politics

Civic Geek: In On The Scam

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

This is going to be a bit of a “darker” column than my usual writing.  I want to talk about why the world seems to be such a mess.

A compromised president  A congress that doesn’t seem to care about that or anything else.  Some new political scandal emerges every week, usually about a Republican, and usually something hideously creepy.  People end up voting for these creepy idiots and we can’t figure out why.  Television is a parade of lickspittles and temporary celebrities kissing up to power.  So-called populists backed by millionaires parade about, and insta-celebreties appear out of nowhere jumping on whatever political bandwagon is convenient.

What the hell is going on?

Let me suggest that part of this bizarreness is that we’ve democratized political grifting.

Sure, there have been many politicians and rulers in history who didn’t actually believe what they said about things like morals and decency and patriotism.  We knew that.  We’ve always known that.

But now, because we all know that, some people want in on the action.  They too want to be political grifters, big and small, and they don’t really care what happens.

You can back a candidate that’s clearly an immoral liar – and you know it – but you can enjoy “triggering” people.  You can become a YouTube celebrety by spewing BS.  Manage to get yourself “in trouble” and you might become an celebrity as you claim persecution.  We don’t just have people trying to manipulate the system – we always had them – but now we’ve given more people ways to do it and made it even more profitable.

if you’re ambitious enough and immoral enough, you to can not give a dam and see how much wealth and power and fame you can accumulate.  You can even keep changing your mind or switching gears until the right grift pays off – and maybe all you want is something simple like yelling at people!

B.S. backs B.S.  Conspiracy theories provide covers to real corrupt officials.  A popular pundit or preacher or politician can elevate some no one who spews the right B.S. to new popularity.  More people are in on the scam.

Only it’s a meaningless scam.  Political Grifting doesn’t fix things, they’re just a way to make yourself wealthy, or powerful, or just cope with your feelings of inadequacy.  It’s a giant race where everyone is trying to get theirs before it falls apart.

Meanwhile everyone trying to scam in the New B.S. Economy is both destroying our good will and society and ignoring real problems.  Sarcastic television comments aren’t going to stop client change.  Wage disparity isn’t going to be repaired by tearfully claiming persecution for the latest deliberately-shocking thing you said to get attention.  People both make things worse and don’t work to fix our real problems.

So that’s one of my theories about Why There’s So Much Suck Right Now.  More people are getting in on ages-old scams, more people are engaged in political grift.

We’re going to need to get wise.  Literally.

-Steven Savage

A Bridge To The Quiet Planet: Politics

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Let’s get to know more about the setting of my upcoming novel, A Bridge To The Quiet Planet.  It’s out late this fall but you can find out about the world now . . .

Politics

“Never trust a person without divided loyalties.”
– The Sixth Sage

The politics of Telvaren and all the human worlds orbiting Avenoth can best be summed up by that pithy statement from the ancient thinker. A further motto from the Reformation also adds some insight.

“Peace is when people agree on 60% of everything.”
– Unknown

The politics of all the worlds of humanity are thus summed up as follows:

  • It is considered natural and indeedp healthy for people to be involved in multiple organizations, churches, temples, unions, political groups, and more. It is by these multiple involvements that the reconciliation and truce-making necessary to politics comes about.
  • As long as people can agree on an (at-times slim) majority of things, peace is assured.

This leads to a mix of practicality and idealism, where people aspire to reconcile and fix issues while being members of their community, while assuming they’ll disagree with each other. Politics is soaked into the post-War culture, and it is assumed that all people to some extent engage in political actin. The idea of this endless cycle is called The Dance.

The Dance

The Dance is the nickname given to the various ways unions, guilds, companies, Great Cities, The Military, and more attempt to both get along and disagree. Everyone wants the Dance to go on, and thus does nothing radical to disrupt the world, meaning a great deal of politics is arguing, avoiding, bribery, negotiation, backstabbing, or just giving up. This constant low-level political activity is considered far better than the alternative of ignoring things until they go wrong.

This means for anyone in a remotely controversal, active, dangerous, or public profession that they’re always going to be involved in some conflict. Dealing with this conflict in a way that doesn’t spiral out of control is considered par for the course.

As an example, the relic-hunters of the mage’s guild Phoenix Ascendant may find themselves clashing with the guild of Radiant Visage, who hunt down and destroy rogue mages and dangerous magic over a trove of artifacts. There may be no violence (well, more than a broken nose or a display of magic), but there may be theivery, bribery, or deal-making. When open violence occurs, it is considered a failure.

One does not stop The Dance.

Political Parties

There are multiple political parties on all the worlds of Avenoth. Some may be as local as the Ward of a city, others may be planetary or interplanetary. Most people so inclined belong to multiple political parties, depending on their interests. Powerful Guilds, Unions, and Universities also act as political parties.

The parties respect The Dance as well, though some people find the arguing among them (especially in rather verbal places like Grand Ivar and Zafrel) to be cathartic.

Common Political Beliefs

Despite the acceptance of differences, thee are a few common political attitudes among the people of Avenoth.

The Need For Human Unity: Is very common – humanity must be united politically. This causes conflicts with the Unaffiliated Territories and large parts of Lindhaem for obvious reasons – they don’t want to be part of The Government. Fortunately this unity is often pursued in passive-aggressive means.

The Need For Division Of Politics: Most politics is split between The Government, The Cities, local territories, and assorted organizations. This is seen as good and healthy, in that certain areas of society have certain responsibilities. Its just people argue about what they are.

Multi-Level Identity: One’s political identity is assumed to be multi-faceted – one’s City, one’s professional association, your neighborhood, etc. THe idea of people having one “party” or “loyalty” is seen as unhealthy – and fanatic.

Caution over Innovation: Though how cautious people are varies, the culture/cultures of Telvaren and its worlds do not assume innovation is always a good thing. There’s so much history of dangerous magic and technology that “hey look what I came up with” isn’t something people always want to hear. Needless to say, mages and technics and scientists tend to overstep these bounds.

We Are Better Than Before The War: Though the Lindhaemi might disagree to an extent, there’s an assumption that humanity learned so many lessons from The War and The Reformation, that they are better people for it.

Fear of Another War: Built into the culture and politics of all the peoples whose worlds orbit Avenoth is a fear of another War, a great global (or now interplanetary) conflict. Though it’s seen as very unlikely, this fear is woven throughout everything.

A Minimum Standard Of Living: Povery and assumed poverty were both part of the times before The War, and after it. Between The Government and The Great Cities, there’s a large amount of financial, educational, and other support for citizens. Going hungry or without medical treatment is rare.

A Need TO Be Involved: Being part of society, functioning in it, contributing, is also woven throughout the culture. It is considered normal to do charity work, go to political rallies, be involved in public institutions, etc. A duty to society (and its parts) is considered normal.

The Inevitability of Politics: Finally, most citizens accept politics and political involvement, with all its ugliness and strangeness, to be completely natural. This leads to a kind of cynical idealism.

– Steve

Civic Geek: The NRA’s problems and the future

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

The Parkland student-inspired MarchForLife protests have certainly had an impact. The NRA’s image is obviously tarnished and American opinions on guns have changed. Those bodes ill for the NRA – but also gives us ideas to address other issues where financial interests work against our citizens.

First, let’s look at where the NRA is:

The Parkland Students Got Organized Got Attention

The Parkland students got organized, got attention, and got a protest. This has had an impact, and it’s not going away – even if it fades (and it may) it’s inspired people and gotten them organized.

Two things stand out here:

  • * They were articulate and sympathetic by basically being themselves.
  • * They kept focused (though obviously there’s interest in other issues).

It’s really, really hard to argue with articulate people making the human point “I’d like not to be shot in my classroom.” There’s a message and people you can connect with.

The NRA Went On The Attack

And it looked awful. The NRA’s entirely geared up to be an attack machine (it’s really a PAC) and it responded as it does. When no one backed down, of course, what else can they do? They came of looking unsympathetic and unrelatable (wheres the students were otherwise)

Which brings us to a big issue . . .

The NRA-Adjacent Are Worse

Christ, I couldn’t believe the amounts of personal attacks on the Parkland students from assorted “journalists,” bloggers, and media lack-of-personalities. I mean I expected some of this, but it was far more vicious, petty, and stupid than I expected.

Then you get to the real fringe groups, the people looking for crisis actors and connections to pizza cults. They’ve already easily created or internalized various insane narratives. These both feed more “mainstream” journalists as well as self-reinforcing their own delusions.

The people towing the NRA line, the “NRA-Adjacent” look far worse – and that rubs off on the NRA. I have enough trouble telling Dana Loesch’s rants from someone on Twitter with six followers.

Which means that these people, when they look bad, make the NRA look bad EVEN IF THE NRA WERE TO GO QUIET. Since they can’t shut up, their activities are going to keep making the NRA look bad.

The NRA-Adjacent Are Vulnerable

Look at how fast Laura Ingrham apologized for mocking David Hogg when people went after her advertisers. Consumer revolt is not only helpful – it points out hypocrisy, viciousness, and provides publicity.

Remember how many people make a living providing punditry, and saying whatever pays.

There’s More To Dig Up

The NRA accepts foreign donations and has admitted it. There’s been suspicions for awhile about how they act as a kind of PAC/money laundering operation, and connections to Russia. They’ve got enough questions that additional public scrutiny isn’t going to e good for them.

Now they get to have it. When they and their adjacent advocates can’t shut up while they attack teenagers who don’t want to get shot.  We’re probably seeing a self-exciting system.

What We Can Learn

So what does this teach us about modern politics? It gives us some ideas of how to take on various corrupt groups and government officials – because they often fit the same pattern. They’re beliigerent, only know how to attack, have a “halo” of even more extreme believers, and there’s always something more to dig up.

Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. This means:

  • Be sincere and human.
  • Use the media.
  • Build focused movements.
  • Don’t give in to the attackers, but expect attacks.
  • Let those “adjacent” to corrupt organizations make the organizations look worse.
  • Be sure to use consumer boycotts and awareness against those adjacent to corruption.
  • When you have belligerent corrupt organizations and politicians, there’s usually more dark secrets to dig up.

These Parkland students didn’t just give us advocacy on gun rationality; they point to other ways to take on corruption in the system.

– Steve