Two Articles I Enjoyed That You May Enjoy Too
First, if you’re like me, and are interested in systemic explanations of why the world is so fucked up, check out this this Vanity Fair article, which is a systemic explanation of what’s wrong with our government, and why it’s so difficult for Obama to make any headway:
… it’s the kind of evolution that happens inevitably to rich and powerful states, from imperial Rome to Victorian England. The neural network of money, politics, bureaucracy, and values becomes so tautly interconnected that no individual part can be touched or fixed without affecting the whole organism, which reacts defensively. …
The sheer number of things the executive branch is responsible for just keeps expanding; the time available to think about any one of them therefore keeps shrinking. This is not just a management issue, it’s a stakeholder issue: every special interest in the country is working zealously to keep what it has, or to get something better.
Yeah, that basically sums it up. Secondly, if you’re interested in how difficult it really is for the most powerful, dedicated people in Washington to pass a bill that the vast majority of the people who elected them — you know, us — want passed, check out this heartbreaking this heartbreaking blow-by-blow account of how John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsay Graham, a bipartisan dream team, couldn’t get a climate change bill passed after over a year of non-stop, full-throttle work on the issue. Lizza has a talent for making politics not only lucid and understandable but often positively gripping, as here, when he hints at shadows lurking around a corner:
Kerry and Lieberman spent hours alone with Graham, trying to placate him. They forced the White House to issue a statement, which said that “the Senators don’t support a gas tax.” Graham had talked to Emanuel and was satisfied that the chief of staff wasn’t the source of the leak. Eventually, the people involved believed that they had mollified him.
That evening, hours after the meeting ended, a bubble of methane gas blasted out of a well of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, in the Gulf of Mexico, setting the rig on fire and killing eleven men. At the time, it seemed like a tragic accident, far away and of little consequence.
Anyway. These two pieces opened a window onto some pretty impenetrable subjects for me, so if you’re interested a similar experience, I recommend them. I also recommend printing them out on some scrap paper and bringing them on the subway, because that’s a totally pleasing way to read articles that not enough people do anymore.
