WHY Do So-Called “Elites” ALWAYS Get Things WRONG?

(See: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/wm-b-fankboner/the-educated-muslim-terrorist/)

In the wake of WWII, two separate ideas  bubbled up, with the goal being, to keep another Third Reich from ever happening again. Both ideas were widely embraced by ALL the existing “elites,” and fast-tracked into place.

One view was that the Third Reich was, at heart, in effect a macho men’s club and the answer was to empower women to take on more leadership roles. The idea being that females are naturally LESS violent, thus less prone to war, with a greater reverence for life.

It was argued that this transition would take some time in order to groom women AND men to accept this sea change in the social order. Society itself would have to become more androgynous.

In other words, it would take some time to groom women to be more like men…makes sense, in a dumb kind of way.

It was a radical idea alright, radically insipid.

In short order, female leaders proved to be every bit as bloodthirsty as their male counterparts. In India, the first of these leaders, Indira Gandhi initiated the India-Pakistan war that began in 1971. She also embarked on a vigorous (often violent), many would say tyrannical policy of land reform, starting in 1969 and placed a cap on personal income, private property, and corporate profits. She also nationalized major banks, a bold step, as the rift between herself and the party elders grew. The Congress would expel her for “indiscipline” on November 12^th, 1969, in an action that split the party into two factions. She also ordered a military attack on the Golden Temple (Amritsar-in Punjab India), a shrine that sacred to the Sikh’s, in order to remove Sikh separatists that where collecting weapons inside the temple (called Operation Blue Star). She was assassinated to avenge this act by two of her bodyguards – who were Sikh.

Israel’s Golda Meir, the first “Iron Lady” of Israeli politics also led with a fist, her tenure ending after the Yom Kippur War of late 1973.

England’s Margaret Thatcher garnered a similar reputation for a propensity for the gun during her own tenure as Prime Minister.

All this only proving that the “fairer sex” was no fairer and no less prone to violence and war than their male counterparts.

The other view was that Nazism was a particularly Western (European) flaw, born of the old (pre-WWI) European social order and that the answer was to raise up those who comprised what those old Europeans once called “the lower races.” The idea being that these groups were generally more peaceful, at one with nature and not prone to those vile European vices.

Again, recent events show this idea was also fatally flawed, as Rwanda conclusively proved that ethnic genocide was NOT a uniquely German, let alone European flaw. Nor are massive wars with horrific civilian losses. It’s been estimated that over 10 MILLION people have died in the Congo wars since 2000!

HOW could two separate ideas embraced by the prevailing “elites,” that is, bolstered and supported by legions of academics, along with a majority of business and governmental leaders be so completely and utterly WRONG?

Sadly, these “elites” generally aren’t as smart as they think they are. There’s a great difference between being educated and being bright. Creativity and genius aren’t educated into people, it can only be “brought out” in those who ALREADY have it. Moreover, the best students are often the best conformists. They tend NOT to be very creative, NOT prone to questioning themselves and unable to accept, let alone deal with concepts like expanding variability (the MORE information that becomes available, the MORE variables or complications are uncovered). The result is overly simplistic distillations like the ones above.

TODAY, we have an excellent example of that in America’s current Secretary of State, John Kerry. In Rome, this past January, Kerry said, “We talked about the common interest of Pope Francis and President Obama in addressing poverty and extreme poverty on a global basis. The United States of America is deeply involved in efforts in Africa and in other parts of the world – in Asia, South Central Asia – to address this poverty, as is the Catholic Church. And so we have a huge common interest in dealing with this issue of poverty, which in many cases is the root cause of terrorism or even the root cause of the disenfranchisement of millions of people on this planet.”

Really?!

Ever heard of Mohammad Atta? Wealthy family, an educated engineer? Any of that sound at all familiar? How about Major Hasan Nadal...M.D., well-educated, affluent, does any of that ring a bell?

Princeton economist Alan Krueger’s in-depth research, delivered in a lecture at the London School of Economics last year notes, “Each time we have one of these attacks and the backgrounds of the attackers are revealed, this should put to rest the myth that terrorists are attacking us because they are desperately poor,” he says. “But this misconception doesn’t die.”...“As a group, terrorists are better educated and from wealthier families than the typical person in the same age group in the societies from which they originate.”

Mr. Krueger went on to state, “There is no evidence of a general tendency for impoverished or uneducated people to be more likely to support terrorism or join terrorist organizations than their higher-income, better-educated countrymen,” he said. The Sept. 11 attackers were relatively well-off men from a rich country, Saudi Arabia [DS: Not all of them, as 4 were not from Saudi Arabia].

John Kerry isn’t just WRONG on the nature of terrorism, he’s dangerously wrong!

So, WHY do these so-called “elites” ALWAYS get it wrong?

Primarily because they rarely question themselves, or their initial ideas...and because they CAN, with very little prospect for any personal accountability.

In South Korea, the Prime Minister just resigned in the wake of a private sector Ferry disaster. In many other places throughout Asia, leaders have, by custom, taken their own lives after a disastrous turn of events, like when their policies turn out wrong. Hmmmm...just musing aloud about that, that’s all.