The Phoenix and the Swan Song by Cynthia Ayers
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-phoenix-and-the-swan-song?f=commentary
“No poorest in thy borders but may now Lift to the juster skies a man’s enfranchised brow Oh Beautiful! My Country! Ours once more!”
James Russel Lowell, Harvard University, 1865
Lowell’s speech (above), given within a post-civil war commemoration service, was later described within The Growth of the American Republic (1937):
“Lowell was, in fact, delivering the swan song of the New England intellectuals and reformers. In the generation to come that region would no longer furnish the nation with reformers and men of letters, but with a mongrel breed of politicians, sired by abolition out of profiteering.”
Like a mythical phoenix, a reformer has arisen from the ash heap that was “politics as usual” (rife with obvious profiteering by pretentious mongrels) to form an unusual force to be reckoned with – a mix of grassroots support and “big money” borne of inheritance, intelligence, strength, and hard work. It may be unsettling for some; but those who form the backbone of the country seem to believe that it’s long past time for corrupt electioneering, “big-government” policies, and crony capitalism to flame out. This phoenix, who knows through personal experience how “the game” has been played, and rejects any attempt to control his thought and actions by way of campaign contributions, now has the opportunity – in fact, the mandate — to fly!
And fly, he must – there is much to be accomplished. Of all the things that must be done soon, the delivery of a “swan song” in the form of a proposal for complete bureaucratic transformation should be among the top of the list. The institutions that make up our government could be enormously effective and efficient – but not as they currently are, and not with the ideologically-skewed population that is currently employed within. If the new administration stands a chance of enacting and sustaining substantive change, the bureaucracies must undergo metamorphosis (or in the words of the President-Elect, the swamp must be drained). The extent to whether that is possible depends on how radical our new leadership is willing to be.
Practices that include “burrowing in” (the transfer of political appointees into permanent positions) have increased bias at the senior levels, while programs to facilitate the hiring of college graduates continually add liberal partisanship to the workforce at the entry levels. Although research is lacking, it stands to reason that hiring freezes coupled with increased attrition tend to sap the bureaucracies of those who do not conform to what has become “the ideological norm,” thereby exacerbating the problem.
The Hatch Act supposedly ensures a non-partisan, apolitical federal workplace, but the Act is rarely stamped into the consciousness of employees as it once was (especially among those who began their careers as political appointees). Political bias has become overt, pervasive, and pernicious as evidenced by recent scandals. If political contributions can be seen as an indication of bias, the bureaucracies are probably on par with the universities, courts, and media. Ninety-five percent of contributions to presidential campaigns (averaged across federal organizations) during the 2016 election were to the Democrat candidate, vice 5 percent for the Republican candidate.
Bias on the scale that we have seen over the past few years can only be ejected by an infusion of radical transformative action – a complete reconsideration of missions, followed by terminations of unconstitutional or unnecessary tasks, and perhaps entire organizations. Within those that remain or begin anew, the Hatch Act must be enforced – indeed, reinforced – as political appointees from new administrations and fresh college graduates find footholds into each and every segment of federal civil service.
In fact, given that liberal bias has become even more ensconced in the universities and colleges across the country, campus reform must be driven by similarly radical efforts to end liberal indoctrination and open discrimination against conservative students, as well as (whatever remains of) conservative faculty. But altering the highly partisan dynamics of liberal academia could perhaps be a bigger challenge than winning the Presidency.
One of the more popular offers within progressive and socialist platforms has been the promise of a free college education. It certainly sounds inviting to the electorate – even to those of the conservative persuasion. Liberals in the position to rationally evaluate the proposals, however, realize that the devil is in the details – that “unintended consequences” could be worse than the status quo. Conservatives, of course, decry the expense.
Interestingly, the fact that a plan for “free” higher public education allows for a more comprehensive indoctrination of this country’s youth seems to have escaped media attention. Even some of the “unintended consequences” previously noted reveal that drastic shifts would probably occur from private institutions to public universities, thus inhibiting ideological academic freedom even further and increase opportunities to mold and control the minds of even more young individuals – many of whom will flow into federal positions as civil servants.
Considering the success of infiltration and control over all aspects of our lives (education, media, the legal networks through the courts, and governance), one must wonder about the real reason behind the vociferous “denial” of the recent Presidential election results, characterized by violent protests across the nation and attempts to undermine the electoral process. With a comprehensive liberal education feeding all systems of control, perhaps the assumption that the democratic candidate would (of course) win, was actually an expectation of a final phase of entrenchment – “popular” acceptance of an “evolved” progressive socio-political scenario, the capstone of which is emergence. The argument that it was “her ‘turn’” could simply have meant that it was time for the liberal/progressive agenda to lay claim to the country, in its entirety, for perpetuity, from cradle to grave. (Socialism redux?) The extent of the “pain” displayed may indicate the growing realization that not only did they lose this particular opportunity for emergence, but that the new administration endangers the whole agenda – at least temporarily. It’s enough to thoroughly infuriate those who aspire to a neo-Marxist/Leninist social order.
The new President-elect undoubtedly knows how hard it will be to try to accomplish his objectives with this prepositioned, virtually immovable obstacle in place. If these systems remain as they are, the undercurrents of bias will remain, only to reappear at the point of change at the Presidential level. Even if it’s possible to eject bias from the federal bureaucratic institutions, the job cannot be considered successful until the entire educational complex – especially higher education – is also purged of ideological partisanship and prejudice. For the newly elected administration to maintain transformative change, there must be more than one new swan song.
We may be in luck – if there is anyone who could possibly end the tyranny resulting from long-term infiltration, indoctrination, and sabotage (as described long ago by Orwell), prep the environment for the death and rebirth of ineffective and/or maladjusted behemoths, it’s the new President-Elect. He understands that the future of our country depends on his own ability to facilitate its transcendence – to induce metamorphosis by reducing the old bureaucratic and academic systems to ashes. Those who arise from the ashes will then be free to help make their country great, once again.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Cynthia E. Ayers is currently Deputy to the Executive Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security. Prior to accepting the Task Force position, she served as Vice President of EMPact Amercia, having retired from the National Security Agency after over 38 years of federal service.
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