The Anthony Weiner situation, as with any
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Exuding a palpable energy and trapped in a haze of invincibility, a power-drunk person is capable of shedding inhibitions to do the weirdest things
Power can have amazing transforming effects on people. In fact, a person’s true grounding and essence of character can be judged as effectively in a position of power as under extreme hardship.
While holding power, one lives life with a new intensity and energy. Extreme adulation, the good life power brings in its wake and of course increased responsibility keep one highly energised and the atmosphere crackling. The energy and impatience a powerful man exudes can be an attractive force that not only feeds him but also touches and affects those around. Lesser mortals bask in its reflected glory and feel blessed.
Trapped in an energetic field that feeds on itself to create the aura they dwell within, powerful men are bound to get drunk on their own sense of importance. How else can you explain what Dominique Strauss Kahn landed himself into! Or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or so many other powerful men, for that matter. Power acts as an extremely addictive drug that has strange effects on most. It makes people do the weirdest things, from lunging at room maids like sex maniacs to stalking unwilling colleagues, to indulging with interns behind closed Oval Office doors!
Closer home, we have all heard of the TV producer who flings mobile phones and worse at people’s heads. A CEO makes a habit of sitting with his feet propped on the conference table as he talks to colleagues, while another went a step further and used the time to cut his toenails while in a meeting. Some multitasking!
President Lyndon Johnson was known to call colleagues for a consultation while sitting on the toilet seat, while President Richard Nixon got himself into the Watergate Scandal by illegally tapping phones, believing, “When the President does it, it’s not illegal.”
Power grants privileges which can either be used or misused. More than that, it seems to envelop those that reside within its charmed precincts with an invincible haze that makes them take risks they wouldn’t dare think of otherwise. Social scientists at Stanford and UC Berkeley have established through research that power can indeed be a highly intoxicating elixir. As such it is absolutely possible for people to be “drunk on power.” Much like alcohol, power too lowers inhibitions , making people do things that would be highly uncharacteristic of them in normal times.
A freshly showered Kahn could have had many better and willing options than forcing himself on an unwilling hotel maid! Surely it was that haze of power that convinced him the maid would go along with him or at worst be a quiet, willing victim! No wonder poor wives are left swearing by the “innocence” of their husbands , unable to believe or accept the socially deviant, bordering-on-insane behaviour of men they would have sworn they knew exceedingly well. The bad behaviour associated with power can be attributed to this lowering of inhibitions when the true character or animal instincts show through.
And so you hear of stray incidents of a powerful bureaucrat beating his servant half to death, or the wife of a powerful man humiliating her maid in public. What else would you call these people but ‘drunk on power’ ?
Shifting power dynamics can also involve physiological changes, studies reveal powerful people experience a rush of adrenaline that gives them a feeling of supreme power. Research conducted on monkeys shows a change in their serotonin levels when they ‘move into the dominant alpha position.’ Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, said Henry Kissinger. Indeed with pumping adrenaline and the lowering of inhibitions, powerful men are as close to animal behaviour as is conceivable for civilised society. Add to that the invincibility factor, where a sense of power fosters the belief that you are beyond harm and beyond the law, and you have Nixon-Clinton-Kahn-Schwarzenegger situations ready to detonate! Hence the saying, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely!
People in power do behave differently from others and more often than not, they behave badly! From mild eccentricities that may amuse or at worst be irritants, to hurting or harassing underlings , to invasion of privacy — powerful men are capable of all unless they learn and make a special attempt to stay grounded.
Opportunities to deviate from the norm are plenty. Even a brush with power leaves one feeling powerful for a while and that taste can be rather addictive! And so you have women swooning to meet powerful men, be it a visiting US President, top industrialists or successful cricketers and stars. And if the man is known to have a glad eye, women fall over themselves to be noticed. So you had a battery of women ready to kill just to get a glimpse of Bill Clinton every time he visited India, whether as President or later! He does arouse the hidden Monika Lewinsky in women! Does power have the same impact on women? To a certain extent , yes. But the saving grace for women is that even though powerful and rich men attract women, most feel diminished by a woman in such a position. And so the scope for being a Bad Girl lessens.
Meanwhile, powerful men just don’t seem to be learning. One would have thought after Tiger Woods they would have learnt to keep their zippers up even when pursued, forget about pouncing on unwilling victims! But it does seem they cannot help but give in to their base cravings, aided and abetted by the stimulation power gives them!
To take liberty with a friend’s Facebook status, Dominique’s is an example of what Power and Strauss Kahn do to you!
, is a multiheaded hydra of awfulness.
The public is asking if the prime minister and his self-appointed ‘first lady’ have abused their positions vis-a-vis attending their child’s wedding in Kazakstan while on an official business trip to the country.
Interestingly many have rushed to their rescue giving evasive and agitated explanations and even sneering at the very question that the rakyat are asking.
What makes it all a debacle is the way the rebuttals are forthcoming from the defenders of the PM and his First Lady.
The point of contention is very simple really. The logic is when you go to a foreign land on official business, the rakyat pay for the trip and expenses. It is approved because the government official is doing his/her job given by the rakyat.
You complete the assignment, come back and report on the success. And the rakyat will sing praises for you.
But when you go on official business and along the loop also attend a family function – in this case your child’s wedding – and then return on an all expenses paid flight, it certainly raises ethical questions.
The right thing to do is that you go on official business at national expense, return, then apply for leave and go off to do your private thing and return when the leave expires. And that you do at your private expense and in your private and personal capacity as Mr Najib and Madam Rosmah.
In fact, if you place a separation between official duties and personal matters you would not even have the wedding fixed to coincide with your business calender. That is the way how it works for all rakyat who are employed or conduct their official businesses.
Business and personal matters do not mix!
But when you ‘sambung sambung sambil buat kerja’ (mix work with pleasure), ahh, that becomes an ethical issue. Got it?
To make matters worse, the entire entourage who also happened to be on the band wagon of official business trip to Kazakhstan and just happened to be also attending the wedding ‘along the way’ are also guilty of mixing duties with personal social obligations.
This is exactly the problem with Malaysian work culture. It permeates the entire government machinery and today even some private organisations are guilty of taking piggy-back rides on company/organisational expenditure and time.
They are guilty of flying to some destination for work related matters, extending their leave and continuing to enjoy a seemingly ‘well earned’ holiday and then return on a company paid return ticket.
To some Malaysians this is smart thinking. They do not realise how unethical they have been. They bat not an eyelid at this compromising of values.
And so BN will accuse the rakyat of making a fuss about a ‘simple’ matter.
But this is no simple matter. It involves the Number One of the nation. In fact if you study the nine challenges enshrined in Wawasan 2020, this ‘tumpang’ mindset and attitude runs foul of at least four of the nine challenges.
Then how on earth are we going to be a world class citizen and nation?
Should the PM and his First Lady not be setting the highest moral code of behaviour and exemplary ethical values so that the entire nation can emulate and transform its compromised values? Among the casualties of the congressman’s hubristic online grabass sessions, it appears as though the progressive movement will lose a smart, tough-talking champion. A rarity in the Democratic Party. If he doesn’t resign, Congressman Weiner will never again enjoy the trust and admiration of the left, much less the press. If he does, he’s going to have to work damn hard to reacquire it. Meanwhile,conservatives like Rush Limbaugh have been gifted another massive excuse to dust off out their ridiculously hypocritical family values attack against the left, even though the thrice-married, drug addicted, alleged sex tourist Limbaugh is far from being a family values action hero.
Of course, there are the non-crime crimes: the lying, the virtual infidelity and the sheer stupidity of a high-profile elected official being reckless and predatory with his online behavior. Honestly, Weiner’s actions were more indicative of a horny slow-witted pubescent teenager with a fraction of the intelligence and quadruple the modesty than it was the behavior of a six term member of Congress.
But due to his irresponsible Twitter flirting and sexting, the worst non-crime crime committed by Anthony Weiner is that he’s successfully fed a dangerous Mobius Loop involving the news media and those of us who consume its mostly nonsensical content.
In spite of our Puritanical origins and hopeless contradictions regarding sexuality, Americans love sex scandals more than we love our big cars, our big guns, our bubble-gum reality television and our gigantic competing heaps of beef and Lipitor. I’m not breaking any news when I write that sex scandals sell more papers, and they attract more viewers to the internet and television, than just about anything else, regardless of whether they originate in Hollywood, Washington, D.C., or the supermarket checkout line.
And the for-profit news media has a corporate/financial mandate to deliver whatever the people want.
So when Anthony Weiner, John Ensign and others unfurl their penises in public, they supercharge the Underpants-Media-Consumer Complex. The news media reports it because thousands of us watch it — tsk-tsking and tee-heeing. Why? Because the news media has been reporting it, so we watch it, and on and on and on. The circle of underpants. We blame the news media for being prurient and the news media blames us for forcing them to air it.
Now, that’s not to say this topic should be ignored. Certainly whenever there’s news of a politician behaving badly, it should be reported. But certainly not with the wall-to-wall coverage it receives now, irrespective of how explosive or titillating it might be. Maybe these stories are better suited as kickers next to the water-skiing squirrel and the nacho chip shaped like President Taft. Definitely not the lede. But there it is — every time. Because we watch it in record numbers.
This is precisely why oracles like Paddy Chayefsky warned us about mixing news and entertainment programming. When networks and publications married together the news with ratings and made news programming dependent upon corporate advertising and profit in support of mega-corporate parents (fewer and fewer by the day as they consolidate and as monopolies strengthen), the important-yet-comparatively-less-sexy stories began to recede from the headlines and popular sensationalism took on greater importance.
Yes, sexy stories have always been part of the news, but they were generally counterbalanced with wonk because once upon a time journalists took seriously the fact that the press is the only industry specifically protected by the Bill of Rights.
The press was never a huge money-making venture because important stories — the stories crucial to the proper functioning of constitutional democracy — weren’t always the popular stories. Featuring the best reporting ought to be the centerpiece in keeping TV and print news solvent, but it’s easier and more profitable to simply talk about political underpants parties than to report on the finer points of critical topics. Why? Again, because we love it.
Remove or reduce the corporate ratings/profit motive from the press and I assure you, there will be more substance and less underpants.
So while we were all gawking at Weiner’s meltdown, what have we missed? Here are two randomly selected items that have received almost zero coverage anywhere. The Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan has actually released twice the amount of radiation originally reported, and it’s currently ranked at the same disaster level as Chernobyl. Elsewhere, scientists following the climate crisis have determined that the Arctic ice cap will disappear by 2030. Weather conditions are already becoming exponentially more unpredictable, dangerous and, dare I say, cinematic. Now imagine the weather without a one of our polar ice caps to reflect the sun’s heat, and imagine where all of that water might go. But Anthony Weiner’s penis is more fun and therefore a ratings bonanza, so whatever.
Such is the government of People First, Performance Now. A supposedly prudent government asking the citizenry to tighten their belts and to change their lifestyles in view of difficult times ahead, in light of the government’s dire need to slash our subsidies.
This is not the first of such calls from a government so concerned with the people’s ability to save money.
Yet from the people’s point of view, official trips made in conjunction with a personal agenda is very convenient but smacks of abuse and reveals a lack of accountability in the Malaysian system of governance.
From a corporate standpoint, this would never fly. Not only will it be seen as an abuse by a top executive and frowned upon by internal audit, but the Inland Revenue or our infamous Hasil Dalam Negeri would be breathing down this apparent use of company perks for a personal agenda.
The Hasil Dalam Negeri would see this as using company funds and the company and the executive would be investigated and fined. The expenses would be reversed and a fine of 20 percent or more would be charged.
If this is the level of integrity demanded in a corporate environment why not then in a government who boasts of integrity and corruption free.
Hence the official trip to the United States in conjunction with the PM’s daughter’s graduation and the official trip to Kazakhstan in conjunction with the PM’s daughters engagement is nothing but an abuse of power.
There is no end to such wanton spending and may I remind the PM that the money in the government coffer is not his to use freely for personal agendas be it personal or political.
Okay. What needs to happen? How do we fix this?
Don’t laugh, but the corporations that own the news media would have to collectively agree to allow the news to become non-profit or significantly less profitable.
Exuding a palpable energy and trapped in a haze of invincibility, a power-drunk person is capable of shedding inhibitions to do the weirdest things
Power can have amazing transforming effects on people. In fact, a person’s true grounding and essence of character can be judged as effectively in a position of power as under extreme hardship.
While holding power, one lives life with a new intensity and energy. Extreme adulation, the good life power brings in its wake and of course increased responsibility keep one highly energised and the atmosphere crackling. The energy and impatience a powerful man exudes can be an attractive force that not only feeds him but also touches and affects those around. Lesser mortals bask in its reflected glory and feel blessed.
Trapped in an energetic field that feeds on itself to create the aura they dwell within, powerful men are bound to get drunk on their own sense of importance. How else can you explain what Dominique Strauss Kahn landed himself into! Or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or so many other powerful men, for that matter. Power acts as an extremely addictive drug that has strange effects on most. It makes people do the weirdest things, from lunging at room maids like sex maniacs to stalking unwilling colleagues, to indulging with interns behind closed Oval Office doors!
Closer home, we have all heard of the TV producer who flings mobile phones and worse at people’s heads. A CEO makes a habit of sitting with his feet propped on the conference table as he talks to colleagues, while another went a step further and used the time to cut his toenails while in a meeting. Some multitasking!
President Lyndon Johnson was known to call colleagues for a consultation while sitting on the toilet seat, while President Richard Nixon got himself into the Watergate Scandal by illegally tapping phones, believing, “When the President does it, it’s not illegal.”
Power grants privileges which can either be used or misused. More than that, it seems to envelop those that reside within its charmed precincts with an invincible haze that makes them take risks they wouldn’t dare think of otherwise. Social scientists at Stanford and UC Berkeley have established through research that power can indeed be a highly intoxicating elixir. As such it is absolutely possible for people to be “drunk on power.” Much like alcohol, power too lowers inhibitions , making people do things that would be highly uncharacteristic of them in normal times.
A freshly showered Kahn could have had many better and willing options than forcing himself on an unwilling hotel maid! Surely it was that haze of power that convinced him the maid would go along with him or at worst be a quiet, willing victim! No wonder poor wives are left swearing by the “innocence” of their husbands , unable to believe or accept the socially deviant, bordering-on-insane behaviour of men they would have sworn they knew exceedingly well. The bad behaviour associated with power can be attributed to this lowering of inhibitions when the true character or animal instincts show through.
And so you hear of stray incidents of a powerful bureaucrat beating his servant half to death, or the wife of a powerful man humiliating her maid in public. What else would you call these people but ‘drunk on power’ ?
Shifting power dynamics can also involve physiological changes, studies reveal powerful people experience a rush of adrenaline that gives them a feeling of supreme power. Research conducted on monkeys shows a change in their serotonin levels when they ‘move into the dominant alpha position.’ Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, said Henry Kissinger. Indeed with pumping adrenaline and the lowering of inhibitions, powerful men are as close to animal behaviour as is conceivable for civilised society. Add to that the invincibility factor, where a sense of power fosters the belief that you are beyond harm and beyond the law, and you have Nixon-Clinton-Kahn-Schwarzenegger situations ready to detonate! Hence the saying, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely!
People in power do behave differently from others and more often than not, they behave badly! From mild eccentricities that may amuse or at worst be irritants, to hurting or harassing underlings , to invasion of privacy — powerful men are capable of all unless they learn and make a special attempt to stay grounded.
Opportunities to deviate from the norm are plenty. Even a brush with power leaves one feeling powerful for a while and that taste can be rather addictive! And so you have women swooning to meet powerful men, be it a visiting US President, top industrialists or successful cricketers and stars. And if the man is known to have a glad eye, women fall over themselves to be noticed. So you had a battery of women ready to kill just to get a glimpse of Bill Clinton every time he visited India, whether as President or later! He does arouse the hidden Monika Lewinsky in women! Does power have the same impact on women? To a certain extent , yes. But the saving grace for women is that even though powerful and rich men attract women, most feel diminished by a woman in such a position. And so the scope for being a Bad Girl lessens.
Meanwhile, powerful men just don’t seem to be learning. One would have thought after Tiger Woods they would have learnt to keep their zippers up even when pursued, forget about pouncing on unwilling victims! But it does seem they cannot help but give in to their base cravings, aided and abetted by the stimulation power gives them!
To take liberty with a friend’s Facebook status, Dominique’s is an example of what Power and Strauss Kahn do to you!
This would allow news divisions to give hard news more attention and to usher the bubble gum to its rightful place with the water-skiing squirrels. But for this to work, the entire news media would have to agree to do it. Fox News, the Washington Times, MSNBC, The Huffington Post — every news outlet.
And that would be impossible. Obviously.
If just one source held out and became the go-to hub for silly stories, viewers would flock there and the other agencies would disintegrate or fall off the wagon. Plus, corporate owners, investors and boards of directors would never in a millions years agree to allow hard news to supplant ratings and ad revenues unless, of course, advertisers could be convinced that their investment in hard news was good for their bottom line. Perhaps bosses could position the news as a matter of overall corporate prestige while profits could be ascertained via other programming.
Realistically speaking, it’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely.
The other solution, naturally, is for us to make an effort to reverse our viewing and reading preferences. In other words, if profit and ratings determine content, why don’t we, as a movement of news consumers, deliberately give the wonky stories massive ratings and traffic, while simultaneously ignoring the crapola? Go to the hard news sections of blogs and give those posts big traffic and comment en masse with the same gusto of a Weiner or celebrity scandal post. Facebook those posts. Tweet those posts. Email links to everyone. Make it profitable to host hard news. Make them do it. Likewise, instead of picking up a copy of US Weekly at the checkout counter, subscribe to The Nation or pick up a copy ofThe Economist. Generate social media buzz for cable news shows that focus on wonk, and boycott the shows featuring nonsense and manufactured outrage. News agencies would have no choice but to adjust. Without our support, hard news will become gradually marginalized.
Again, realistically speaking, it’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely. However, as social media strengthens, it’s not outside the realm of possibility to generate a decentralized grassroots movement. It’s been done before.
At the very least, we shouldn’t hesitate to loudly villainize any public character who, through his or her reckless stupidity, fuels this dangerous circle of crap. Not necessarily for the crotch shot or the recklessness itself, but for giving the for-profit press an excuse to ignore real information.
Information is the life blood of democracy. The democratic process depends upon our active participation, and whenever real information is replaced with nonsense, democracy suffers due to an ignorant public. If we’re not sufficiently informed about the difficult (yet sometimes boring) realities facing our world, we’re less likely to participate in efforts to ameliorate them. If we’re not sufficiently informed about the positive (yet sometimes boring) realities that make our world better, we’re less likely to participate in efforts to reward and reinforce them.
So when you’re finished reading this item, make an effort to read or view some hard news. If you spend 30 minutes every day on the blogs, allocate a third of that time to serious reading. Comment about it. Share it on your Facebook wall. Make hard news as popular and as desirable as the cheap underpants scandals. Sabotage the loop.
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