Andrew has two visions on what accountablity is really about.
June 27, 2003
1990s: As Golden Age?: I'm trying to find the great economy everybody was talking about in the 1990s...
Clean Gene is Dead: Some passing memories on the death of Euegene McCarthy.
Clinton in Coxscakie: Hillary came to town to ralley Democrats around Gillibrand.
Cuomo on the Mohawk: The man from Guy Park Place has yet to decide to run.
Dick Cheney: Shotgun Bandit: What Cheney's shotgun accident means to all Americans, gun owning or not.
Getting Health Insurance: How many desire to get low-cost insurance changed my plans.
It's Time to Honor America: Beyond politics, there is a lot to like about America.
NO to Impeachment: Impeaching the President is a waste of time.
Ohio: Updating Neil Yong's lyrics for contemporary events.
On Car Insurance and Autobody Shops: The system that keeps you paying without getting anything in return.
On National ID Cards: Discussing the evil national ID cards.
Our Cowboy President: You don't have to like the President's policies to respect his sense of moral responsiblity.
Poem: Bureaucratic Memorandum: Trying to make sense of the memorandum and corporate decision making process.
Poem: It's 2006: The future seems not to come for man.
Respect President Bush: Not agreeing with the President doesn't make him evil.
Senator Paul Wellstone is Dead: Andrew is still shocked at the news of the death of man who was becoming one of the great Senators of the '00s.
The Blackout Blame Game: In continuing my series on blaming the right people, I try to look beyond the hype and mistakes of the media in covering the blackout.
Those Extra Twenty Hours: Brought to you by the same people who denied you national health care.
Undocumented Immigrants and Farms: Why the real solution to the illegal immigration is changing how we subsidize our farmers and not criminalizing or legalizing guest workers.
What is the Political?: The neological word I often use for describing aggregated political forces.
Why Modern Politics are Ill: Commentary on the ills of politics, and the need for activism.
Why the Democratic Stimulus Package Works: The proposed tax cuts by Republicans fail to provide adquate stimulus for sectors of the economy that need it the most.
Says who? How is government suppost to be accountable to "the American People", as the politicos talk about all the time. I can see two solutions to this problem:
The first one seems to be the popular one today. Everybody wants to fight corruption by putting more watchdogs in place—be it people constantly auditing an agency, strict rules to follow, and public avaliblity of all records.
The civic-minding approach, as that describes seems very pleasant at first. After all, doesn't the public deserve all of those things? But there are some weakness to such an approach.
Constantly auditing an agency is expensive; it provides no guarantes that auditors are honest and not politically influenced in their decisions. A truly non-partisian look at a problem is unlikely a best, and probably not possible.
Strict rules to follow, are another reason our government has been so inefficetive as late. You need a variance to do X, Y or Z, which ultimately leads to waste and pollution.
Do we really want to have the public knowing how an agency gets from Point A to Point B? I have no problem with an occasional black box, if it gets me from Point A to Point B. I like to know how my world works, so I can control it, when it goes wrong, but sometimes there are details that only serve to hurt me.
Another policy would be to allow for high level managers to have much more control over the people they supervise. They could fire or hire whoever, and that they would take all the heat for screw ups.
J. Edgar Hoover did a great job of micro-managing—few people have doubted that he called the shots at the FBI during his term. Don't like FBI policy? Blame Hoover. It was a man, somebody who everybody knew was responsible, and when there was a problem, people could focus their pressure on one man.
Presidents are even better examples. They are politicians, they have to get reelected if they want to stay in office. Yet, rarely do they take blame for mistakes of some big governmental office. They lack the control, nor the responsibly of the Chief Executive Officer of the United States, like they are suppost to have.
I guess one could argue that the complex nature of problems facing our nation has neccessitated the bueraucracy and lack of accountablity in our nation. Hell, I doubt it would be hard to debate against such an conclusion. Reality states that big government is needed for big complex problems.
I honestly had a purpose for writing this fine piece of fodder. I think my point is that old corrupt government isn't neccessarly bad, and it can still be accountable. Hoover was accountable, even if he wasn't controlable.
Well, that's my thoughts for tonight.
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