The US - Change and Not the Small Kind

Change was the chant taken up by many of his followers and by many others over the world. But was change what Mr Obama's followers really wanted? On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart tackled the public's poor response to Obama in government. During the segment he cut to a Q&A hosted by CNBC in which the President took town hall questions from Mrs Velma Hart, who voiced her discontent:

'I am deeply honored to finally be in this forum... I am a Chief Financial Officer for a veteran service organisation... I'm also a mother, I'm a wife, I'm an American veteran and I'm one of your middle-class Americans, and quite frankly I'm exhausted... I'm exhausted of defending the mantle of change that I voted for and deeply disappointed with where we are right now.

(Velma Hart, CNBC, 2010)

This reminded me of my gravest concern for America's purveyor of change. Amongst all of the election hope I quietly waited to see if Mr Obama would change not only the policy, but the way policy was initiated and carried through. I think he has and I am now convinced that Mr Obama is the real deal.

I also believe that change to be the source of his unpopularity.

Even as long ago as the 15th Century a political essayist by the name of Niccolo Machiavelli posited that:

'So far as other things are concerned, men live peacefully as long as their old way of life is maintained and there is no change of customs.'

It seems that people wanted President Obama to change their fortunes for the better, without a change to the customary abuse of Presidential authority. In the wake of dissatisfaction, the Democrats, as the Liberal Democrats in Britain, have found themselves in a position where principles and success are seemingly at odds.

In the States, President Obama is struggling because he is carrying out the change he has offered, in keeping with principles but forgoing success while Liberal Democrats leaders have sacrificed much in terms of principles in return for scant successes.

It is, partly, the failure of these parties to get their message out that is making the tightrope walk between principle and success so difficult. As I have discussed here for several weeks, language is absolutely key in politics. Change, or any other policy you pursue, must happen fast or you better be very good at convincing people it'll be worth the wait.

However, real change, principled change, takes time. President Obama himself concedes that point (Stewart, 2010). Principles require time to do everything by the book, time that doesn't exist in politics.

As long as there are loopholes to exploit; as long as their are cheats to use; as long as there are those who want something badly enough, there will always be those who will use every trick in the book, in a way that a principled politician can never be allowed to.

This has always been exploited for quick fix results that can be trumpeted as something to add to the win column. All this leads people to ask why the new leader doesn't get things done as quickly.

It seems to me that when the United States of America goes to the ballot box, they want to appoint a leader who will 'get it done'. They don't seem to want to elect a president as much as they want to appoint a commander-in-chief.

Mr Obama is undoubtedly the leader America deserves and the leader America needs. But is he the leader America wants?

This all brings to mind the voice of a Max Brooks character in 'World War Z':

'America wanted a Caesar, but to be one would mean the end of America.'

It seems that something has to give.

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References:
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+ Velma Hart asks for answers from President Obama; CNBC Town Hall Meeting, September 20 2010;

+ Niccolo Machiavelli's 'The Prince (Penguin Classics)'; George Bull's Translation & Editing;
 Longman; 1 edition (8 May 2003)

+ Barack Obama: "Yes we can, but... it's not going to happen overnight";
 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart October 27, 2010 - Barack Obama;
 CBS News's 'Obama to Jon Stewart: Change Isn't "Overnight"';

+ Max Brooks' 'World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War'; Duckworth, 2007

Around the World

Having escaped with not much more than a 'they've learned their lesson' regarding treatment of the Roma Nation, Mr Sarkozy's Government has since been facing new troubles.

Students and unions have been out in force, carrying out protests in opposition to government austerity measures (Willshire, 2010). These protests have centred on the pension reforms undertaken by the French administration. Mass displays have, however, been unable to sway the government away from its set course.

Yet the actions in France have resonated with the riots occurring all around Europe, from the students in the UK to the unions in Greece and many places in between. The dissatisfaction blatant at the heart of these actions seems symptomatic of older problems reoccurring.

In England particularly, there are failed promises of abolishing boom & bust economics. In his talk 'Crises of Capitalism', David Harvey proffers the LSE explanation that suggests that 'Systemic Risk', that is the 'Internal Contradictions of Capital Accumulation' where exposed in this crisis.

And with it is exposed a decline of neo-liberalism, with the 'last desperate attempts to make capitalism work for socialism' (Zizek, 2010) and of social democracy (Taylor, 2010). The question is what is rising in its place? Zizek considers our current mode of capitalism, 'Cultural Capitalism', to be part of the response to the changing times and along with Harvey considers these current crises to be a sufficient explanation of the rerise of anti-capitalist & socialist movements; seeing them as a rational response to the times.

In other international news there is of course the 'Wikileaks', an issue that has devolved into politicising the Nobel Peace Prize (Harding, 2010). That issue is at heart one of a language, information and social revolution, as the Russian publication Pravda shrewdly pointed out (Santayana, 2010).

While it is an issue unaffiliated to the austerity protests, it is still connected to the core of the issue. With protests against governments penalising citizens for business indiscipline and unions beginning to mobilise in support, it does not feel far fetched to suggest that an anti-governmental secrecy movement could become affiliated to an organised anti-corruption movement.

If the radical spirit and momentum of 2010 is maintained in conjunction with organised Union action, 2011 could be a very tricky year for the globalised finance industry.

And if things are to get tricky for multi-national finance, governments must have a multi-national mandate to act. In a globalised world, uni-lateral action will be responded to punitively by business simply shifting its money elsewhere.

With a European response rather than just a French or British, with a Latin American response rather than just a Bolivian or Venezuelan, conditions are created whereby business cannot just sidestep everything from taxation to responsibility.

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References:
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+ Kim Willshire's 'Nicolas Sarkozy in warning to pension reform protesters';

+ Kim Willshire's 'French pension reform vote passed by parliament';

+ Slavoj Zizek's 'First as Tragedy, then as Farce'; November 2009;

+ Robert Taylor's 'Does European Social Democracy have a Future?'; Summer 2008;

+ Luke Harding's 'Julian Assange should be awarded Nobel peace prize, suggests Russia';

+ Mauro Santayana's 'Society and the world, after Julian Assange';

Arts of Leadership: Part 3 - Language of Leaders

In the last issue I spoke about the idea of 'stability', an idea thrown about a lot during the election. It is in terms of language that I want to talk about stability in this issue.

Some theorists have sought to put language at the centre of political struggle. The Russian theorist Voloshinov spoke about language in terms of a 'struggle for meaning'. For him, the meanings of verbal signs act as an arena for class struggles (Voloshinov, 1973). Any society's elites or rulers try to control the meanings of language, signs & utterances; in order that they might control the ideas expressed with them.

In this way, the Conservative Party and their supporting media outlets gained control of the language of the 2010 UK General Election before it even began. So firmly were they in control that they were able to break a Liberal Democrat poll charge before it ever really took off. The major tool they used here, in tandem with their major opponent, the Labour Party, was the word 'stability'.

I discussed last week the lack of evidence behind the Tory stability claims and their use instead of ambiguous statement instead. Mr Cameron has also made good use of language tactics to manage his image, even back during the race for the Conservative Leadership against David Davies (New Statesman, 2010). But this image control was moulded by time on the opposition benches observing a true master of self image, Mr Blair (YouTube, 2006).

Mr Blair's well-documented ability to control the language, and there-in image, of the party under his control is no better observed than in his book. Michael Meacher, speaking to The Mirror, described Mr Blair's book as:

'delusional" and "abounded with his self-righteousness, his constant spin to gloss over his real motives'.
                (Beattie & Lyons, 2010)

As Ferdinand de Saussure explains (de Saussure, 1916) language creates 'ways of organising the world'. It is this world of signs, contexts and determining through them the meaning of the world, that Voloshinov proposed the 'struggle for meaning'.

As Mr Blair seeks to do with memoirs, as Mr Cameron achieved in his Election Campaign, a political message must be crafted through careful manipulations of signs, as in words, phrases and utterances. All of this must be used in relevant contexts to create a coordinated image of the world for followers to buy into. It is through these slights-of-hand, bringing together all the misdirections and confuscations previously mentioned; that leaders try to control not just the debate, but the arena in which the debate takes place.

All of this is crystallised in the managed lines of political clashes, packeted pieces of quote-worthy one-upmanship. It is this political point-scoring approach that is the pinnacle of the word by word political battle. It is also the source of much disgust with politics, such as Rufus Hound's response to how susceptible the crowd at a Young Voters Question Time were to such tactics (BBC, 2010).

However language is integral to leaders in the current era. We live in the information age where the sound bites and point scoring that annoys many is none-the-less an astoundingly effective tool. As long as it works, politicians will see no reason not to do it, because a politician who isn't trying to sell you their ideas, isn't really doing their job.

It is then up to you, dear reader, to maintain your own vigilance against these methods.

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References:
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+ Valentin Voloshinov's 'Marxism and the Philosophy of Language';
Harvard University Press, 1973.

+ John Parrington's 'In Perspective: Valentin Voloshinov';

+ Time Trumpet's 'Blair vs Cameron' on YouTube; 2006;

- The Conservatives and Conservative Media talk Stability:
 Calum Ross's 'Conservative Leader Pledges Stability'
 Peter Oborne's 'Amoral spiv or true traditional Tory?...'
 BBC's 'Cameron pledges 'dynamic' economy'
 Robert Winnett's 'Coalition government deal Promises Stability...'

+ New Statesman's 'David Cameron, 2005';

+ Jason Beattie & James Lyons' 'Tony Blair book A Journey attacked as "delusional and bonkers"';

+ Tony Blair's 'A Journey';
 Hutchinson, 2010. [Paperback - A Journey] [Hardback - A Journey]

+ Ferdinand de Saussure's 'Course in General Linguistics';
 Peter Owen, 1916.

+ Samantha Ashenden's 'Structuralism & Post-Structuralism';
 in Austin Harrington's (ed) 'Modern Social Theory: An Introduction';
 Oxford University Press, 2005.

+ BBC's 'Young Voters Question Time'; 20 October 2010

Arts of Leadership: Part 2 - The Fallacy of Stability

Subjective truths, by their nature, are difficult to argue with. They are also a useful tool of persuasion. Attempts to draw grand conclusions from ambiguous statistical observations are a sure sign that someone is trying to convince you of something they can't (or couldn't be bothered to) provide evidence for, or they're trying to sell you something.

The essential factor in such statements is context.

'We've got an economy mired in debt and we badly need to get it growing... Now ask yourselves, who is going to get that job done?... Is a hung parliament going to get that job done? A hung parliament will be a bunch of politicians haggling, not deciding, they'd be fighting for their own interests, not fighting for your interests.'
(Cameron, 2010)

In some fields, it is impossible to avoid arguments such as these. In politics half of everything is justification for ideologies. But as any good Sociologist could tell you, the difference between honest and crooked uses of them are in the clear signposting of all such assumptions and biases. In this instance, the assumptions made about the stability of a hung parliament against a majority, and the evidence that such a claim is based on.

This brings me to the great fallacy spun during the elections that I feel needs to be addressed. The great argument, from all ends of the political spectrum, was to avoid hung parliaments at all cost. The reasoning given is that it chokes off chances for stability. I'm afraid I have have a bone to pick with that argument.

'In the 50 years since the World War ended, Italy had an equal number of governments. Thus, governments in Italy lasted on average barely a year. Yet, Italy today is among the most industrialized countries in the world. This, if nothing else, should make us wary about drawing any facile conclusions about the effects of political instability on the economy.'
(Thakurta, 2008)

'(In) Nordic countries and the states of northern Europe, election days there are seen as just the beginning of a frequently protracted negotiating period over the composition of the next government. This is normal. The sky usually doesn't fall in.'
(Tisdall, 2010)

First, a question. In what way has the first-past-the-post, two party dynamic, in anyway, offered the British people 'stable' government? We have spent the years since the great wars lurching from one extreme to the other; the Labour Party nationalising everything in sight on the one side, before the Tories return five years later to privatise it all again.

And so this pattern went, until Mrs Thatcher decimated the power base of the Labour movement opposition by crippling the nation's industrial base. Even now, as a Conservative Government sits again, the effects of the Thatcher administration's focus on economy based solely on financial speculation is being felt.

In Europe by comparison, they have had no shortage of stable governments despite having an average of five mainstream parties, each covering five relatively concrete positions across the political spectrum. Now while this might not produce majority governments, it does encourage stable government, because potential coalition partners don't have to face the enormous task of overcoming huge political differences. Instead stable yet co-operative government is encouraged by the room for agreement to be found.

'It's clear that, in my view and in our experience at A.T.Kearney, European companies tend to take a longer term view of world and global developments; they're less likely to react very quickly and be constrained by daily events and quarterly earnings statements... which could serve them well on the one hand, and on the other hand create a certain lack of flexibility or dexterity...'
(Paul A. Laudicina, 2010)

The tendency for the Euro area countries to lean towards coalition offers companies a fair degree of stability in economic policy, not just thanks to negotiation between parliaments for moderate policy, but between nations themselves. These systems of cooperation and negotiation foster respect for aspects of 'tradition which... cannot be substantially changed', again forging an area of stability that allows business to act in a long term fashion (De Benedetti, 2010).

A simple means of demonstrating stability might then be through competitiveness. In the Global Competitiveness Ranking of 2009, in Business Week, showed that nations with coalition or minority governments dominated the top ten.

1.SWITZERLAND, 2.United States, 3.Singapore, 4.SWEDEN,
5.DENMARK, 6.FINLAND, 7.GERMANY, 8.Japan, 9.CANADA,
10.NETHERLANDS,... 13. Britain.

The nations in bold all possess coalition or minority governments, with the major majority government in the top ten being the United States, whose economy has the stigma of instability. The quotation from Mr Laudicina, above, was in comparison to the US approach, where businesses are forced to be flexible in order to survive in a market that lacks the long-term stability afforded to European business (Laudicina, 2010).

Even these brief statistics suggest that the two party arguments are off the mark. This system has stifled our democracy with partisan fears of a return to a 20 year Conservative Majority, or elective dictatorship as majority may also be read. This fear has forced a tolerance of excesses from Labour Party leaders who have been quick to exploit the trust of their supporters; in exchange for remaining a watchdog, a bastion against the right that leftist voters fear. This cows the voices in the Labour movement from speaking out against their own party's excess in case it brings the house of cards down.

This all forces the lines between social movements and populists to blur, forcing the use of contemptible politics in order to hold onto the shifting middle ground. This means resorting to tactics of coercion, of negative reinforcement, and negative out-group stereotypes. My concerns are that:

+ First, this narrowing of our political options is leading to a 'trickle-down' system of policy for a party's taken for granted voting core.

+ Second, that these bi-partisan swings are damaging to the nation's economy, preventing businesses from making long term plans, which in turn prevents any kind of long term employment plans.

+ Finally, that all of this serves only to exacerbate my fears that the two party majority system is marginalising even democracy itself, by making parties less diverse but policy more radical and unpredictable.

This is just one example of an issue that is easily manipulated in the public imagination. The scary thing is how little effort it takes to shift polling results from the UK general election debates to election night on an issue like this. During the debates, Mr Clegg was widely shown to have won at least one and polls reflected this by putting the Liberal Democrats a competitive second, at least. By election night this expected turn out had shifted with a drastic speed, following campaigning by both ends of the spectrum to avoid the centre.

Next week will be the third and final part of this short series about leader 'tricks of the trade'. Last week covered misdirection, this week we have had confuscation and next week will be looking at how the language of leaders can be used as a weapon to control image, identity and choice.

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References:
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+ David Cameron, addressing a Crowd in Gloucester; April 17 2010;

+ David Cameron, dismissing talk of a Lib Dem deal; May 7 2010;

+ Paranjoy Guha Thakurta's 'Political instability and Growth'; 2008;

+ Simon Tisdall's 'Coalitions are the norm in democracies';

+ Paul A. Laudicina of A.T.Kearney at 'European Companies and the Great Recession: A view from the trenches'; October 5 2010;
+ Carlo De Benedetti of Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso at 'European Companies and the Great Recession: A view from the trenches'; October 5 2010;

+ Global Competitiveness Ranking in Business Week, 2009;

Arts of Leadership: Part 1 - Shifting the Focus

Redirecting the focus of public anger is a big part of Public Relations. Here are just a few examples of this technique:

'Full marks to the Andy Coulson media operation [for timing announcements about child benefit cuts]... The Tory conference carries one message; the nation must pull together to get us out of the trouble Labour put us in.'
            (Pascoe-Watson, 2010)

'At first I was annoyed by the pope's disgraceful attack on atheists and secularists, but then I saw it as reassuring. It suggests that we have rattled them so much that they have to resort to insulting us, in a desperate attempt to divert attention from the child abuse scandal.'
            (Dawkins, 2010)

In his 'historic' speech in Britain last year, the Pope made studious use of this tactic in the face of overwhelming public outcry against the institutionalised abuse being admitted by Catholic leaders around the world (Traynor, 2010).

'Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society... In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate.'
            (Benedict XVI, in Jones et al, 2010)

While in itself an admission of guilt, this technique is utilised to take advantage of the human love of all things comparative (an example here in comic form from XKCD).

A recent example is the Iranian Government's anger at being singled out for its sentence of death for a convicted woman. They deflected accusations by pointing to an American 'Double Standard' (Dehghan, 2010), as the United States at the time held a woman awaiting death for an arranged murder, who allegedly suffered mental health problems.

This case as the others above, leaves me astounded at the 'moral' positions our leaders adopt. We find ourselves in a system of morality justified by ranking your sins on a sliding scale, where it isn't so bad if everyone is doing it. This leads me to think:

+ How can we, in a rational world, allow leaders to so blatantly seek to sucker us with cheap vaudevillian misdirections? What can we do to hold these leaders to account?

+ Further, should it not be considered an honour by the church to be held to a higher standard? As with other nations and organisations that are singled out over issues, is it not a high compliment indeed to have better expected of you?

In the following few weeks, this blog is going to cover some more of the common misdirections, confuscations and slights-of-hand used by people in power to keep you distracted. It's one thing to demand that people always remain vigilant. It's a more practical one to give them some of the right tools.

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References:
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+ James Cowling's ''Full marks' to Tories' Andy Coulson for timing of child benefit announcement';

+ Richard Dawkins's 'Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity';

+ Ian Traynor's 'Belgian child abuse report exposes Catholic clergy';

+ Sam Jones, John Hooper & Tom Kington's 'Pope Benedict XVI goes to war with 'atheist extremism'';

+ Saeed Kamali Dehghan's 'Iran accuses US of double standards over woman's execution'

- For more reports from the Papal visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/20/papal-visit-religious-pope
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11317441