Dear Dr. Bones,
Under the traditional cloak of editorial anonymity, Paddy McTammany’s favorite pack of Jay School fruits an’ frathouse babes leap to the defense of Democracy-as-Publicity:
| Define ‘bottled up’ By Boston Herald Editorial Staff | Thursday, June 14, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Editorials Rank-and-file lawmakers who want an expansion of the bottle bill seem suddenly shocked to discover that the leaders of the House and Senate hold all the power to decide what comes to the floor for a vote — and just as important, what doesn’t. Yes, the very same representatives who dutifully file into a back room during the annual state budget “debate,” close the door behind them, then get to the real heart of the spending decisions out of public view, seem to have discovered a brand new respect for the concept of open democracy. The sheep, all of a sudden, want a voice. Now if only their newfound reverence for the democratic process applied to an actual issue of substance — one that wouldn’t have consumers once again reaching for their wallets. Instead they mostly whined on the front steps of the State House Tuesday, calling for legislative leaders to allow a vote on a bill that would expand the state’s bottle deposit law to non-carbonated beverages, including water, juice and sports drinks. The reps and senators insisted there is broad support for the expansion in the Legislature. The problem they say is with leadership, specifically in the House, which has expressed no interest in holding a vote. Tomorrow marks the deadline for the committee considering the bill to vote on its recommendation and things aren’t looking good for the bill’s supporters. Now, we are among the first to argue that proceedings at the State House are indeed too tightly controlled by the party in power. Too concealed from public view. But this crowd really ought to spare us the lectures on democracy. In this case it isn’t about “the process.” It’s about money. It’s about the millions in unredeemed deposits that an expanded bottle bill would pour into state coffers. The Senate two weeks ago explicitly rejected an attempt to expand the bottle bill during its budget deliberations. That ought to be the end of it. |
Imagine, Dr. Bones, if somebody with a warrant showed up at the front moat of Castle Herald and demanded to know all about--ANYTHING about--how these kiddies’ Employin’ Corporation makes decisions and for whom, if for anybooby, those decisions are good. The next sound you hear will be a splash. After that, the crocodiles will kick in. Not pleasant to listen to.
To be sure, with a little rearrangement of props and lights, a competent stage manager could get the F&B scribblin’ out of the other end of their keyboards. Ask them, for example, whether Château Sulzberger ought to be required to tell all about what goes on in either Manhattan Island GHQ or the Morrissey Boulevard summer cottage. Betcha the babes an’ the fruits get that one whight, recognizin’ in a flash that the NYTC is a public utility, not a proud ornament of the Secret Sector like their own Employin’ Corporation. Public like H*rv*rd, even, though of the Timesters are not one-tenth as good as the Crimson are at fiendishly pretending to (and worse, achieving) those privileges of nondisclosure that belong only to bonâ-fide secret-sector corporations.
The Venerable Funders (those for whose Class good the Herald angels ought always, by definition, to act) might want to consider gettin’ a better batch of hired help. Replacement scabs who can think for themselves (at least a little) an’ tell a Class enemy from a harmless lovable little fuzzball. Indeed, the fuzzballs du jour could do the kiddies’ job, for their back-room skulduggery about bottle refunds makes no sense unless it be in aid of more or less the same Venerable Funders who bring you Boston’s second-best hometown-away-from-home fishwrap. Jigger the lighting only a little, and their shepherding their back-bench lambs into a dark and private pen where they can twist some ears and tails until the little dears give up on this "wicked and improper project" so obnoxious to the Jobcreationist Class is a model of how the J.C. ought to be pandered to nowadays.
Perhaps ALEC might feature it in their monthly newsletter, "Management Masters Massachusetts" would be too optimistic. "Beacon Hill gets down to Business" might do, execept insofar as ‘down’ suggests Business is not the tippety-top of everythin’ important already.
This freedumbness of the BH babes an’ fruits is not, I am happy to be able to report, the result of any disloyalty to their Betters. As a general barkin’ point, they know well enough that secrecy is always to be praised in the Secret Sector, reviled, if encountered out in the Naked Nonsecret Square (Pat. Pend.) of the Rev. Neocomrade Neuhaus. Gizmoes like the Freedom of Information Act recently, an’ the Congressional investigation, which is at least as old as Bull Run, can be immensely useful to the cause of Obstruction an’ Reaction an’ Freedumb generally. Even if Nosy Parker cannot positively make Big Management do anythin’ in particular, simply having to tell her what it is that BM is doing has "a chilling effect," as they say in the shyster community. Viewed from the bigmanagerial perspective, to invite Jay School reporters an’ videobabes to attend every board meeting--an’ then go on about what happened afterwards the way Herald angels go on ’bout stuff-- would be tantamount to proposing to outsize and downsource all ScroogeBank operations to Antarctica. ’Chilling’ is far too weak a word. ‘Suicidal’ would be more like it. Or ‘lunatic’.
Nevertheless, every good rule has a couple of probative exceptions, and on occasion bigmanagerial secrecy is desirable even in the Evil Public Sector. One does not have to be EXTREMELY bestembright to work out that this is one of the occasions. Democracy-as-Publicity on bottle refunds would play into the hands of the Class enemy; all the rank-and-file Lieberals and Demoncrats in the General Court would be found spouting pernicious anti-litter rot that goes down well with constituents in (say) Concord or Weston, but has little connection with what the Venerable Funders have ascertained to be really good for the Commonwealth on a Hill.
"The cause of the Greater Worcester County Chamber of Commerce is the cause of us all!" will do as a field guide to Real Good, and naturally the GWCCC wants nothin’ to do with more bottle refunds. Considering the state of the economy, I doubt the BH would have much difficulty findin’ an’ hirin’ Herself some scab fishwrappers who don’t need to have anythin’ as natural as that laboriously explained to them every time a little self-exceptionalism is called for.
Meanwhile, back on Bacon Hill, the Venerable Funders’ underlyin’ problem is that their freelordships are ElevenPercenters, whereas the General Court is fiirmly in the hands of the 89%. Amazingly firmly.
What their freelordships the Venerable Funders really require, it seems to Eye and to Paddy, is something like "Democracy-as-Ten-Percent-Majority-Rule," a product far easier to label than to imagine in detail. Senator Fratboy was supposed to give us "Democracy-as-FORTY-Percent-Majority-Rule" so as to strangle the Affordable Care Act in its cradle, but that seeming precedent does the GWCCC no good, for a couple of reasons: (1) in the event, Fratboy never came thru; (2) after the 2008 election, Fratboy did not need to come thru; and (3) all this is at the Fedguv level anyway, far, far removed from Greater Worcester County. Plus of course (4), ’twould be rather a long stretch from 11% to 41%. even if there were no other hitches in sight.
On the other hand it is what a Jay-schooled frathouse scab would almost certainly miscall ‘ironic’ that the majority leadership in the General Court can pass for Ten-Percent-Rulers if contrasted rather with their own flock in the Chamber rather than with the Daughters of Virtue & Sons of Wisdom LLC out in Lovecraft Country beyond Route 128. Were House and Senate to conduct their business as if they were a Norman Rockport town meeting, hardly anything would ever actually get done, an unresult that would (most of the time) please the Venerable Funders immensely, but also a result so easy to foresee that the Bacon Hill Gang, though hardly the sharpest bulbs on the Exmass tree, will make sure it does not happen.
I daresay Speaker DeLeo and Senator Murray have to put up with a lot more guff from their own team than Governor Romney, for example, did back when he was actually out there baincappin’ volks. It matters quite a lot that they cannot actually fire their ‘associates’, no matter how much they’d like to. Still, they are in the same line of work, mostly, as Big Managers proper, meaning the corner-window executives of secret-sector business corporations, so beautifully credentialized with M.B.A. degrees from the H*rv*rd Victory School. ScroogeBank and Warbucks Defense Widget and J. P. Morganchase (plus Baincap Herself, nay, ¡even the Boston Herald Angel Trust!) are not run as democracies, and neither, in a lot of ways, is the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I believe Comrade Jean-Jacques complained of this arrangement a long time ago that the alleged kratos of the dêmos begins and ends on election day. So it does, but to whine about it seriously is the first step down that slippery slope that leads to one becoming an apologist for the Golden Freedumb of Ancient Poland.
Happy days.
--JHM
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