been haunting me. It’s a dimensional account, which includes Paul’s ideas for what can be done, that I suggest you read in its entirely. Here’s an excerpt:

It is the “civil society” that must insure government officials at all levels see themselves as more responsible to the overall public interest than to their bureaucratic and political bosses or special-interest groups. This kind of a civic-minded government, with the public’s best interest at heart, had been the objective of our Civil Service System created in 1872 (and subsequent legislation) to replace the “spoils system.” In the old system government employees supported the politicians who arranged for their jobs. The Civil Service goal was that all except a few appointed officials would fulfill their responsibilities based on professional merit and would remain apolitical. Human nature, inside and outside government, has made that goal unattainable.

Since the 1900s we have only added new layers of bureaucracy on increasing fragmentation of government functions. As new programs are added, old ones are left to their own devices with regular tax-payer transfusions to keep them alive. No one ever applies public tests of continuing relevance or effectiveness. Officials are afraid to prioritize to make sure pressing new programs replace out-dated offices and staffs. They simply ask Congress for more money for all. Keeping these outmoded or low priority functions continues because each has special interest groups lobbying along side federal staff going up Capitol Hill.

After WW-II several initiatives were taken to reduce its size and revitalize the federal bureaucracy by eliminating unnecessary jobs and wasteful programs. The 1947-48 Hoover Commission made an unsuccessful effort. Subsequently, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon initiated abortive government reforms. Jimmy Carter was the last President who attempted (tepidly and failed) to address the kinds of fundamental problems that produce bureaucratic bloat and overly expensive programs. Since then Presidents have little influence over an over-weaning bureaucracy, a deep-pockets lobby, and partisanship that mobilizes the Congress. This special-interest system produces national laws and administrative regulations that directly benefit their financial backers.

My view on this problem goes back to a cost-saving project I was given as a young officer in the U.S. Navy and similar research in my Washington jobs during the 1970’s. It was reinforced by 15 years work and lobbying in the Washington private sector that largely depends on the government. I came to the conclusion that about 30% of the personnel and administrative resources of every department was simply wasted. And this does not include the findings of recent inspectors-general reports on egregious waste in defense and other agency contracts in wars, overseas programs, and domestic programs. Keep in mind that what auditors call waste is really money in the pockets of corporations and contractors who in turn donate part of it to Congressional campaigns.

The results are departments and agencies focused on self-preservation. Overlapping responsibilities and strong fiefdoms are literally unmanageable. Nobody is really in charge. To avoid rocking the boat, everyone takes the easy way out. This overly-expensive government, particularly given its tawdry benefits to the general public, pays a behind-the-moat bureaucracy, largely directed by surrogates who stand the financial backers who elected them.

Thus, we have created a self-perpetuating institution that we call Washington Government. Its implicit purpose is to maintain its octopus-like arms as mechanisms to convert and re-allocate large percentages of the nation’s common resources (its human labor, nature’s riches, and citizens’ creativity) to a small percentage of U.S. citizens and international corporations. This process includes not only the transfer of general tax revenue. Even more important is the use (or non-use) of regulatory power to economically favor certain groups, particularly the largely amoral financial and corporate sectors.

These modern-day elites are much like the self-centered, parasitic lords and ladies who surrounded the kings and queens of old Europe. They will betray others and their own integrity to keep their “royal” and financial status.

Emails to Live For

I opened two emails in a row that touched me deeply. This is the first one:

From: Deo Robbins [mailto:deorob@yesworld.org]
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 2:09 PM
To: suzanne@mightycompanions.org
Subject: Your incredible film

Hello Suzanne,

We haven’t met, but my husband John gave me your contact information.

We watched What on Earth?  last night, and I feel compelled to let you know I have rarely felt so moved by a film.

We were both blown away, not only by the content (some of which was new at least to me), but by how masterfully you put it together.
You have managed to present this phenomenon in an extremely credible fashion, while at the same time evoking a sense of mystery and grace — no easy task.

Each aspect you chose to explore of this complex and multi-faceted topic felt like an essential part of this perfectly orchestrated piece.
BRAVO AND THANK YOU!!!

My heart, mind, and spirit are opened from this experience. You really did a terrific job.

Peace, blessings, and gratitude, Deo Robbins

The second one is what’s on this web page of essays, by Carla Reuckert, with this charming name: “A Small Medium at Large.” I have been a fan of The Ra Material for decades, and a few months ago, when I saw that Carla, who channels that material, along with another of my idols, Mellen-Thomas Benedict , were on the bill at the Earth Transformation Conference (where they did not disappoint), I got myself plugged into it to show my movie. As I wrote a few posts ago, about Michael Day, there’s a ring of authenticity to some special people, and Carla, speaking as herself here, and in the Ra Material, is another one. She’s been unable to write for months; you’ll read about it in this piece, which is her re-entry. So I read it eagerly, not expecting to find myself in it! Here’s the excerpt, from a moving communication you can click through to, above:

I traveled to Kona, Hawaii, in my wheelchair with an amazing degree of aid from the airline that allowed me maximum comfort along the way, and fell happily into the hospital bed the producers of the Fourth Earth Transformation Conference arranged for me at the resort in which the conference was held. The next day I opened the Conference with a discussion of 2012 and at the Conference’s end, I offered a workshop on Wanderers. These talks are available on video from http://earthtransformation.com. My husband’s and my room looked out over the ocean and the whole experience was wonderful!

I met two special people during that visit besides the presenters of the conference, Angelika Whitecliff and Michael Salla, the producers of this beautiful annual event. One was Sky Innes, whose book, Love’s Alchemy (http://www.lovesalchemy.com/Site/Home.html) is so compatible with my own work that she and I spent time talking about how to present together in the future.

The other was Suzanne Taylor, whose excellent film on crop circles (http://www.whatonearththemovie.com/flash) is now available. She and I spent a memorable afternoon that drifted into evening, as we sat and talked and watched the sea spray outside my lanai window. She put me in touch with North Atlantic Books, who has now accepted The Aaron-Q’uo Dialogues, a book co-channeled by Barbara Brodsky and me. It will come out next August. For these new friends I thank heavens, and encourage you to check their sites for interesting and illuminating material.

Formula for Living

I have a new mantra, so to speak. Every so often, sometimes years apart, I get a new idea of a thought to be resting in — like Don Juan’s “assemblage point” in the Castaneda books. My new thought to be coming from is BE CONTENT, which brings me a wave of comfort whenever I think of it.

My movie has me consumed. I’m advised to take time off, to kick back at night, to have a life. But, thanks to the internet, there’s always more to do. Even writing blog posts. Always more. With BE CONTENT in mind, instead of fighting against my proclivity I just let it be. Much better. I can feel it even as I write it.

This isn’t new news in the big world. ‘Acceptance’ is my top of the list word. But being content is the doing of acceptance, acceptance also being a more complex concept.

What? Accept the horrors of the world? To accept them doesn’t mean to approve of them, but to recognize that what is is, which comes before trying to change things.

Oh, I expect I’m going to get a few backs up here. Accept Hitler? Well, yes. Oh gosh, there’s more that figures to be coming to me of what there’s always more of.

I came the closest to a mystical experience when I realized how vital acceptance is. It’s “being in the now,” as advocated perhaps most popularly at this time by Exkhart Tolle in books like, The Power of Now. My personal mystical sort of realization came with the idea that if one person did that totally, accepting everything (it came to me, sitting cross-legged on my bed, as “letting everything land in your lap”), we would have another Christlike being — and wouldn’t that be a wonderful model to have amongst us?! There would be no denying the power of the good that would emanate from such a person.

When I read this to a friend, I got this great quote back, “Contentment is the only true wealth!” Lau Tzu