 Jim C., i do not believe you have quite gotten the gist of what Hedges wrote, for if you did, you would not have taken him to task for his supposed infrence. It is quite obvious that Hedges does not think very much of bureaucrats and even less for their ability to think for themselves and act independantly. No matter the system that they are in charge of, they carry out their function without questioning its legality, sanity, or impact.
What it is that must be changed is the system. It is not the bureaucrats who make the policies that they are to carry out, but in the case of "public servants", it is their political masters and in the case of corporate paper pushers, it is upper management. Hedges correctly notes that it is the mindless obedience of the zombie class in carrying out their jobs that gives the ruling classes their power. But he does not call for a revolt of the zombies in that he realizes all too well that they are followers, not leaders....And while he does not say so explicitly, what is implied is that if you give the zombies a system to run that provides a tangible good, they will also do so without question. Afterall, we just have to look around us for examples where the bureaucracy does a pretty good job of administering the positive policies of their political masters, places such as Finland and Sweden are but two examples.
With respect to Hart's comment on Jim C.'s comment, methinks you are being a bit too harsh in that Jim actually was (in part) responding to what he believed Hedges was implying. Yes, he misunderstood. But i can live with that. His rather gratuitous jab at the two authors having nothing whatsoever to do with this article was quite uncalled for, i would agree. However, saying that his comment makes him look like a moron (not the first time you have done so) does nothing to burnish your own reputation and comes dangerously close to violating the Comment Policy. Heck, i had a comment of mine yanked for far less.
i will also add that when you first graced us with a comment (about Jim C.--what else?--) i was rather pleased to read it in that you were spot on in observing that most of his posts to JHK articles were the same old same old, as you put it, and often had little to do with what JHK was currently writing and more to do with his take on things written long ago. That was certainly fair comment and as might be evidenced from the rather disproportinate number of green arrows it received, you were not alone in finding Jim's comments to be both rather predictable and tiresome. Some probably even cheered you for suggesting that a possibile explanation for Jim carrying on as he does is that he has gone off his meds, implying that he is psychologicly imbalanced. That i would think is in very poor taste; the act of an insensitive bully really and quite surprising that it did not lead to those comments being deleted. But as time has gone on, your comments became even more predictable than Jim's and though i am not keeping score at home, it seems to me that the vast majority of your posts have nothing whatsoever to do with the article, but rather are solely aimed at what Jim has posted. And so your posts have become every bit as much predictable and tiresome. Just as we are all too well aware of Jim's opinion of JHK and have grown weary of seeing it posted week after week, we now all know what you think of Jim. Others may not have grown quite as tired of reading it as have i, but i am quite certain that i am not alone and should you continue, others will also grow tired of more of the same old same old from you. Jim may not be able to contain himself, i do not know. But you must be aware by now that your attempt to get him to change his ways is not working. Bearing in mind that Einstein defined insanity as repeating the same action and expecting a different result, one may fairly ask how long will you persist with your monomania before throwing in the towel? You might also consider whether your barrage of comments aimed squarely at him is only encouraging him to be even more prolific; a negative feedback loop that only intensifies with each repetition of the cycle? Yet i fear that you both look forward with eager anticipation to each new Monday and a fresh piece from JHK: Jim so he can do his usual hatchet job on JHK and you for the opportunity to trash Jim. It is kind of sad really that 2 reasonably bright and articulate people should get so bogged down with petty peeves when we live in such interesting times with momentous events taking place nearly every day.  Commented 4289 days ago |
