Upsetting the Apple Cart

There can be no doubt that Apple is a hugely successful company. Their sales model works. At the moment, there is much confidence that Apple will continue to do well. No one will seriously challenge or question what Apple does as long as the company flourishes. (If it’s not broke…) Most people will agree that Steve Jobs has been instrumental in the company’s success. Consequently, there is now proper concern about Jobs’ medical condition. Successful corporate leaders, unlike American presidents, are not readily interchangeable.

Companies are much like countries. They are either successful or not. We would think twice about electing a president who smokes, for example; or one with an unsavory past. The metrics to measure a nation’s success are somewhat different however. For one thing, countries are ‘too big to fail‘. You can’t just close them down and tell the workers to go home. The failure of a country generally implies that its people are living in miserable or sub-standard conditions.

As the leaders of nations increasingly see themselves as divorced from the general population, there has been an effort underway to erase the standards by which the success or failure of a nation is defined. What remains is two classes of people: the leadership class and the led.

The leadership class is the one that generally hogs the spotlight. They tend to eclipse the led - no matter how great their numbers - in the national narrative. Furthermore, the leadership class tends to stick together. They will echo each other’s excuses and tend to support a continuance of the status quo. The led, on the other hand, are often divided and thus unable to effectively affect the issues - corruption, ineptitude, shortages, oppression, etc. - confronting them.

This is why Madeleine Albright can go over to N. Korea, smile and toast the Dear Leader while his people are starving in labor camps. This is why Robert Mugabe can continue to live in a palace; why Chavez is able to close down radio stations; why Ahmadinejad can fire live ammunition at unarmed protesters; why Hu Jintao can keep political prisoners in jail without public accusation or trial; etc.

Tunisia was a big deal because it broke protocol. The ruling class(es) - especially in the Middle East - received a wake-up call, saying that a people united are perfectly capable of upsetting the apple cart.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Horse Latitudes

"My routine mistake in reading the news is presuming that there is a best outcome. There is just an outcome. You survive, then you deal with it." - John Batchelor

I can’t really argue with that. Der Mensch denkt, und Gott lenkt. English translation: Man makes plans and God laughs. Still, there’s the narrative to consider. You can’t build a narrative on chaos. There has to be some underlying principle pulling it all together – a frame. Whether it’s socialism, tyranny, or preserving the American way (of life), at least it’s a narrative. Right now we have nothing. We’ve lost our identity and, with it, our direction.

We’ve created a vacuum. Vacuums are unsustainable. It’ll fill up with something. None of us can agree on what to fill it with. A trophy president won’t cut it anymore. Oil spill. The air has gone out of our balloon. It drifts; it falls.

The chaos of uncertainty. It’s killing us. We’re not a dumb people. We know what’s (not) happening. We’ve taken our foot off the gas. It’s always been a race; and we’re slowing down. Even the seventh century Islamic jalopy is gaining on us.

Dead in the water. The horse latitudes. What else can we throw overboard? The economy stalls again. ‘Green’ is out of reach and will continue to elude our grasp even if we insist it won’t.

Tired is no excuse. We’re tired of carrying the load. Whether anyone admits it or not, America has been a great stabilizing force in the world. We’ve extended our hand to so many. All they had to do was ask. We even went so far as to extend our hand to those who spit in our faces. Now we’re overextended. We’re torn. We’ve got nothing left to give.

Who will ride to our rescue when the curtain falls for the last time? Will they be celebrating in Gaza? In Tehran? In Caracas? In Havana? In Pyongyang? In Harare? - shooting their guns in the air. And what happens in the capitals that once shared our vision? They will curse us for our tiredness.

And what will happen to us? You say we “survive, then deal with it”. But what if we don’t?