DC

An avoidance

Chapter 18 DC

“God damm it, Charles!” Bob exclaimed, “ I told Susan I'm not going to play the American version of your Swamy.”

“We must have got the wires crossed or something.....,”

“I bet you did!” Bob yelled.

“Well, I'm here in Houston. I can fly up to DC in the morning.”

“God damm it,” Bob yelled again.

“Bob,” Charles appealed. “I can do this anyway you want. It doesn't have to follow a rule. You tell me how we are doing this.”

Bob was silent for a while. Charles could hear his breathing. After a while, he came back on line.

“Okay, in the interest of international cooperation....I'll highlight those areas in the Swamy's case study that I identify with. If you want an interview, I'll allow you ten questions....and ten questions only. You do up a case study report on me and I get to vet it before you show it to anyone else. That's the deal.”

“Okay, can I request that you grade those areas that you are in agreement with? On a scale of 1-10, what you agree most and least?”

He thought about it for a while.

“Okay, I can do that.” he replied.

“I'll need at least fifteen questions,” Charles counter proposed.

“Twelve,” replied Bob and “that's final. And if I don't like a question, I don't have to answer.”

The following day, Bob picked him up in front of the hotel but undertook a series of maneuvers on DC streets, as if they were being pursued.

“Is this a normal thing here?” Charles finally asked.

“Paranoia? Yeah,” Bob replied. “It's the grease that moves the capital.”

They made it to Jefferson park and found a bench to sit.

Charles went over the notes Bob had made in the Swamy's case study. It denied any pattern of ironical behavior.

 

“Well, what that means is that you have chosen to challenge the innamorata on all issues, before accepting or contributing to it,” Charles said, looking very thoughtful.

“I'll affirm that,” Bob replied. “It happens to be the foreign policy of this government.”

“It also means that you are relying on physical and existing facts to make your decisions.”

“Right again,” he said.

“Your decision making is on a collective basis.”

“We discuss everything before it gets finalized.”

“So who would you identify as the decider?” Charles seemed to follow a train of thought.

The DMU...the decision making unit.”

“So someone is appointed to take responsibility if anything goes wrong.”

“That's correct.”

“Hence the decision making and responsibility are entirely procedural, part of a process, with no overt initiative or focus undertaken by any one individual.”

“It's the system,” Bob answered. “Its as good as the organizational structure, its checks and balances.”

“It would imply that the system and its people are one and the same. A case of the mahimorata and the innamorata being one.”

“Meaning?”

“In the Ukraine, they combine the mahimorata and the innamorata in a pagan relation to issues. It functions somewhat like an exercise in irony, but it is viewed as playing with each other like a leela. They bring that into their relationship with the neighboring states with whom they relate on a archetypical basis. That allows for an independent check and balance on the ironical perspective on issues. ”

Bob continued listening.

“The US has undergone further divisions in that relationship. Over here, it is not undertaken as a play. Every situation is viewed with an eye for its implications. But significantly, the US does not relate to other sovereign states in that relationship. It introverts the experience and relies on a system of checks and balances to keep itself straight from within. It is founded on a self correcting mechanism.”

“And that can lead to problems?”

“ As it grows in familiarity, it leads to a collusion between the individual self and the state and the two then become fused in a mix of identities. It creates pressures on individual identities.”

Bob continued to remain silent. Charles continued,

“Can I record your comment on this?”

Bob seemed distracted but quickly said,

“We had other priorities. We didn't want a repeat of the British situation. But if we have stumbled into this, then we have to deal with it.”