Deinstitutionalization

I live in the USA, and it is with distaste that recently I have realized: Many of our institutions have abjectly failed to deliver on their promises.

The Electoral College had one job: Prevent a populist demagogue from seizing control of the federal government. That is how the undemocratic middleman between the voters and the result was sold to us. When the time came in 2016 for the EC to step up and do its one job, instead it lay down.

The Society of the Plastics Industry was supposed to increase American recycling of post-consumer petrochemical plastic. Instead, it destroyed it utterly.

I guess that the surprising thing is that I am surprised. In high school, I learned that the Interstate Commerce Commission, developed to control predatory pricing by the rail companies, instead provided a facade of public oversight. The only thing that’s changed since I was in high school is the number of stupid wars the US has initiated under false pretenses. (Oh, and the annual mean global temperature has increased about a degree Celsius. And we’ve lost about 4 million square kilometers of Arctic sea ice.)

To be honest, the Trump regime’s abysmally counterproductive response to the covid-19 emergency was shocking to me. I knew he valued pretense over reality, but I failed to understand the degree of his addiction to fantasy, nor the depraved indifference of his puppetmasters.

What it comes down to is, in the words of Elizabeth White:

… The calvary’s not coming. There is no big rescue, no Prince Charming, no big bail-out in the works …. We’re going to have to save ourselves, and each other.

And, that’s fine. I’d early known that to be the case, ever since the villainy of the Reagan administration. I’m not sure how I lost sight of that, and began accepting (what in retrospect were) obvious lies as truth.

So, step one: Institutions serve the interests of their elites, regardless of their purported mission statements. Counting on an institution to act in the public interest is as foolish as having a dingo babysit your infant. Step two: Behave in accordance with step one. Step three: Look out for your neighbors. Step four: Plan for the future, using scientific principles rather than wishful thinking. Step five: Enact the plan.