My first HuffPost Book Club selection of 2010 is Janine Wedel's Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market. It's a gripping, disquieting book that exposes and explains why it's been so hard to bring about any real change in our country -- why Washington no longer seems capable of addressing the problems our nation faces. Fingers have been pointed at everything from gerrymandering to partisan polarization to the misuse of the filibuster. But, according to Wedel, the real problem is much deeper -- and more disturbing -- than any of these.
As she writes in Shadow Elite, a new "transnational" class of elites has taken over our country: "The mover and shaker who serves at one and the same time as business consultant, think-tanker, TV pundit, and government adviser glides in and around the organizations that enlist his services. It is not just his time that is divided. His loyalties, too, are often flexible."
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The shadow elite clearly knew that the months and months of so-called debate over the issue was nothing more than a charade -- the ultimate outcome never in doubt. The bill was created in the shadows. The public process since then has essentially been like a Hollywood adaptation -- complete with the requisite third act happy ending (or, in the words of our elected officials, a "historic" ending).
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The worst part is that Gibbs' posturing about being on the side of constituents rather than the drug and insurance industries sounds so normal. Gibbs knows all too well that he's supposed to shake his fist at the insurance companies, just as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner -- who both feature prominently in Shadow Elite -- know they're supposed to talk tough to the banks and vow to end "too-big-to-fail." But, as Wedel writes, they've rigged the system so they can "institutionalize their subversion of it."
And in the same way that our regulatory structure was outmoded and unable to deal with the complex new financial instruments devised by Wall Street, the rhetoric we use today to describe what's happening to our system is not up to the task. According to Wedel, terms like "lobbyist," "interest group," "corruption," and "conflict of interest" no longer suffice. ...
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