When you think about AIPAC or Big Oil or the credit card lobby, remember the old Mad mag strip, "Spy vs Spy." That's the right model for Congress -- the unending war, now in year 218, the lobby war. "Lobby vs Lobby."
Only its not a black hat lobby against a white hat lobby -- nope, you gotta multiply by N, so it ends up like a bunch of hideous spectral variants on the patrons of the galactic cafe in Star Wars.
Spread these guys around capitol hill, only semi-visible three-d images, and you got all there is to the meaning of the people's collective will.
If there 's such a thing as a general will it must somehow get formed out of the struggles of these adversarial spooks, scrapping for and against one another, as they scurry from the open mind of one people's rep to another, from possession to possession, making it all happen. That's all there is to the workings of the national interest -- a battle among special wills specially interested.
At least thats how Jimmy Madison saw it -- saw it long, steady and with a clear eye; saw it, and said it was good. Good because the lobbies will check each other -- yet another enlightenment faith in the spontaneous emergent goodness of free human interaction; another invisible hand, Adam-Smithian process.
And so it goes on, day after day -- this mad dash of all potentially against all, or for all. That is what gets embodied representationally as the US Congress -- a spectral happening in two chambers, played through a pack of venal hams.
We can apply this to any old topic, so long as we ask ourselves, early and often, cui bono?
Now let's handicap the entries based on the score card to date. When has any of these contending lobbies won, and against what other lobbies? That's the great inside game. We all know it, but we forget sometimes, and start thinking in terms of special interest against national interest -- the lobbies versus the people, the compact, motivated, on-meassage minority against the un-coordinated majority.
Sorry, this is full time work here. There are no disorganized citizen majorities -- no lobby that is the set of all lobbies not containing themselves. So whenever the lathering sets in that some lobby is too powerful -- wins too much -- compare it to another lobby that wins too few, that is too weak.
If certain lobbies or coalitions of lobbies can't be beat, thats a wonder. They must be something. Not even the New York Yankees win 'em all.
Comments (4)
A good example of the difference between industry/lobbies and the general will is the way US and German companies managed to keep on doing business during WW II. While the general wills embodied in Roosevelt and Hitler duked it out, Ford and IBM, various steel companies and others -- certainly banks -- continued with business as usual.
Posted by BOBW | June 19, 2006 11:53 AM
Posted on June 19, 2006 11:53
bobw
you bring up a very profound example even if one interlaced with much myth and
over-determination
and in my mind
it raises the question
if these trans national corporations can work out their spheres of interest at least most
of the time
why not all
of the time
Posted by js paine | June 19, 2006 1:10 PM
Posted on June 19, 2006 13:10
or coalitions of lobbies
Well, thank you for that. The headline article by that ex-CIA pair in Counterpunch over the weekend gave me the shivers. I have no love in my heart for AIPAC, but I really get the fantods in a big way when anybody insists that Israel is some kind of monolith leading the U.S. government around by its short hairs all by its lonesome. From there, it's a very short trip to excusing the U.S. government from having any power in the equation at all, and I don't buy that. Zionists don't have mystical powers. America is a much larger country than Israel and the latter has long owed its existence to the good will of the former. If the U.S. government revokes that good will, it seems doubtful that any other large-scale power exists that will give Israel's government the protection it needs to continue its current policies against the Palestinians.
Posted by ms_xeno | June 19, 2006 1:43 PM
Posted on June 19, 2006 13:43
indeed xeno i had
la lobby in mind......
u may recall
from earlier remarks
of mine
down here at the digital
shop front level
of the comment boards
i'm a firm non believer
in the zion uber alles school in
lobby vs lobby land
in fact if i'm forced
to locate a ny yankee look alike
among the lobby franchises
i'd say
in a mexican
steel cage
mano a mano
bull rope death match
given the bush cheney admin in place
the trans nat
oiler corps would prevail
and thats without help from their ring side
wall street pals
btw
the point to me
of trying to cut
the zionic bomber command
out of the donkeryis to chase the lot of em over where their lead elements are already
ie
inside the elephant's right ear
the repubs may well have the ability
to be both anti jewish
and pro zionist
at the same time
now i must add
obviously
given the siamese twin like
intrication of the donk elite
with the lobby friends of israel
such radical surgery as i insist upon here
might well kill
the patient
but anything less
and building
a party of global
non intervention
is impossible
Posted by js paine | June 19, 2006 3:47 PM
Posted on June 19, 2006 15:47