Leadership in modern America

What do you get when you put a failed businessman, cable company executive, and failed horse association administrator together? A big mess.

In an earlier blog I said that I thought that the current leaders in the response to Katrina were retarded. This would be true if they had public policy experience. However only the failed businessman has that.

Big cities, nations and agencies, need people who know whatthey are doing. It is great the we live in a nation where any millionaire and campaing contributor can grow up to be President, or mayor, or FEMA head, but it is not helpful to the citizenry that millionaires tend not to understand the reality of America. It is easy for the millionaire to discount problems of poverty because they have no idea what poverty really is. To them it is all academic.

At the very least these so called leaders should get down into the real life of people for a glimpse. Robert Kennedy touring the utterly impoverished Apalachian communities in the 60's gave that millionaire a better view of the real America.

Being so removed from the real America it is easy for them to put off plans to improve the lives of the average person. The division has turned this country from a nation that looked at a problem and said, "Yes we can do that."; into a nation that says, "We can't possibly do that."

The rich simply do not have a clue as to the level of struggle the average American is going through. I am not talking about the poorest. Those people have it even worse. The more removed you are from a person in need the easier it is to ignore him/her. We freakout when Americans are refugees but tend to get bored after a week or two when 200,000 people get wasted in a Tsunami.

The insulation needs to be stripped away from the rich or there needs to be more average people in positions of power.