Divide and Conquer (Revisited)

Terrorism is a psychological warfare. Terrorists (and politicians) try to manipulate us and change our behavior by creating fear, uncertainty, and division in society. - Patrick J. Kennedy (politician reference added)

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The #1206 “fiction” series continues (a variant on an earlier post) …

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The coffee shop was busy as it always was, with its typical mix of soccer moms, businessmen and little kids doing what they liked to do in coffee shops.

In a private corner of the coffee shop, two men, overdressed for the hot weather in dark suits and white shirts, quietly observed the activity all around them.

Finally one of them cleared his throat and said tersely but quietly, “It was a lot easier than we anticipated, wasn’t it?”

The other looked at his companion and nodded, saying nothing.

“After all”, the first man continued, “Who would have thought that they could have been manipulated this easily?  It was almost like playing a game.”

The second man looked at him with a frown.  “Do you think it was that easy?”, he asked gruffly.  “Coming up with a list of topics that we knew would resonate with different elements of society was not easy”.

Still, as he thought about it, it was pretty easy. 

Things like creating the United Nations, charge it with maintaining peace and well-being on the planet and then encouraging it to do nothing while having it incessantly make announcements about what they intended to do.

Things like feeding different nations with the knowledge to create weapons of mass destruction and then feeding other countries with enough knowledge to be suspicious of them.

Things like getting everyone wound up about climate change and then introducing enough evidence on both sides of the argument to confuse everyone.

Things like creating structured religion to guide people morally and then have the leadership of some of the same organizations become the largest violators of those principles.

Then there was the idea of terrorism, keeping everyone unsteady on their feet, leading to the brilliant wars in the Middle East and the subsequent economic strain around the world.

The pro gay / anti gay / gender identity debate was tossed in for fun at the last minute at the suggestion of a team member who wanted to see how easily people could be manipulated in light of all the other events already occurring all around them.

Social media was also having its effect, enabling a small minority of people, including their own agents of misinformation, to convey strong messages and evoke strong, polarizing emotions in large groups of followers while lowering the mental resistance of the majority.

There were more things in play to confuse the people than he could even keep up with.

And now people were divided, not just on one issue but each on a multitude of issues, strongly agreeing with some people on some issues while vehemently opposing the same people on others.

A 2000-year plan was nearing its climatic end and the people were almost ready.

One pillar of strength remained that had to be neutralized.

As he thought about the final stages of their plan, he had a momentary thought that perhaps things were going a little too easily.

“We are sure that the divisiveness over politics in the United States was not created by us?”, he asked his colleague.

The first man chuckled and replied, “Don’t I wish?  They are so confused now that they created this one on their own without any help on our part.  Although I have to admit that I would have been proud if it had been my idea.”

The second man grunted and was silent again.  He didn’t like things happening that they hadn’t specifically orchestrated.

The first man, sensing that his partner was over analyzing again, continued his thought.

“The laws we need are in place.  People are confused and fighting for survival.  The separation by class, race, gender identity, financial standing and religious belief is complete.  The Department of Homeland Security ordered 450 million rounds of armor piercing ammunition a few years ago for domestic use and military rehearsals demonstrate that they are in the final preparation stages to combat domestic unrest.  Citizens believe that their President has checked out, is inept, is a racist or is unfeeling towards their plight.  I think this demonstrates that the leadership and the people are in the final place of confusion and imbalance that we need them to be in.”

The second nodded, pursing his lips.

“It is curious”, he said to no one in particular, “that the people of this planet who excel in the concept of divide and conquer to oppress others don’t notice when the same principles are being used against them.”

“Curious indeed”, replied the first, “but useful.”

The second man nodded again as they both resumed their observation of the coffee shop in silence.

To be continued.

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© 2017 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Blog Post Background / Supporting Data

Watching two African-American men tear each other apart today over who was “more black” as they argued over President Trump’s reaction to the act of hatred in Charlottesville broke my heart and reminded me of an older blog post which I repost here with some minor modifications.

Instead of being united against racism, they were allowing the evil tool of racism to divide them, keeping the attention on them and not on the people where the energetic conversations should be directed.

United we stand.

Divided we fall.

Are we focused on uniting against that which undermines us or are we so distracted by other things that we allow divisions and the architects of those divisions to tear us apart?

Someone stands to benefit from such division.

Who do you think that is?

How important is it to find out and neutralize their intentions before they neutralize a nation … or a planet?

How important is it that we relearn how to talk (even passionately) and even more, to listen?

How important is it that we focus more on what unites us instead of what separates us?

I guess it depends on what kind of future you want for you, your children, your partner, your loved ones, your friends, your country and the world.

What kind of future do you want?

It doesn’t create itself, you know.

The world is waiting for you.

What are you waiting for?

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy advisor and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” (note the quotes) and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

Why I’ll Never Accept Your Apology

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past. - Tryon Edwards

The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology. - Red Auerbach

Mainstream and social media (is there even a difference anymore?), ever-hungry for blood, battery, humiliation and sensationalism, continue to carry news about Kathy Griffin’s act of stupidity in posing with a replica of the severed head of the POTUS.

Much has been made of her apology-turned-attack, where she has tried to turn an ignorant act into an act of self-defense, claiming she is the victim from the backlash when the original act itself has no excuse.  Unfortunately, failure to recognize cause-and-effect has doomed many a career.

Many people have asked my opinion on the matter because of what they believe to be my curious stand on apologies.

I never accept apologies.

Over-sensitive people are often quick to criticize me for this but here is how I look at apologies.

Rule 1 – The Good Person

If you are a good person and you have done wrong by me with an honest mistake, then you have demonstrated your imperfection as a human being.  As an imperfect human being myself, I also make mistakes so who am I to judge you for making one with me.  For this reason, apologies are not necessary in such situations.  Many relationships have been saved because of this approach.

Rule 2 – The Bad Person

If you are a bad person who got caught committing a heinous act and you are apologizing merely because you got caught, then likely the apology carries little if any weight (and likely doesn’t prevent similar incidents from happening again).  If the apology carries little if any weight, then it is also unnecessary since it’s either a time-waster, an insult or a set-up to commit similar acts in the future.  Much abuse has been avoided because of this approach.

Rule 3 – The Rare “Come-To-Jesus” Person

Very rarely, the bad person committing a heinous act has an epiphany, realizes where they have gone wrong and makes an authentic commitment to doing better.  While people claim we should always accept any apology from anyone for any level of miscreant behavior on the off-chance that they will turn the corner, those same people haven’t studied history or human behavior to see the likelihood of such things occurring. While there are some success stories, a lot of people get used and abused repeatedly for this belief.

Rule 4 – Past Behavior Demonstrates Apology Authenticity

If you really want to know how authentic someone’s apology is, examine how they have been living their Life up to the moment the act requiring apology occurred.  Past performance often predicts future behavior and provides deep insight into the reason and motivation for an apology.  It will help you identify a good person, a person having an epiphany or someone who interprets you as an idiot to be played.

Too Harsh?

Many people who do not know me think that this is too cut-and-dried, too objective, too cold and the like.  Later, I have to listen to them complain how someone keeps hurting them over and over.

The reality is that I don’t judge people because I accept that good people make honest mistakes and that bad people who make poor choices will eventually have to account to “Someone” for their deeds.  I don’t have the time, the interest, the moral authority or the level of perfection required to judge them and so if I don’t judge them, there is nothing that requires an apology from them either.

The Bottom Line – Our Actions Reveal Our Authenticity

While intentions are wonderful and words are easily produced for any situation, the reality is that our actions reveal the dialogue taking place in our brain and often speak so loudly that others can’t hear what we are saying.

When I see someone like Griffin with her latest stunt, or her previous stunt where she pretended to give Anderson Cooper oral sex on live TV during the 2013 New Year’s Eve Countdown, or when someone makes a derogatory comment about women, people of faith, gender choice, people of other nationalities, etc. and then quickly apologizes, they are usually thinking about their career and the ramifications of being caught.  Rarely do they believe that the act itself was wrong.  For them, the only thing that was wrong was being exposed.

There is a deeper issue when people commit heinous acts that require an apology. The fact is that they wouldn’t have committed the act if it weren’t already a seed in their mind.

Do you know why I could never insult an LGBTQ person, a person from another nationality, a person of a different faith, an indigenous person, a woman, a minority or pose in a photo pretending to hold the severed head of the POTUS?

It’s because such things don’t exist in my mind and if they are not in my mind, you won’t see them in my words or my actions either.  If heinous thoughts are not in one’s mind, then one is less likely to experience the overused “lapse of judgment”, which in reality is less a lapse and more an x-ray into someone’s mind.

For those who keep surprising, disappointing and offending us and then promptly asking for (or demanding) forgiveness, they have revealed what is in their mind and having done so, it is up to us to decide how to interact with them and respond to them. In those situations, only we are to blame if we continue to be surprised, disappointed or angered by their actions.

As for the good people in our lives, they have made a mistake.

Perhaps it is one of many.

But are we so perfect that we haven’t any mistakes either?

Our actions, past and future, matter much more than trite, perfunctory apologies or fake ones meant to relieve us of the responsibility of acting like a proper human being.

Remember that the next time someone begs for forgiveness from you.

Or you beg for it from someone else.

In service and servanthood, create a great day for yourself and others because merely having one is too passive an experience.

Harry

Addendum - Who is the Injured Party?

Within minutes of this post coming out, someone wrote me and condemned me, saying that by refusing an apology, I was denying someone the right to feel better about a situation.  When I replied that I thought the purpose of the apology was more to heal the injured and not just to remove the guilt, they never replied.  I guess they wanted an apology from me and were disappointed to not receive one.

Related Posts:

• Mike Allen, Politicians and Apologies
• If Only You Weren’t So Stupid, You’d Understand

Things That I Wonder About

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. – Ryunosuke Satoro

In between selling a large tech company and starting up a Foundation that will “help NPO’s “do good better” through fact-based decision-making and evidence-based outcome assessments” (quoting friend and colleague, Doug P.), I often have other distractions that cross my mind that I feel merit some attention.

As a long-time Wall St. strategy guy, unsolved problems are always a conundrum for me, especially when the problems are significant in impact and are far / wide reaching in society.  Problems in society affect us all at some point, even if we don’t feel the affect directly (or believe we don’t).

However, I can’t tackle all these thoughts, nor should I (no individual is tagged as the “savior” of the world).  That being said, they are worthy of thought and action and so, with the encouragement of very nice colleagues who kindly never lose patience with me when I muse about other concerns in the world, I’m going to occasionally toss some ideas out with the idea that someone else may feel inspired to own some of them.

This is not a typical blog post for me such as can be found in the #1206 series, the Abigail / Gabriel series or any general post.  It is a grab bag of thoughts that pass through my brain in the course of leading a busy Life.

If you want to own one, I would be glad to help!

A subset of my random thoughts this week:

1. How is it that the Newfoundland and Labrador Government can have as its top bureaucrat, Bern Coffey, who, while leading the bureaucratic corps of the Government, was also a lawyer representing a client who was suing a Crown Corporation of the same Government and a few years before, while a clerk of the Government Executive council, led a case against a Government health authority (details here and here)?  While officials claim they are “just finding out”, the truth is that they knew for a while.  Conflict of interest, anyone?
2. By the same token, how is it that Tzeporah Berman can serve as a member of the Alberta Government Oil and Gas advisory team while at the same time, receive compensation for campaigning AGAINST the oil and gas industry in Alberta (details here)?  Conflict of interest, round 2.
3. Premier Ball dismissed Coffey in the first scenario but Premier Notley refuses to dismiss Tzeporah in the second one.  When such appointments with obvious conflict-of-interest are knowingly made, what does this tell us about the leadership skills of the people in the respective situations?  Is it a reflection of poor execution, low intelligence, self-serving motives or an indifference to how things are perceived (or something else)?
4. Are apologies or “sharp corrective action” from politicians acceptable because we believe that someone recognized their own mistake and want it fixed or are we being played as politicians attempt to harvest political points while continuing their inappropriate behavior?  In my companies, you are fully supportive of the organization that pays you or you are not but if you are not, you work to make us better through compromise or you leave.  You can’t play for me and against me at the same time.  Why don’t we demand this of government?
5. How is it in the Newfoundland and Labrador government, a blind trust for a politician can be run by a politician’s husband, wife, daughter, son-in-law or lover?  There is nothing “arms-length” or “blind” about such a set-up.  Who do you think benefits from this arrangement?
6. How is it that Stephen Colbert can refer to the President of the United States as Vladimir Putin’s “cock holster” when a comment such as that, if directed at the previous President, would have required riot squads to be deployed (details here)?  Why is it that the “tolerant left” has no issue when insults are issued against the one that they despise but they are quick to demonstrate in the streets should there even be the possibility that one of their own might be insulted at some point in the future?  One must respect the Office of the President and if one disagrees with the President himself, Colbert’s approach is not the way to express it.  Respect earned is respect given.  Anything else leads to significant problems in society.
7. How is it that very few people care about emergency planning, regardless of the source / scale of the emergency?  Officials routinely warn of difficulties ahead, whether it be in the form of a cyber attack, a nuclear war, climate change-induced natural disasters and a plethora of other things and yet most people would be lucky if they could survive a minor inconvenience that lasted through a weekend.  We have all seen people panic-shop at supermarkets when a storm is forecast.  What if the “storm” came without warning.  I mused about this yesterday in the post Statistics: The Mathematical Theory of Ignorance.
8. How is it that US politicians can claim a triumph in the low unemployment rate when the vast majority of jobs created in recent years are part-time / low-paying jobs with little or no health benefit plans?  When more than 50% of American families have $1000 or less in the bank, over 48 million Americans are on food stamps and over 98 million Americans are not working at all, how can we champion a recovery that benefits a small minority of people?
9. Pursuant to the previous point, personal debt is growing and more than 50% of families have less than $1000 in the bank.  Where is personal freedom and empowerment for these people?
10. If people are happier than ever, why do we have a steady increase in the need for antidepressants?
11. The next time you are in Costco, a supermarket or other place filled with abundance, ask yourself when you last helped someone who couldn’t partake in such abundance.
12. It is estimated that we will work 80,000 hours in our lifetime.  1% of that (800 hours or 20 work-weeks) is a small amount to spend in planning our work Life but we don’t teach kids how to do it.  In fact, if I told someone when I was 20 that I was about to spend 5 months planning my career, I would be told I was insane (even though it’s such a small number in the grand scheme of things).  We teach kids phenomenally more than when I was in school and yet basic skills of Life strategy (including long and short term goal setting), financial strategy, respectful dialog when ideas are polar opposites and the like seem absent from the skill-set of many young people.  We seem to insist that they learn these things the hard way.  Why?  Is it because we don’t know how to either?
13. Many not-for-profits are phenomenally wasteful in how they spend their money and many people who work for them know how to steal from them as a profession but we don’t care.  Why?
14. How is it that people put little or no effort into the things that matter in society but will spend an amazing amount of time watching videos of cats, sharing pictures of their oatmeal or losing their minds over how their favorite TV series ends?

Do these things matter or am I just over-sensitive?

Should we care that these represent symptoms of a society that is not ticking over as well as claimed by politicians or do we ignore them, saving our complaints and intention for action only when we are directly affected as opposed to when our neighbor is being pummeled instead of us?

If they matter, what can we do about them?

The Bottom Line

I’m a big believer in sharing thoughts and encouraging people to dialog about things with an eye towards taking measurable action.  Good intentions and thoughts are worthless without measurable results.

However, we can’t own everything that comes before us, even when it impacts us deeply.  Some of us who work hard to make a difference in the world need others to share the responsibility, especially when many who put little into society want to reap the harvest that comes from a better world.

It’s time for more people to be concerned about society and where it’s going …

… while it’s still a going concern.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS:You will note that I didn't mention things like privacy, surveillance and the like.  I believe that that fight is over.  You needed to care 25 years ago to have made a difference in regards to that subject.  Do you see what waiting accomplishes?  This is also, as I noted, just a subset of the things that went through my mind this week in the 5% of my brain that I have left over from the projects that consume it.

The Next Major Epidemic in America – The Inability To Express Ideas

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. - John Adams

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. - Mark Twain

As was to be expected last night, the President’s State of the Union address produced mixed opinion.  However, I didn’t see clear lines separating the two sides as I would have expected, especially the line allegedly dividing the left and the right.  (I say allegedly because I often see people arguing for the same idea when they believe they are representing opposite sides to an issue).

The line I saw represented the difference between people willing to give the President a chance or to at least analyze the data / fact side of his proposals before commenting versus those who wanted to hate or trash him simply for the emotional sake of doing so.

I was discussing his speech with a friend of mine and the importance of fact checking his speech without blindly discarding it when a person I have never met tossed this interesting statement into the conversation, claiming that President Trump’s policies will adversely impact women’s health as well as clean air and water.

The statement in itself is fair enough – someone is using their right to express an opinion.

However, as past and current teams who have worked with and for me know, any statement or position provided to me will always be responded to with:

Why do you say / do / recommend / believe this?

How do you know?

In fact, they know that they should have the answers to these questions before presenting any statement or solution to me.

And so in that spirit, I responded with a request for data.

One never knows what one will receive on social media when requesting facts but I will always give a person a chance to explain themselves and their positions.

The person responded by saying that that President chose an EPA Administrator who wants to get rid of the EPA.

Fair enough.  When I again asked for evidence that this was the case and for evidence that women’s health issues would arise from the POTUS’ policies, this person responded that they feared the total elimination of the EPA.

Ok – we’ve already established that this is her fear but she cited the problem itself as evidence to justify the reality of the problem.

So after I requested proof that the EPA would be eliminated (her words), she indicated that no one could predict the future (but she had already done so by predicting the elimination of the EPA) and that asking for data was a ridiculous standard.

When I asked her why asking for data was a ridiculous standard, she fell back on an old trick, turning the debate around so suddenly I was supposedly the one who had made a statement that required supporting evidence.

So now I need to prove she is wrong, even though she hasn’t proven that her large claims have any data or evidence to support them.

But it was the final part of the conversation that caused me to realize that this “discussion” wasn’t really going anywhere useful.

When I pointed out that she had claimed that the EPA was dead (eliminated was her exact word), she responded with a denial that she had ever said such a thing.

When I sent her a screen shot where she contradicted herself by claiming it would be eliminated and that we were now in a circular argument, she vanished.

Meanwhile, someone observing the interaction sent me a private note telling me that perhaps I should stay off social media.

To this person, I ask this question:

Why – so that emotion-laden, rhetoric-armed, fact-less people can roam around, inject themselves into conversations, attempt to whip up hysteria / fear and then vanish when presented with a request for facts or proof that their alleged reality is mine also?

In other words ….

So that opposite sides to every issue will be eliminated by being whipped into silence?

I was curious who this person was and so I looked up her personal persona.

It turns out that this person is the Senior Director of International Compensation and Benefits at Visa (a very credible, respectable organization).  She was educated at Cornell so lack of education is not the issue neither does she represent the “bored unemployed directionless” group that some people suggest represents the bulk of anti-Trump folks.

So she has influence – the question then became “does she use this influence in a useful, effective way?”

In exploring her other public sharings about how happy she was to be marching against President Trump, I came upon this nugget that she shared

And so as I looked at her Facebook posts about all the marches she is participating in, her drive-by argument with me that produced nothing of any benefit to anyone and this cartoon, I realize that she is representative of something that is killing America:

The lack of ability or interest to use facts and data in the form of a compelling discussion that convinces someone else that their position / belief is worthy of exploration with an eye towards convincing someone else to change their position or at least encourage people to find middle ground on something being explored.

After all, that is how we grow, teach, learn and become better as a species and as a society as we seek common ground to make the world a better place.

When instead, we use emotion, fear (and for some, intimidation) only, we are less likely to convince anyone of anything and will produce little of any real, tangible value.

Meanwhile, the things we fear will continue to grow, either in reality or in our mind, since we are not actually offering solutions to problems real or imagined.

As for this person, if a person wonders out loud whether they are creating or destroying today, then I know what kind of person I am dealing with.

It’s a “my way or the highway” person.

The last time I checked, I haven’t discovered too many people who created a better world because they wondered which of two choices was best – creation or destruction.

How about you?

I prefer creation and collaboration towards a solution – perhaps I’m misguided.

The Bottom Line

The noise that surrounds the POTUS is not “his fault”.  America has been forgetting more and more over the years (and across many administrations) that we solve problems by offering a hand instead of a fist, by offering facts instead of emotion, by suggesting a position instead of playing “king of the mountain”, by listening instead of just talking (or shouting) and that respectful, fact-based, collaborative dialog is FAR more likely to produce a better world than merely folding our arms defiantly and telling everyone else they are wrong “just because”.

If we allow current trends to continue, where rhetoric-laden, fear-based shouting carries the day, we may at some point create a world that actually embodies everything that everyone fears.

And if that happens, shouting won’t matter then.

If that happens, we may not have a government that allows the sharing of opinions towards common goals.

In fact, we may not have a government at all.

And by then, people who like to complain can complain all they want.

The rest won’t listen – they will be too busy just surviving.

Is that the best we can create and the best way we can create it?

Is that the best role model we can present for our children as to how a better world gets created?

I don’t think so.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS People protesting against the POTUS’ policies “just because” like to quote people like Hillary Clinton or Nelson Mandela.  Perhaps these two quotes would serve of value to those people.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed. - Nelson Mandela

What we have to do... is to find a way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities. - Hillary Clinton

We need to take the high road together lest we all end up somewhere far less desirable that we want or deserve.

But to deserve better, we must prove it and work together towards it.

Otherwise, we do get what we deserve but it’s often far less than we desire.

Whose fault is that?

Democrats: Kicking Our Butt Instead of Kissing It

Do you remember a time when during an election year, the average politician, both incumbent and challenger, promised us everything under the sun to either get in office or to stay there?

No matter how outrageous the voters needs were and no matter how unsolvable they were, politicians assured us that they had a sure solution while their opponent had none.

As they made all these promises, they were very accommodating to our requests, demands and everything else in between.  Well, at least in public they were.

The President’s recent aggressive stand on a number of issues has surprised me and caused me to ask “Why?”.

Last weekend, the President made a number of comments to the business community of America, suggesting that they had nothing to do with their success at all and that if it hadn’t been for government, businessmen would be nothing.  He’s not the first Democrat to make such assertions.

I guess my response would be:

If I have to give away all the credit for the successes in my Life, can I also blame the same people for my failures and shortcomings?

And by the way, I didn’t hear the President thank us for helping him win the Nobel Peace Prize …. but alas I digress.

Back in April, the President warned the Supreme Court not to rule against Obamacare, setting off a firestorm as to the power of the Office of the White House and the constitutional relationship between the White House and the Supreme Court.

Democrat Senator Patty Murray indicated yesterday that Democrats were willing to let taxes increases across the board in order to force the GOP back to the table, punishing all Americans for Washington’s inability to solve issues.

Then there was the matter of the inappropriate tweets made by the President and others in June as I wrote about in my blog POTUS – The Impact of Lower Standards.

Alas, I could go on. 

But the point is this.

In an election year, most politicians, especially incumbents, are usually kissing our butt.

This time they are kicking it.

And regardless of where they stand in the polls, it is not a strategy that politicians normally take for fear or wiping out gains if they are leading in the polls or guaranteeing their loss if they are trailing.

So when I see someone being so aggressive in how they handle their PR and how they speak to Americans in general, I can only attribute this to one of four things:

1. They are so confident that they feel they can do anything (which would be a new model in the political world).

2. Brazenness, arrogance and intimidation are the new model for getting anything done in America.

3. They are deluded or officially psychotic.

4. They know something we don’t know.

I have personally known many politicians who were secretly confident but never waved their confidence in voter’s faces, so I’m pretty sure option 1 is out.

I would like to think that option 2 is not a possibility.  If it is, we as a society are doomed, relegating success to those who can beat the tar out of others verbally … which eventually escalates to physically.

I think these people are very smart, so I think that option 3 is out.

Which leaves me with option 4.

Option 4 is difficult to explore.  The modern political engine has whipped up emotions within the American people to the point where cerebral dialog is almost impossible.

Just trying asking for facts and watch what happens.

I rest my case.

The emotion levels remind me of a commonly used tactic in the private sector. 

I sat in on many a boardroom meeting on Wall St. where an executive had to sell something to the room that they knew would be unpopular or they had to cover up either a lack of knowledge or competence on their part.

A common way to handle this when one has few facts to rely on is to whip the room up into a frenzy (playing both sides if one has to) and while the room tears itself apart, the person with “the problem” sits back, relieved that no one is looking at them ….. at least for now.

It reminds me of the old cartoons years ago where everyone is fighting in a dust cloud while the antagonist crawls away unscathed.

Divisiveness is a powerful tool.  People end up yelling and screaming at each other instead of in the direction where they should be demanding accountability from.

So if we look past the emotion and try to examine the data points in the current political environment, an intriguing scenario arises.

In an very unscientific poll of 1000 people that I administered to a number of colleagues in New York and Washington during the month of June, including business executives, politicians and military personnel, I asked the following questions:

1. If you could do anything you wanted within the law to prevent a challenging party from winning an election, would you do it?

2. If such action included invocation of Executive Directive 51, would you do it?  Blog reader note: Executive Directive 51 allows the authority of Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court to be waived by the President, elections postponed and citizen rights to be curtailed  for "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions”.

3. Do you believe that Executive Directive 51 has been or is being contemplated by the White House?

Here are the results:

1. 85% would do anything within the law, with 5% of naysayers indicating that the primary reason they wouldn’t hinged upon a conflict between their personal values and what the law allows.  10% would do anything, inside or outside the law.

2. 83% were willing to invoke Executive Directive 51.

3. 74% believed that Executive Directive 51 was an option that the White House has or is considering.

Good fodder for conspiracy stuff, isn’t it?

Or is it?

As one person noted:

The problem with Executive Directive 51 is that if you don’t like it and protested it on a large, disruptive scale, it could theoretically be invoked to prevent the demonstrations against it in the first place.

This caused me to think that democracy is no longer a right for each American.

It is in fact on loan to them as long as they behave.

I wrote back in March (Something Wicked This Way Comes) that the recent laws and preparations by the government were intriguing and disturbing to witness.

These laws were expanded in July when an Executive Order giving the President total control over communications during an “emergency” was signed into law.

Now to be truthful, in the hands of a competent leader during times of distress, these laws can mean the difference between saving a nation and losing it catastrophically.

In the hands of a less-than-competent leader or a devious one, these laws open Americans to a world of pain.  There are also no checks and balances in place to prevent such a leader from invoking them.

But as they say, you have to trust someone right?

When I look at the current political climate in America, I see a lot of emotion and little fact-based dialog.

This is perfect for a politician.  While everyone is screaming at each other, no one is examining what the politicians are doing (or not doing) to help the American people.

Their arrogance in recent days reminds me of this scene from Mel Brook’s History of the World Part 1.

Drifting to the left.

 

It is easy for leaders to ignore the noise of emotion in the masses as long as the masses are not presenting a consistent, unified call for accountability and solutions.

And so as we get closer to an election, the arrogance and confidence of the Democrats continues to grow.

As a strategy advisor, I need to strip the emotion away from this and examine the data points to answer the all important question.

The question of Why?

Politicians prefer that the electorate not ask too many questions with the understanding that sheep are easier to guide than leaders.

If America were a nation of 330 million leaders, we would never get anything done at all.  We need sheep to get things done.

But our ratio of leaders to sheep is way out of kilter.

And this suits some people perfectly.

But does it suit the American dream and the greatness that America has represented and has the potential to represent in the future?

The politicians believe they have the answers and want to give them to you.

Unfortunately, the weak minded, the uninformed and the misinformed allow themselves to build their lives around these answers.

How about you?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

 

Addendum – July 17, 2012

It appears I missed two options in my original explanation for why some politicians are so brazen.

5. They don’t care if they win or lose.

Since we know that they care, we can discard this one.

6. One reader pointed out a variation of my original #4, the notion that they know something we don’t.  I mentioned it with the thought that perhaps they had a reason to be confident that we weren’t aware of (such as the possible use of laws to help them win should the use of those laws be required).  However, one reader mentioned that maybe there is a genuine concern on the horizon that we don’t know about and that making it public knowledge would be counter productive to the population-at-large.

That’s an interesting spin – a national security concern so great that it is pushing them without allowing them to speak about it.  The best analogy I could come up with would be asking people to leave a theater because it is burning to the ground but you don’t want to tell them about the fire because the resulting panic would kill many people in the stampede for the exit.  However, because you don’t tell them about the fire, they resist leaving the theater, forcing you to get very aggressive in your “motivation techniques”.

Eventually you have to come clean about the fire and deal with the panic that ensues or you say nothing and let the fire take its course.

An interesting thought.

Final Thought:

I wrote this a year ago Strategy 101: What Are Your Objectives? and this in 2009 Taking a Break – Recharging to Take Charge.  In the latter, I wrote about how Ben Bernanke had claimed to have solved the economic problems in America and then admitted that he hadn’t, how global warming was producing just talk and no action, etc.

There have been many ups and downs on this roller coaster since then with no solutions in sight.

It’s scary that we are not getting on top of the stuff that needs to be fixed.  What’s even scarier is that the stuff is relatively easy to see.  In March of 2008, I wrote a blog called Financial Crisis predicting the financial crisis of September 2008.  If we can see this stuff coming, why can’t the experts see it coming and prevent it or at least minimize the damage?

Maybe it’s because they are focusing too much on bashing the other side and staying in power rather than focusing on solving the problems.

POTUS – The Impact of Lower Standards

After the Supreme Court ruling today that President Obama’s Healthcare Plan would stand, there were three tweets from the Democrat camp that really surprised and disappointed me.

The first was from Patrick Gaspard, Executive Director of the Democratic National Committee:

The second is from Greg Greene, the Media Outreach Director for the Democratic National Committee:

Being gutless about standing behind what he said, Mr. Greene deleted the tweet when it started to circulate around the web.  Unfortunately what is said on the web is forever, even if the source is deleted.

The third, and most surprising, was from President Barack Obama’s own twitter account:

Now don’t get me wrong.  Having worked on Wall St. for many years, I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination.

However, hearing the President of the United States (or someone speaking on his behalf) imply the F word in an apparent taunt to citizens against Obamacare sets the bar to a new low in my mind.

No President is perfect and in private, Presidents have no doubt had much to say that reflected their gratitude for certain slices of America and their disappointment (or disgust) with other slices.  However, I’ve never seen a President so confident that he (or one of his representatives) would insult or taunt Americans.

In fact, in an election year, we usually see Presidents and candidates alike try to balance keeping everyone happy, promising what they can deliver while being vague and elusive (but without a definitive no) regarding things they can’t or won’t deliver.

When phrases such as “bitches”, “mother f’ers” or “still a BFD” are used, it lowers the sense of decorum and dignity of the Office of the President, the Office that represents the values and ideals that America stands for.

Values like courtesy and respect.

When the bar of respect is lowered, the nature of the dialog between the Office of the President and citizens changes also.  With the veneer of decorum and dignity further tarnished by these tweets today, I was amazed at how many people on Twitter responded by throwing the F-bomb right back at the President.

I remember a time when few people would dare say such a thing to the President.  Whether you liked the man in office or not, and whether you swore about him in the local coffee shop or bar, if you were addressing the President, you had the respect to address him as Mr. President.

It seems that once the bar was lowered by the POTUS (or his campaign staff), the level of conversation and dialog took on a new disrespectful tone.

And in times like these, with many challenges still ahead of us, this is not the time to establish a diminished standard of dialog that produces nothing but taunts and insults.

We still need to pull together and set the standard for decorum, dignity and respect to solve these challenges and to provide an example of citizenship and leadership that we want our children to model.

It is, after all, their future that we are creating, both in our choices of word and action today and the standards by which we wish them to live by tomorrow.

Standards that are established by how we live today.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS I’m aware that the twitter account for the President is shared by the President and his campaign staff and because of this, every tweet that appears isn’t necessarily typed by the President.

However, if I authorize someone to post tweets on my behalf, I make sure that such persons are in resonance with my values and beliefs since they are representing my values and beliefs with every message they post.  I am also responsible for any content that appears and if negative content is presented, I am required to address the matter appropriately.

For this reason, every tweet that appears under the President’s twitter account in fact represents the President’s values and beliefs unless he takes action to the contrary.