Harper's man in Washington bids the town a weary (but sharply worded) farewell

[BurtWorm]

Well worth reading and pondering:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/09/hbc-90007662

Signing Out

By Ken Silverstein

...

I had low expectations for Obama as I always viewed him as a fairly conventional insider. But by any measure, his presidency has been a huge disappointment. It’s true that Obama inherited a terrible economy, but his policies were timid — which is no surprise given that his economic team was composed almost entirely of the same bankers and Wall Street insiders who paved the way for and profited from our bubble economy. There are now 43.6 million Americans living in poverty and more than 15 million out of work; that’s a scandal, and when there’s a Democrat in the White House and the party has ample majorities in Congress, it’s not credible to blame everything on obstructionism by the Republicans.

...

Joe Biden and Robert Gibbs have recently been attacking the “left” and saying that it doesn’t appreciate all the great things the administration has done. For my part, I have lived in Washington long enough to have realistic hopes; for example, given political realities, passing a single payer bill was not going to happen. But I also don’t think it’s my job, as a journalist or a citizen, to blindly repeat the mantra of the administration (and its supporters in the blogosphere), that we should “not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Fine, but let’s also not treat the administration’s health care plan as a grand achievement. The bill is widely unpopular, and not only because of the hyperbolic attacks on it by Republicans and Fox News. It’s unpopular because it’s a terrible piece of legislation.

The current GOP is truly a scary party, but if not for that it would be impossible to care about the midterm elections. When you’re reduced to rooting for soulless hacks like the current Senate majority leader—and he’s typical of today’s Democrats—you’ve lost something fundamental at the core of your humanity.

So as you can tell from all this, I just no longer have the energy to cover Washington. I’ve loved working for Harper’s, but, as I told Mediabistro, “Washington and Washington politics has worn me down. Every time I write a story I feel like I wrote it a year ago and five years ago and 10 years ago. Nothing ever changes here.” I frequently find myself numb to political news and, even worse, to the lifeless, conventional wisdom peddled by the Washington media. When you can read an entire column by the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz and never once feel the urge to cut out your own heart with a dull knife, you know that you no longer have the sense of outrage that is essential to reporting from our nation’s capital.

...

[Octafish]

1. ''Nothing ever changes here."

Pretty much sums up the, eh, situation.

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[gratuitous]

3. Mission accomplished on Silverstein

"Every time I write a story I feel like I wrote it a year ago and five years ago and 10 years ago. Nothing ever changes here."

That's just how you're supposed to feel, and there are very powerful forces aligned to make anyone else feel the same way. We're supposed to get worn down, used up, and finally to just say, "fuck it." Passion and energy, unless properly channeled into the lifeless conventional wisdom, has no place in our political landscape as currently configured. We don't have leaders, we don't have visionaries. We have people who know how to run the system, but their only interest in running the system is to get the treats out of it. A grand plan? A long-range program? As the song says, "It's like trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine."

The only thing that matters anymore is winning the news cycle. We have a great nation, full of energy and drive. But all that effort, all that creativity, all that strength is directed to the meanest, most picayune little endeavors. So Rush or Glenn or Billo or someone else can crow for five minutes on their show, and then line it all up again for the next day. In the past century, we instituted a system for workers' compensation, social security, civil rights, an interstate highway system, robust education with modern public schools featuring the best equipment. But every last one of these achievements has been dragged through the mud and the slime until they're wholly unrecognizable.

The system as it now stands hands out enormous rewards to a select few, and those winners guard their spoils jealously. Any changes, tweaks or fixes are reduced to the smallest, most predictable, and least disturbing to the status quo possible, and the winners grab even more for themselves. Public service is a joke; the province of dreamers and fools. Even a noncontroversial subject like designing healthier diet guidelines is demagogued in the most cynical fashion possible, and the victims of our fucked-up system are taught well to cheer for their oppressors and greet any suggestion of help with the deepest suspicion.

At least Silverstein has recognized his own defeat by this oppressive system. I hope whoever comes after him has more of a belly for the battle. Because the alternatives are drawing down to a very few. When we have lost it all, and the looters walk away with their spoils, we'll be left with nothing and less than nothing, on the hook for the debts others have rung up in our names, slaving away to pay a bill of goods while someone else enjoys the merchandise.