One or two things I have learned about politics

For those of you who have dropped by this blog before, the title of this entry may come as something of a surprise. The majority of previous posts have been about media and culture; these are areas in which I have worked for a long time. I have degrees in these subjects and I have taught many courses about them.

Meanwhile, though, I have lived my life in areas beyond these subjects, met many good people from many backgrounds (and a few truly evil ones). I have had a go at many projects, built a few businesses, encountered a few bitter failures and some success. All in all, I have been on this planet for quite a while now, long enough to have learned a few things about how this crazy world works. I don't have degrees in most of what I know, but you learn as you go.

This is some of what I have learned about politics...

...that the clanging and clamoring of public life will never cease and that clever demagogues can spin any aggregate of random facts into personal gain.

...that much of what passes for deeply felt political beliefs are motivated by deeply buried personal conflicts.

...and that while many of us can clearly and forcefully articulate their political points, we often can't express or even identify what really motivates them.

...that a good majority of today's political argument is really a dispute between well intentioned people who happen to have opposing means while seeking the same end.

...while the remaining minority is not only diametrically opposed in the ends they seek, they are in agreement that keeping up the endless argument keeps them in the fighting business.

...and many a good and well intentioned idea can turn very bad very quickly.

Take for example corn...

I like corn. I like to eat it. I like to grow it. I like to do both at the same time. I like to stand in my garden at night and hear it grow, pick an ear, shuck it and eat it raw. Especially in full moonlight. Lovely.

But corn is a problem in our culture. It's everywhere in our food - as high fructose sweetener - a major culprit in the fattening of America. It's also a political football in the form of ethanol. Way back in the gas crises of the 1970s, the cry went up to free the US from the grip of the avaricious oil producers. The solution would be fuel from renewable plant energy. Why not? We have good soil, lots of sun and water - let's grow our fuel! We can save energy! The air will be cleaner! We will be free from the political controls of oil producers!

So we did this wonderful new thing. A lot of farmers balked at first but the Federal government subsidized the effort to produce corn as fuel - ethanol - in a big way. Not so long after, farmers started to get used to these subsidies and tax breaks. Now a whole lot of acreage is going to fuel not food. Results? Higher food prices and a comfortable relationship between Big Oil and Big Food. And...we discovered that ethanol does not substantively reduce air pollution and the net result of ethanol production and consumption is more energy use not less. We also learned that the ethanol campaign effectively gave the energy industry a great opportunity to influence votes in the farm states which suddenly found themselves profiting mightily from the fossil fuel industry. Net result: the effort to develop electric cars and alternative energy now get intense pushback from farm states as well as oil companies. And farm states often are key to national elections and...well, you see where this is going.

This is an example of one of what I call Rules for Realists - Rule #4, also known as (Edmund) Burke's Law aka the Law of Unintended Consequences:
what began as a well intended push for alternative energies, cleaner environment and energy savings ended up as a major force against the development of those very virtues.

I will post all my Rules for Realists soon...