A Hand Tied Behind Our Back
As the most belligerent country in the world, we routinely withhold our most
belligerent options–we're simply not going to nuke Iraq, for example (though
a friend says that Cheney supports the "Nuke it, Pave it, Pump it"
doctrine).
Imagine the United States choosing to be the strongest nation rather
than just the most belligerent. Among nations as among people, strength is measured
more by character than by mere force. This is not news, though each generation
seems to have to learn it anew.
"I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once
I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long
as he is scared, and then he is gone."
"Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness,
consideration and co-operation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal
peace."
— Dwight Eisenhower
A strong America would be confident enough to open itself to its citizens and
the world, by purposely forgoing the methods and superstitions typical of less
confident nations. A stronger America would export prosperity and information,
not just movies and threats.
Although I've never been a big fan of "branding," imagine the benefits
if a few experts burnished the tarnished image of USA™. The obvious starting
place is to ratify good old American values, by treating the Constitution seriously.
Then we might review the films and books that have most formed the American
consciousness, and apply those re-discovered values to our government's actions.
We could start with leading value-shapers like John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart.
What would the Duke do with the pencil-pushing noncombatants who have hijacked
the GOP and the government? Can't you see Duke cleaning house at Abu Ghraib?
Then he'd climb in his HumVee, go over and grab Bremer by the lapels and lay
down the law: "We're not gonna listen to that snot-nosed Yalie any more.
Ya got that, Pilgrim?"
If Jimmy Stewart went to Washington again, he might hire David
Weinberger as his speech writer. David has posted a rousing
speech that he'd like to hear from a leader, if only we could find him one.
He concludes with:
But we can take back our America. And it's not just because we're going
to vote in November. That's just the beginning. We can only take back our
America because in our hearts we never lost it. We the people are still brave,
free, just and full of life. Together, we will invent our new America, because
that's what we do. The always new America. We will lift up the world by joining
with it and leading it as exactly who we are as Americans - Brave, free, just,
and in love with life.
That, my friends, is our America. And we will take it back, because it
is ours.
It's Transparent, See?
Transparency: a manager's nightmare. With transparency
comes accountability and its twin scourge, responsibility. No manager wants
to be subject to the kind of scrutiny that s/he imposes on the people at the
next level down.
Leaders, however, welcome visibility because a leader's genius is exposing
the group's core values and expressing its beliefs. Thus it is that our CEO
President and his lame Board of Directors, managers
all, want to clamp down on scrutiny of the operations of a country owned
by We The People who have already decided to fire these guys in six months (mark
my words, we're facing a landslide here*).
Nick Johantgen (blog pending) called yesterday to suggest that soldiers' cameras
are the most powerful weapon threatening the American military. Adam Curry quoted
a Chinese Proverb
over the weekend: "The palest ink is better than the best memory."
This is the effect that digital photography is having on our military. For
ten years I've been imagining the impending revolution of the Personal
Flight Recorder, archiving reality as it streams past us and saving
it for personal use as we wish. With our PFRs, we'll triangulate our collective
environment so pervasively that fixed security videocams will be like pinhole
cameras by comparison.
Someday soon, every cellular plan will include unlimited video capture through
the wireless pickup in your ball cap or eyeglass frame. Police departments and
public employees will use the devices to record their side of the story. Employees
may call it intrusive until they find that they want to carry their own PFR.
Sure, it will first be based on fear of getting mugged or some other unlikely
event, but it will finally be about recording the interesting moments and transactions
in your day.
The military's obsession with Command & Control will ensure that all military
activities will be similarly archived. Technology will achieve what Command
& Control has never been able to: conform actions to public policy and ultimately,
to our shared public sentiment about how Americans are supposed to behave.
This single evolution in form factor will cause mankind to re-engage the community
that was lost when we invented privacy as an artifact of the Industrial Age.
Every creature on earth lives in public except modern man, and the PFR will
take us home again. When transparency is re-established in our society, common
sense will once again be common.
* Anecdotal evidence can be as misleading as political polling, but the steel
seems to have left the backbone of the NeoCon movement.
-
Last week, dining in a very fancy restaurant, I overheard
a conversation at the next table. A modest-looking but well-dressed woman
was telling a friend what it was like for her to be grilled by Congress
for a Federal judgeship. She revealed her Republican allegiance, but of
Bush she said, "I think he's essentially a good man, but I'm not sure
about his advisors. I would like to see him win." I'd like to see
him win is not the language of constituents on their way to victory.
- My father-in-law is a family farmer in Mt. Pleasant Iowa. He speaks for
the working farmer as he tells you that corporate farming is killing the family
farm and the spirit of people who love that way of life. He's hated the Iraq
adventure from the get-go and can't stand the rich kid in the White House.
- A friend of mine, a self-made millionaire who knows far more than most college
grads, has always been a Republican. He says he can't stand to watch Bush
on TV. Further, his corporate clients, at a personal level, feel the same
way. He's talked to country folk in the south and guys on Wall Street. The
personal sentiment is the same. Only the Democrats think Bush is a force.
12:06:10 PM 
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