Where did they get their dry cleaning done?
I have just finished David McCullough’s book 1776, which is a history of the first year of the War of the American Revolution.
It’s a great read.
What struck me througout the book, which is only a history of that which happened in 1776, as opposed to a complete history of the American Revoution, was how the British continually missed opportunity after opportunity to end the thing and maintain control.
They had a vastly superior army, they had the only Navy in town (and incidentally the best in the world, bar none), they had the support of a great deal of the American colonialists. In short, they had pretty much everything.
The American Army under Washington was a rag-tag, motley group at best. His Generals had almost no experience in battle. He had almost no experience in battle. They were untrained, undisciplined, and inclined to break and run at almost any moment. Plust many simply tossed it in and headed home when things got bad.
And things did get bad. Their first real encounter with the British on Long Island was almost their last. They got the crap beat out of them, and ended up retreating, first to Harlem Heights, and then out of New York entirely. They were on the run across New Jersey with the world’s most powerful fighting machine on their tail.
And yet, in the end, they won and the British lost.
How come?
And what does this have to do with Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and The New York Times?
The British lost the colonies because they did not listen. They were so rich and so powerful, and had such a long history of running the show that they felt they did not have to listen to anyone but themselves. It’s the arrogance of power.
Like GM.
By 1776, the American colonies were equal to, and in some ways richer, than Britain, at least on a per capita basis. The importation of machinery, forbidden but largely ignored, was turning New England into a manufacturing and mercantile society. The English were opposed to this, and levied large taxes on the Colonies.
The Colonials responded with their famous phrase: “No Taxatation without Representation”.
Ultimately, under pressure of rebellion (the British were forced to withdraw from Boston), Lord North and George III relented. They repealed the tax laws.
But it was too late.
Too bad that George III and the British had not listened to what the colonialists were saying. They focused on the No Taxation part, but ignored the Represenation part. In doing so, they missed a great opportunity.
What the colonists wanted was to be treated as equal British citizens, as a part of Britain.
Had North and George III acted on that; had they set up a Third House of Parliament, granting equal representation to the American Colonies, the world today might be very different indeed.
Such a Third House of Parliament would have been expandable, incorporating not only colnialists from America, but also from Canada, from Australia; ultimately from Kenya, from South Africa. You see what could have been.
Instead, believing they had great power and could make the world as they wished, they dispatched the fleet and the British Army to beat the Americans into submission.
It did not work out as they planned.
Large corporations like The New York Times or NBC are today faced with their own ‘rebellion’. The ‘little people’ are taking away their power, and they don’t like it.
Instead of giving the ‘little people’ what they want, which is a platform, they plow on blindly pursuing business as they have always done it; and until now, very successfully.
The New York Times could have become Huffington Post. It could have become Drudge. It could have become Facebook for news. It still could. But it won’t. So could Animal Planet or Discovery or The Travel Channel. The opportunity is still there.
And so, in the end, Arthur Sulzberger will, like George III, have to pack up his armies and sail off into the night. The problem for Arthur, of course, is he has nowhere to go.
