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.

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.

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