The Peter Principle

Ibn Kafka has a post catching Israel in a propaganda f**k-up. The Israeli Ministry Foreign Affairs posted on its Flickr account pictures of the terrifying weapons they found on the IHH ship. You know, things like bulletproof vests for emergency services, pepper spray, kitchen knives, bits of wood and other weapons of mass destruction. Except that they did not realize that Flickr displays EXIF data, which is the information that cameras record when they take pictures: aperture, shutter speed, flash status... and the time the picture was taken. Which, as Flickr commenters quickly pointed out, was sometime in 2006.

I think we're all pretty clear on the Idea that Governments lie. Human desire for status, reward, power and stability, especially in one's own life and job, trump for the people more often than not. This is the commonality between communist, revolutionary, consumerist democracies, and theocracies. Our idea of checks and balances weaken when the checkers and balancers live on the same block, golf on the same course, and attend the same parties. None of this is new, anyone would have observed the same thing fifty years or five hundred years ago.

I'd like to suggest The Peter Principle as a good thing in this case. In the pictures on the Flicker example, they were probably posted by a middle-operative more interested in getting the job done and making tee-off time. No doubt sanatation protocols were put in place as soon as the powers that be realized the boo-boo and our hypothetical bureaucrat got a lateral promotion to the garbology division, but due to a quirk of technology a crack appeared in the monolithic wall. In a related note, NYTs has been salting its opinion page with references to the violent Hamas takeover. It only takes a second to confirm that they were elected, but you know the drill... wrong kind of democratically.

Closer to home, we're justifiably cranky when Government can't seem to tie its own shoelaces. But what if the Government was able to spin on a dime? We would have had the entire Constitution explained away on this or that temporary emergency measure, (it's my tee-time) and every electable gumbah's fervid campaign dream or contributer's wish list posted into law before you could say Bobs your Uncle. Sometimes all that gives the governed some breathing room is the sheer inertia of the bureaucracy and the less than stellar performance of those on the inside.