THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

I'm not sure what you're asking for, Bob. If you need help with any specific task having to do with writing, proofreading, fact checking, technical stuff, etc., I'm sure a request for help here on the blog will elicit responses that accord with the particular schedules and abilities required.

If you're seeking to build a staff in general, however, I'm not sure what our race needs is yet another far-right group organized according to the Führerprinzip. I was halfway serious in my last comment - what we need is not yet another party or pressure group, but a true deliberative body. A "White National Congress", if you will. Right now, Bob's Blog is the closest thing we have to that. By comparison, every other "white forum" on the Internet right now is only a glorified bathroom wall.

Comment by LibAnon

ME:

LibAnon, you must get your mind out of institutions!

Everything I have said about acting like senior staff has been that a senior staffer is NOT an organization man. He goes ahead and DOES things. He does not fit into the leftist, European, academic idea of an institution or a bureaucracy. You need to get your head out of that kind of thinking.

Robert Townsend, who turned Avis from an unknown little company to Hertz's major competitor in the 1960s, wrote a short best seller about how business worked. He talked about people who write job descriptions for executives making a hundred thousand dollars a year, a fortune at the time.

He said that if you had had to WRITE a job description for him, the guy shouldn't be at that level. He goes in and finds out what he should be doing. He asks for and gets the authority he needs.

BUT:

The JOB comes first. The bureaucratic definition of a job is what European companies thought of first and foremost. They couldn't compete with Americans who just went ahead and DID things or got tossed out.

Nothing I have said even hints at an organization of any kind. I am saying that each person should go ahead and DO it. Does that sound organizational to you? Does that sound bureaucratic to you?

Simmons suggested that Dave might help me out. I said great, so who will make the next move? Obviously this should not be handled the old European way, while everybody sits there while His Majesty makes up his mind. In European thought, Dave would now ask me what Simmons has in mind. In old Europe, I then call in Simmons and he explains to me what he has in mind. Then I tell Dave what Simmons has in mind.

In bureaucratic terms, see have now justified the time and pay of three executives, me, Dave and Simmons. And we haven't accomplished a damned thing. As I heard one person say at the top, "Meetings beat the hell out of WORK."

That is the way European institutions work. Everybody stands frozen until the idea gets cleared at the top. While they're sitting there frozen, serious professionals go ahead and work out the suggestion. Dave asks Simmons what he has in mind.

Wow! That's mind-numbingly complicated, isn't it?

Yes, it IS. Most people simply can't think that way. They had to learn it because it was learn or fail.

Until white people got to China, they didn't have the wheel. Until Americans got back to Europe to use what they had learned conquering a continent, Europeans actually lived below our pauper level until we drove their businesses out of business.

Yes, below pauper level. I SAW it.

European business got run over and now they operate the American way. That is why the European standard of living is, for the first time in history, comparable to ours. You would not believe how poor the average European was when I first went there in the 1950s, and they were richer than pre-War.

So let me return to the steps I mentioned above:

1) Simmons suggested that Dave might help me out. I said great, so who will make the next move? Obviously this should not be handled the old European way, while everybody sits there while His Majesty makes up his mind. In European thought, Dave would now ask me what Simmons has in mind. In old Europe, I then call in Simmons and he explains to me what he has in mind. Then I tell Dave what Simmons has in mind.

2) In bureaucratic terms see have now justified the time and pay of three executives, me, Dave and Simmons.

3) Der Fuhrer Whitaker, Dave and Simmons get kicked out on our asses by somebody like Townsend and he finds somebody competent.

Believe me, what I am suggesting is as far from " I'm not sure what our race needs is yet another far-right group organized according to the Führerprinzip" as you can get. I am trying to persuade YOU to get out of this Fuhrer or bureaucratic mode of thinking.

If Shari wants my speech reprinted without the repetitions she should copy and paste it, do the cuts, and hand the result to me. If I approve the basic idea about Dave that Simmons suggests, Dave should go to Simmons and talk it over.

I do not expect you to grab all this at once. I did it far too well.

I terrified other senior staffers on Capitol Hill to the point that when John Ashbrook died I had a hard time finding a new job. When I got there, John had had an Administrative Assistant and a Legislative Assistant. They always talked with him and brought things to him. Two years after I got there, they both had left. I did their jobs incidentally. I figured out what John wanted and I didn't go to him and tell him what I had done and then ask for more directions. I didn't see him once a week. His earlier staff saw him every day.

In short, his organization was not necessary, and the very idea of having me in THEIR offices scared the crap out of staff members whose life was justified by talking to their boss daily. When my boss went to China, he demanded that I be there every day. This was pre-cell phone, and he needed someone there who would simply DO it in his name.

Does that sound rigidly organizational to you?

Someone just did a fine job initiating and setting up our yahoo! fall-back page. I said, "Go with it!" Then he asked me if he could stay in charge. What in the three words "Go with it" does he not understand?

I love his suggestion about expanding on the buddy system, and I said so. Now he wants ME to propose it specifically. I am NOT your Fuhrer. If you have a proposal, PROPOSE. If I say it's a good idea, you have my opinion that you should go with it. But, Hell, even if I don't like it I am NOT your friggin' FUHRER!

I REFUSE to be your frigging Fuhrer. I have repeated this until I am turning blue: I have some ideas that you can use. I have an approach that *****YOU****** repeat ***YOU**** repeat **YOU***** can use.

Whew! Have I made this obscure hint a little less obscure?

I want to make myself no longer ESSENTIAL to you. I am always happy to be useful, but being the essential one is the fear of my life, a point on which Dave hit in his comment that was like reading my mind.

Tomorrow I will expand on Dave's wonderful commentary to show how DESPERATE a necessity it is to me to become if not unnecessary to you, at least not ESSENTIAL to you any more.

Right now I am going to go to bed with my frustration and hope to God some of this sinks in overnight.