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Comment by forevergreenyon | Hacker News Reader

> 2. The federal government then later realized that free breakfast for poor kids was a good thing, and re-implemented it

I have a more cynical worldview. they always knew that free breakfast was (indeed, is) a good thing, but it was more important for them back then to fuck over this rebellious group than feed some poor ol' kids.

Those poor malnourished children? a 'cost of policy' or some other rationalized argument with which to ignore the harsh truth, that we often prefer to keep our own power safe, than feed some other's 'poor' children.

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I have a different and possibly more cynical (or not?) take.

The government decision-makers actually had no opinion at all about whether free breakfast was a "good thing", and didn't particularly care about the welfare of poor Black children at all. They implemented government free breakfast only to undermine the possibility of the Black Panthers or a similar group getting support for implementing it themselves.

The Panthers effectively forced the government to implement it, by showing them up, they never would have done it at all if the Panthers hadn't done it first, and did it only to take away the possibility of a group like the Panthers getting credit for doing it and using it to build support and power. Had nothing to do with the kids or whether it was a "good thing" at all.

Here's an alternate but still cynical take: Business / The Govt needs somewhat educated people in the modern economy and its easier to study when you had some breakfast.

"The goverment" is composed of many different people. I assure you that some people cares a lot about what is better for children, and fight to get this kind of policies implemented. Others vote in favor just because it looks good on them. Some does not care and may vote against just because they can profit from it.

So any cynical view will be true for a few politicians, but never for all.

My personal meta-cynical view is that politics is all about relationships: nobody gets anything done using their own power alone, and nobody has enough broad and direct influence to even try. Getting anything done requires aligning a lot of people, each holding either a direct ability to implement a part of the solution, or the connection and ability to influence someone that does. This includes not just outward-facing projects and decisions, but also politicians' own careers - whether you get in, and where you end up, is more to your colleagues than it is to you.

As a result, the whole system strongly selects for people best able to navigate that complex web of relationship. Which means it selects against people with goals they're not willing to compromise on.

This is why, I think, in modern (democratic) countries you can't really achieve anything specific by becoming a politician. If you come in with a concrete and inflexible goal (like, to reuse the example, making the government fund free food for children), you'll likely just wash out or get sidelined by your own colleagues: if you're not willing to help with whatever others need from you, even when it means compromising your principles or going against your initial goals, then nobody else will be willing to help you with your schemes. The rules of thumb thus are:

- If you see someone going into politics to achieve a specific goal, you can assume they'll fail and the goal will not be achieved;

- If you want the politicians to do something, you need to go about it indirectly, exploiting the incentives of the entire system - for example, as alleged upthread with the food for children, by setting things up so the government will lose face / influential politicians will lose public support if they don't implement the very thing you want them to.

- Everything that's actually being achieved is achieved in a roundabout way, because the limiting factor isn't any politician's ethics, understanding, or budget - the limiting factor is the ability to align enough politicians and administrative workers to make something happen.

> My personal meta-cynical view is that politics is all about relationships: nobody gets anything done using their own power alone, and nobody has enough broad and direct influence to even try.

That is not cynical, that is the great power of democracy. No one can change rules by themselves but agreements are needed. When one person can make big changes alone then it usually a form of dictatorship and things do not go so well.

> you need to go about it indirectly, exploiting the incentives of the entire system

Politics are complicated, I also believe that. But many politicians go thru all that pain to achieve good things, not just to profit personally.

> That is not cynical, that is the great power of democracy. No one can change rules by themselves but agreements are needed.

I guess the cynical bit is my belief that the flip side of this "great power" is that a democracy quickly becomes structurally incapable of doing anything significant, good or bad, to meaningfully improve things or to solve a problem ahead of time, before it turns into a crisis.

> When one person can make big changes alone then it usually a form of dictatorship and things do not go so well.

That's true, unfortunately. If it wasn't the case, democracy would not look appealing at all.

> But many politicians go thru all that pain to achieve good things, not just to profit personally.

The cynical part of my view is that no politician can "go thru all that pain to achieve" arbitrary things, good or bad. They can only directly achieve things that are already neutral or beneficial to most of their colleagues. For all the other things they'd want to achieve, a direct attempt to push the issue through will only get them sidelined or forced out, and indirect attempts (through the long process of compromising and trying to gather allies) will just wear them down and turn them into just another self-interested politician.

The federal government didn't like that a self declared insurrectionist group was spending a lot of time with young kids.

Or put another way, would you support "OathKeepers Breakfast for Kids"?

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