Harmon Tyler And Joe Thompson/Simon Dalgetty

"The Sensitive Man," II.

Born during World War III, Tyler grew up with famines and insanities, fought in Asia, worried about expanding population versus diminishing resources and saw the US as divided between decadence and madness. Now, however, he sees:

a functioning UN;
population leveling off;
democracies spreading;
conquest of the seas and planets.

When Dalgetty responds that it is not that simple, Tyler infers that the former votes Conservative. However, Dalgetty replies that the Labor Party is conservative as evidenced by its coalition with Republicans, Neofederalists and splinter groups. Dalgetty's concern is not which Party holds office but who controls the group in power.

Tyler thinks that the members of a political party should control its leaders but Dalgetty points out that, although voting figures are (amazingly) high, 88.37%, very few people get involved with nominating candidates, writing platforms, working at politics or even writing to their Congressmen. Voting has been a matter of choosing between two machines. Thus, a small group can take over a party and maintain its facade while changing it behind the scenes. We might miss the almost parenthetical aside that Dalgetty has given his life to this task.

An interesting feature of politics in their period is that there are four or five machines, not just two - which strikes me as slightly healthier. However, Dalgetty says that one group can control them all. This process is complete in some countries although not yet in the US. The real divide is between libertarian and authoritarian philosophies or "'...views of man's destiny...'" (p. 113) He then gets into some history which I will summarize in a further post.

In the here and now, someone is bothering me with a link to David Icke denying the existence of Covid-19.