From: martin@address-in-sig.invalid   
      
   On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 06:10:45 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:   
      
   > Martin Gregorie wrote:   
   >> On Sun, 10 Sep 2017 12:20:38 -0700, The old geezer wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> Carter, Clinton, Obummer.  'Nuf said!  And that ain't givin a pass to   
   >>> the elitist Bushes!  Oh, for the days of Ike!!   
   >>   
   >> The Bushes have always seemed the worst of that list, at least to me.   
   >   
   > I would say "no". HW is the last of the Yale upper class WASP public   
   > servants. Since he rather invented the [1]Republican Party in Texas he's   
   > had a lot of draw.   
   >   
   > [1] non-Bircher variety...   
   >   
   > He's a bit geeky is all.   
   >   
   >> Not so much the first one who, to an outsider, appeared to have a few   
   >>  braincells. However Dubya was dead from the neck up and,   
   >   
   > Ah, no. Not at all. There is footage of Dubya running for Congrefs the   
   > first time. Complete sentences and all.   
   >   
   > The halting, simplistic delivery was a learned affectation.   
   >   
   >> worse, had a genuine certified cretin picking his advisers for him.   
   >   
   > He was scraping the bottom of the barrel after decades of bloody   
   > infighting and essentially political autoimmune disease. His   
   > administration turned over at least once.   
   >   
   > This dates back to Nixon if not before. It found full expression in Newt   
   > Gingrich's "Contract With America" which incorporated a ( curiously   
   > Progressivist ) "term limits" movement, which low-pass- filtered those   
   > available.   
   >   
   > If there's no longer a mechanism for accession to power, all you get is   
   > a sequence of dark horse ( unknown quantity ) candidates. Everybody   
   > since Bush41 ran *oustide* the system.   
   >   
   > Some of that is the sheer number of discontinuities since Eisenhower,   
   > whether it's Watergate or all the assassinations in '68. And shaking   
   > loose Jim Crow has had its costs, bizarrely.   
   >   
   >> As a result I've always dismissed him as a ventriloquist's dummy and   
   >> wish somebody would properly allocate blame and opprobrium on Rumsfeld   
   >> and his nasty cronies and the loathsome companies they ran..   
   >>   
   >>   
   > You might enjoy Len Colodny's books then. :) They're a bit "Whut?" but   
   > they're entertaining.   
   >   
   > Of course they're nasty; by 2001 they'd all survived 40 years of   
   > infighting in the sacred halls of power. And, FWIW, Rumsfeld pretty much   
   > had his letter of resignation typed out the whole time.   
   >   
   > The thing to wonder about is: why did American politics suddenly turn   
   > into total blood sport under Johnson? Seems to be mainly the legacy of   
   > the "peace" movement. I don't get it yet.   
   >   
   > We've applied high-tech lubrication techniques to "climbing the greasy   
   > pole."   
      
   Its certainly a radically different disease from the one that infests the   
   body politic over here. Our problem is sheer incompetence, with a very   
   large proportion of MPs (and certainly of those making it into cabinet   
   and party leader posts having got there with remarkable little experience   
   outside of politics. Thge usual path seems to be:   
   - going to university to study Political Science (whatever that is)   
   - running the university political party of their choice   
   - either becoming a town/county councillor or a party researcher   
   - becoming an MP and working their way up in the party   
      
   That applies to most of the recent Prime Ministers and Chancellors   
   (Blair, Brown, Cameron, Osbourne) - its not hard to check with a web   
   search or two.   
      
   May has a more diverse record (Arts degree in geography, worked for the   
   Bank of England and for APACS as consultant and senior adviser before   
   becoming an MP, but it mainly seems to have closed her mind to anybody   
   else's ideas.   
      
      
   --   
   martin@   | Martin Gregorie   
   gregorie. | Essex, UK   
   org       |   
      
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