Here your point on the knee-jerk reaction is especially well taken, and I, too, feel very disturbed by the tendency. I associate it with the impatience that gets confused with actual urgency, but people’s unwillingness to attempt to overcome it troubles me – especially in relation to government. What also trouble me are the assumptions that so readily are adopted to undergird the reaction (“All this would be solved if we had less government and corporations really had free rein,” for instance). These are almost Marxist in their entrenchment in theory rather than in empirical reality. (Okay, I enjoy lumping Ayn Randers in with Marxists. The absolutism strikes me as much the same.)

On your scenario of three postal workers to every customer … hmm, interesting. The cycle I see goes as follows: if the USPS could afford three workers to every customer, then the overall economy must be doing a good bit better, as well as the USPS’s economy. If the overall economy is better, people tend to take service for granted. But as soon as a downturn came along, the three postal workers would catch their eye – and, needing to blame “the government” for “wasting money” (though the downturn is more likely to be felt personally, as in the loss of the ready funds to buy a Blu-Ray player), that’s when the arguments about “government” inefficiency would begin.

The process of picking out all the bad things in a bad time seems to be a wiring of the human brain, from what I read in the sciences; and it’s the foundation of most spiritual traditions to offer alternative roads to combat the tendency. But America’s emphasis on government as the root of all evil is a dangerous one – and that, I think, has more recent origins, one of which is the assumption that “the free market economy is always right.”

Is it? …

To address your situation, I wonder how many people would complain at the post office if they saw 3 customer service agents for every 1 customer? In other words, would they complain about over-staffing and use this as an example of the inefficiencies of govt service? Probably, even though -as you astutely point out – the Post Office is technically a privatized business now.

Article I of the Constitution charges Congress to do a number of things for the general population. One of them is the establishment of a post office. Another is to form a military. And yet another is to provide for the “General Welfare”. There has since Reagan been the siren’s-song of privatization – and the expectation that it will bring efficiencies, profits and cost savings unachievable by public institutions. Maybe there is a kernel of truth in that, but I don’t believe it’s a rule impervious to doubt or inconsistent outcome. Fed Ex has failed me on a number of occasions, including destroying irreplaceable evidence in one horrific real-life experience in my law career.

Maybe we all need to realize that the promises of TV commercials may be good for selling foot creams and french fries, but the “business” of providing govt functions is not quite the same. Private businesses *do* measure, and find “acceptable ranges” for their products to fail – yes, FAIL. It’s a “cost of doing business” that automobile manufacturers understand that X number of lives will be killed by virtue of the design they chose. It may be the most brutal thing in private business to accept those deaths. But it’s done!!! Yet, we seem to have a “zero tolerance” for any such cost-benefit analysis with regard to govt services. We’ve adopted a relatively inflexible, reflexive rejection of any error or failure – period. This knee-jerk tendency – which I have observed with growing alarm – may explain why we get such wide swings in electoral politics and no consistent message from the public except one of bitter disappointment and apathy.

P.S. – I filed my taxes by email. But I do miss the moments of “meditation” I use to get while waiting in line at the Post Office on Tax Day.

But in this response, it seems to me that you consider the dialogue to be something more personal – a judgment on you, not a response to the argument that you have set forth. In that, I’m afraid you are reading into my response something that simply is not there. I am not making character judgments; I base my writing on the text of your posting (which I didn’t get to read until over a week after you posted it, as I had other activities and discussions in which to engage). I would do the same with a response from any of the 46 other people who kindly looked at this blog over the past month, from whatever country. Some of them I surely do not know.

If you review your initial writing, perhaps you will see why I made the comment about totalitarianism (to use your own words, “I have to wonder about the reality of effecting change by leaving it to the people .. to do it themselves”). The comment was not an accusation directed toward the administration or toward you, nor is it reasonable to portray it as such. It was my assertion that lack of trust in “the people” leads, in effect, to totalitarianism. And this isn’t a dialogue solely about the Healthcare Bill. This blog does not attack the Healthcare Bill, and it is a rather amazing reach to couple “totalitarianism” and “Healthcare Bill” on its basis. What is laid out *here* – in this blog – are my thoughts about the general atmosphere surrounding the election, wherein I propose that the nation apparently needs a pause and might best go about that pause by attending to their individual lives – as the affairs of government are not, for most of the country, matters that can usefully be addressed on a daily basis, whereas individual bank accounts, job applications, self-examination, and the like *are.*

I happen to believe that it is from such individual processes that social change eventually springs. And that is my emphasis – countering what I read (misread?) as your emphasis that individuals do not effect real change without governments actively intervening.

Re-read, please, before posting.

I do not invest “solely” in winning an argument about the role of government Nor do I place my investment “chiefly in government processes”. If that’s the case, then why am I serving on the BOD of Susan Hess Modern Dance? Why am I volunteering in my neighborhood community organization? Why have I personally sponsored several immigrants to become American citizens? Why am I donating so much money to private non-profit charitable organizations? Why do I assist friends in need? Don’t you think many Americans are doing the same thing, too? Who is this fictional person you create?

The difference in mindset, as I see it, is your invocation of totalitarianism to explain the outcome of the past election. In my mindset, and from my point of view, it’s exactly that type of hyperbole that gets us nowhere. If any voter really thought that the Healthcare Bill was an act of totalitarianism, then it speaks to a sad state of affairs about the lack of voter education as it neither satisfies nor perpetuates any common sense definition of it. If we viewed every act of government through that distorted lens, then we will wind up exactly in the place we want to avoid – one crisis after another, and a terribly inefficient use of our resources. But, hey, if that’s the way the cookie crumbles here in America, I won’t feel “incapacitated” or bereft of hope towards working for an improved state of affairs. I will simply continue to do what I always to – keep my eyes on the prize and continue to act globally and personally, all the while recognizing my own humble limitations.

I hope this explains where I’m coming from better than my last post.

*Of course* individual actions produce change at the social level. It just doesn’t happen overnight. But if you still doubt it, I hold up to you a woman named Rosa Parks, who decided she was not getting out of her seat on the front of the bus; and a man named Martin Luther King Jr., who championed her cause and preached in his church about civil rights and encouraged a small group of people to action – boycotting public transportation, crossing forbidden boundaries, marching en masse; and all the others who connected, networked, and spread the Civil Rights Movement outside government … until government had to respond.

To your points. Your point that Americans do not see the need to change is the slippery one. On the one hand, if most Americans actively vote against the change a candidate or the candidate’s party proposes, no matter how much you or I may believe in that change, the majority of the nation is acting as “the nation” in a democratic society. This is, in fact, a healthy democracy. On the other hand, the burden then falls to us – who are also Americans, if in the national voting minority at the present time – to find ways to pursue and promote our ideas for change outside the public policy arena, until such time as we can persuade the present majority. Now, we don’t like that burden; but it is in the nature of democracy that this is how the chips fall. We can either decide that to pursue a specific set of changes really wasn’t such a great idea and to abandon the course, or we can actively raise the issues, again and again, seeking positive, coherent solutions within and outside government.

And there will be change nonetheless. That is the nature of life.

Your example on the environment contains some pointers. You likely effected some change (other than developing foot problems), however small, in addressing fuel consumption by walking. What you did not do is end America’s dependence on oil, and I would have been surprised if you alone had! But you have been doing this only for six months. Others, too, have been doing things to lessen oil dependence. When my Scandinavian visitors were here, they commented, for instance, on the increase in bicycle traffic in the city.

Acting one’s own for change increases in potential for *societal* change when one shares the fact regularly, seeks support and new ideas, collaborates on strategies, discusses roadblocks, and so forth. You network. You work with like-minded (not necessarily *same*-minded, but on the same basic page) individuals. Maybe you join a bike club, since your feet hurt; or you buy a Segway; or you ask for shoe recommendations. Perhaps you join forums online about podiatry. You celebrate the fact that you have made a change, not by blaming other people for *not* changing but by working to make it a habit you embrace because you believe in it strongly.

On the even larger scale, we are already experiencing some of the weather effects of our desire to burn fuel thoughtlessly and not deal with environmental issues, and these will eventually force policy change – probably in a way less to our liking than whatever we might do now. The human race is *going* to get bitten rather badly for its tendency toward procrastination: in rising fuel costs in the face of a dwindling resource, rising insurance costs as sea levels rise, rising food costs as saltwater species are “polluted” by freshwater glacier melts and different crops need more resources to maintain them in changed climates, rising energy bills as air-conditioning becomes not optional but essential in hotter and hotter summers, and rising health-care costs in the face of a rash of new conditions brought about by climate change.

While it may not satisfy our urge for justice, whereby we want to punish those who currently would rather drive across a parking lot from one store to another than trek with shopping bags and children because they find it “inconvenient,” we can be looking to that future and ways to address it *now.* We can be crafting ideas, making our cases, gathering data, and discovering what roadblocks those ideas face. We can be addressing, for instance, everything from shoe problems (probably an easier realm to engage than “cap and trade”) to podiatry to savings accounts to mass-transit solutions. And we will continue to do so. Change *comes.* We both anticipate and respond to it. And in the sciences, at least, we create it.

But we cannot expect to wave a magic wand and change *habits* all at once. And we likely will not be perfect. (My biggest beef with James Madison remains that “more perfect union” – that word would better have been left out entirely.)

Your second point is the most cogent for me. People are not always empowered to make change, and that does fall under the purview of government. But it is also a practical area that can be addressed outside government. For instance, do we tutor others to get better jobs? Do we discuss issues with people respectfully? Do we contribute to educational programs outside the public school system? Do we live our lives in a way that models a good life for young people? Do we offer to carpool? Do we assist families in finding transportation routes? Do we promote microloan programs? So many possibilities other than getting angry at “the opposition” and waiting for a unified government! Government has a role, to be sure – but so do we. And the question really becomes whether we are more invested in winning our points about government than in addressing the issues we profess to believe are important.

Your third point is really a continuation of the second, at least in terms of my response. Government does not have to be the sole provider of alternatives. Consider this scenario: you are confronted with someone who doesn’t have public transportation (lack of a viable alternative) to work, who takes a taxi, and who works two blocks from you and lives a block from where you live. You propose sharing a taxi. If the person says no, he’d rather do it on his own so he can set his own schedule, there is not much you can do about it. You propose he purchase a bike, or that you alternate use of your bike. He doesn’t want to ride a bike. He also doesn’t want to walk. He won’t vote, he won’t lobby the government, he won’t look into Philly CarShare or any such program. If this fellow keeps complaining about the public transportation system, there *is* one more thing you can do: you can tell him that he has alternatives and chooses to ignore them, and that you will exercise your option of not indulging him and his complaints anymore.

Find people who nurture your creativity and support your choices. You can’t solve everything. And if you go down the road to trying, you will end up wanting to sue the deniers for endangering the planet and your health and welfare with it … which may, in our type of society, become an alternative that enters practice (another reason climate change disbelievers should be more cautious – what goes around does, eventually, come around).

I see less disagreement between us on facts than a difference in mindset. I prefer to look to what we can do both inside and outside government. So “my” change failed the November electoral round – big whoop. That hardly incapacitates me. I need government for certain things, and will advocate that government should, constitutionally, be geared toward certain things for the betterment of the whole society; but I don’t need government to supply my creativity or possibilities for response.

That is a personal preference, and while it doubtless is irksome to those who place their investment chiefly in government processes, it is not “wrong” by virtue of being different.

I do agree that people – individuals – are and should be more responsible for change themselves than expecting the govt to do it for them. I think that was what (to borrow from Obama’s 2008 rhetoric) it meant when he said “meaningful change doesn’t come from the top-down, but from the bottom-up”.

And I agree that in America for the past 30 years or so, it’s been more acceptable to have a divided govt (where one party has one branch, and the opposite party has another). I was saying that in 1994 when Dems lost control of the Legislative branch while Clinton held the Executive. People just feel like there’s more “balance” when one party doesn’t control both. And this was true under Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush I.

Yet, I query whether people – by acting on an individual level – are capable of making significant change to a broader social structure which is inherently complex, opaque, and rife with Catch-22′s. One thing that gives me great pause in your argument are the assumptions that (1) people actually feel the *need* to change something in their lives; (2) if they feel the need, that they are *empowered* financially, ethically or practically to make necessary changes; and (3) they are given real alternatives to redress their individual situation in an *effective* way. If any one of these elements is missing, then people are usually left feeling cynical, helpless and- yes- anxious, and they usually resort to the ballot box to be the only method in which they can express their personal frustrations.

I will say that after the latest Gulf of Mexico oil spill, I made a conscious effort to drive less. Actually, as you know, I don’t even *own* a car, let alone drive to/from work. But I decided not to take a taxi even if I woke up a little late and was in a rush to get to work. Plus, I figured I could use to lose a few pounds, so a little fast walking wouldn’t hurt either! Yet after 9 continuous months of this change and walking to/from work, I developed a foot problem that required me to see a podiatrist (only part of which was covered by health insurance). The podiatrist said my problem was just the way I walked (apparently I have a condition called “equine gait” – which was somewhat funny because I kinda knew it all along), and that I needed to invest in better walking shoes. So, then I started investigating walking shoes. A really good pair of walking shoes costs over $100, some running as high as $300. So, I bought a variety of walking shoes – ranging from cheap to a pair of Mephistos. The jury is still “out” on whether they will help my foot pain, but I’ve decided just to live with the pain and take massive doses of ibuprofen (which isn’t helping my stomach acid, and is now starting to create acid reflux).

Of course, I would *love* it if our City had a better public transportation system. As it stands now, I would have to take 2 different bus routes to get to work, and time expended during transfers would mean it would take me about twice as long on bus as it would via foot to get to work. And still, a taxi would be faster and quicker and easier on my feet/stomach than the other alternatives. But it would contradict my goal of burning less fossil fuels.

So, you see I had the motivation to change, and the financial empowerment to do so, but my options were confounding and the outcome not exactly efficient but rather added other layers of complexity to my life.

Although I’d probably still do a lot of walking even with public transportation, it’s still (in my mind) an imperative social -and yes govt – goal to improve our public transportation systems so people like me could give our feet a break every once in a while. Not to mention the reduction of greenhouse gasses that would come about my more people using mass transit.

But what would that require? With our City’s budget deficit, it would require either raising taxes OR imposing a gasoline tax OR highway use tax on all those suburbanites who drive in every day. This would not only be politically impossible to do right now, but frankly I think no one in America really thinks they *need to change* their driving habits. It would require them to abide by a train schedule or pay more in gasoline. And Americans just don’t like living by someone else’s schedule – they want to get up and go!! And don’t even get me started on gas prices.

So, this brings me- in conclusion – to my first point. If Americans don’t see the *need* to change, and in fact if they see their way of life the way Dick Cheney phrased it (“it’s our freedom you’re talking about here”), then I have to wonder about the reality of effecting change by leaving it to people – with all their inconsistent goals and complex lives – to do it themselves. I really really want to believe in it, but I *do* see a role for public policy that is effectuated through the broader power we invest in our govt. And as long as the govt is divided, I just see more stasis, and more of the same old stuff we’ve seen over generations without much progress.

Although my cell phone *has* gotten smaller and more intelligent over the years!!

Sorry for the long and rambling response.

And I have to admit, I enjoy the fast-track poetic justice. You all were going to “win” in the end anyway – thought that wasn’t your goal until he turned it into what, in darts, we elegantly call a “pissing contest” – because his is the type of book the library can’t give away at its secondhand book sales. Politically related books generally are flash-in-the-pan phenomena, mass-generated and interesting for a few months at most, and never wanted again. (Try selling Nancy Reagan’s “My Turn” even for a penny if you want an exercise in futility.) Good fiction, however, stays around, forms cult followings, and ends up well past print runs on dealer sites for $400 – and sells. (The low price on Book 6 of Patrick Tilley’s Amtrak Wars series is currently $407.96, used, on Amazon Marketplace.) More to the point, it is actually *read* – as opposed to becoming part of someone’s ideological shelf, to show off at parties.

Our politics are surreal generally these days – even without “midterm” elections looming. A vast number of people are deeply tired with the childish self-absorption your … gee, do I call him a promoter or an opponent? … and his colleagues at FOX demonstrate, which is embraced and mirrored by his audience. It’s right along the lines of “the teacher doesn’t like me” (no, dear, the teacher doesn’t like it that you didn’t do your homework and disrupted class by shooting spitballs at the kids who did). When I heard his reaction to “Machine of Death,” I had the best laugh I’ve had for weeks, because it was the perfect display of the attitude that has been too tied up with “serious issues” – and has obscured those all too effectively.

I suppose it’s a good thing I’m not a parent; that sort of gleeful reaction at a spoiled child’s comeuppance isn’t, I think, in the official good parenting handbook. Still, I seem to remember getting a good bit of it myself (merciless parents I had).

Congratulations again, and well earned!

OK, maybe a bit famous, then. I expect at least 6,800 people will read my story – that’s the preliminary sales figures for Tuesday alone, accordning to David Malki !. But I won’t get *rich*, though – they tried to send me a cheque for $45, but I told them not to bother. Even if I could find a bank over here that still knows how to cash the things, they’d charge me $40 for their trouble.

The “certain Fox personality” is an interesting phenomenon. On the basis of him not holding the #1 spot, he decided we were a left-wing conspiracy, and proceeded to denounce us in broadcasts and tweets and what have you. In the process, he informed thousands of people of our existence. Money can’t buy that sort of attention!

And in the latest twist, it’s gone quite surreal. Liberals all across the US are now blogging and tweeting and urging people to buy Machine of Death simply to annoy the man…

At least, we now have common grounds with him. He’s delighted that we’re down at #14. We’re delighted to be at #14, period. Because that’s still very, very impressive for an indie on-a-shoestring project!