Sobre a noite

"Quando se espera o sono no silêncio de um quarto ainda alheio, ouvindo chover na rua, tomam as coisas a sua verdadeira dimensão, são todas grandes, graves, pesadas, enganadora é sim a luz do dia, faz da vida uma sombra apenas recortada, só a noite é lúcida, porém o sono a vence, talvez para nosso sossego e descanso, paz à alma dos vivos."
[O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis - José Saramago]

Lei das reações antecipadas

In the United States we like to “rate” a President. We measure him as “weak” or “strong” and call what we are measuring his “leadership”. Yet, we cannot measure him as he were the whole government. Government includes thousands of man and woman. The President is only one of them.

His cabinet officers, his legislative leaders, his party, his political allies, all of them have their jobs to do. As they perceive their duty, they may find it right to follow him, in fact, or they may not.

In the early summer of 1952, before the heat of the campaign, President Truman used to contemplate the problems of the general-becoming-President should Eisenhower win the forthcoming election. “He’ll sit here,” Truman would remark (tapping his desk for emphasis), “and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike – it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.”

Eisenhower evidently found it so. “The President still feels,” an Eisenhower aide remarked in 1958, “that when he’s decided something, that ought to be the end of it … and when it bounces back undone or done wrong, he tends to react with shocked surprise”.

Truman knew whereof he spoke. With “resignation” in the place of “shocked surprise”, the aide’s description would have fitted Truman as well. He was no less subjected to that painful and repetitive experience: “Do this, do that, and nothing will happen”.

Long before he came to talk of Eisenhower he had put his own experience in other words: “I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them… That’s all the powers of the President amount to.”

His strength or weakness, then, turns on his personal capacity to influence the conduct of the men who make up government. But what is the nature of his influence and what are its sources?

Now that’s the problem before us: “powers” are no guarantee of power. The President of the United States has an extraordinary range of formal powers, of authority in statute law and in the Constitution. Here is testimony that despite his “powers” he does not obtain results by giving orders – or not, at any rate, merely by giving orders.

He also has extraordinary status, ex officio, according to the customs of our government and politics. Here is testimony that despite his status he does not get action merely by asking for it.

The constitutional convention of 1787 is supposed to have created a government of “separated powers.” It did nothing of the sort. Rather, it created a government of separated institutions sharing powers. And the separateness of institution and sharing of authority prescribe the terms on which a President persuades.

A former Roosevelt aide once wrote of cabinet officers:
“Half of a President’s suggestions, which theoretically carry the weight of orders, can be safely forgotten by a Cabinet member. And if the President asks about a suggestion a second time, he can be told that it is being investigated. If he asks a third time, a wise Cabinet officer will give him at least part of what he suggest. But occasionally, except about the most important matters, do Presidents ever get around to asking three times.”

There is a widely held belief in the United States that were it not for folly or for knavery a reasonable President would need no power other than the logic of his argument. But faulty reasoning and bad intentions do not cause all quarrels to Presidents. The best of reasoning and of intent cannot accomplish all. The task is bound to be more like collective bargaining than like a reasoned argument among philosopher kings.

Most who share in governing have interests of their own beyond the realm of policy objectives. The sponsorship of policy, the form it takes, the conduct of it, and the credit for it separate the interest of man in government despite their agreement on the end in view. In political government the means can matter quite as much as ends; they often matter more. And there are always differences of interest in the means.

So the President’s persuasiveness depends on something more than his arguments, his status and his formal powers, all of which we can summarize by his bargaining advantages.

The men he would persuade must be convinced in their own minds that he has skill and will enough to use his advantages. Their judgment of him is a factor in his influence on them.

The man who share governing in this country are inveterate observers of a President. They have the doing of whatever he wants done. They are the objects of his personal persuasion. They also are the most attentive members of his audience. These doers comprise what in spirit, not geography, might be termed as the “Washington community”. Members of Congress and of his Administration, governors of states, military commanders, leading politiciais in both parties, representatives of private organizations, newsmen of assorted types and sizes, foreign diplomats – all these are “Washingtonians” no matter what their physical location.

No matter how heterogeneous this community might be, all of them, though, are in one respect tightly knit indeed: they are all compelled to watch the President for reasons not of pleasure but vocation. They need him in their business just as he needs them. Their own works thus requires that they keep an eye on him.

Therefore, in influencing Washingtonians, the most important law at a President’s disposal is the law of anticipated reactions. The individuals who share in governing do what they think they must. A President’s effect on them is heightened or diminished by their thoughts about his probable reaction to their doing. And they base their expectations on what they can see of him. And they are watching all the time. Looking at him, at the immediate event, and towards the future, they may think that what he might do in theory, he would not dare to do in fact.

What such men think may or may not be true, but it is the reality on which they act, at least until their calculations turn out wrong. So what other men expect of him becomes a cardinal factor in the President’s own power to persuade.

When people in government consider their relationships with him it does little good to scan the Constitution and remind themselves that Presidents possess potential vantage points in excess of enumerated powers. Their problem is never what abstract Presidents could do in theory, but what an actual incumbent will try in fact. They must anticipate, as best they can, his ability and will to make use of the bargaining advantages he has. Out of what others think of him emerge his opportunities for influence with them. If he would maximize his prospects for effectiveness, he must concern himself with what they think.

In every move a President may make there are bound to be numerous aspects beyond his immediate control. So many things can go wrong that almost always some things do. The Washingtonians who watch a President professionally cannot afford to ground their expectations on the slippages and errors in his every effort. But these accumulate, and as they do men seek for the appearance of a pattern. Lacking a better base, they tend to rest their forecasts of the future on such patterns as they find. The greatest danger to a President’s potential influence with them is not the show if incapacity he makes todays, but its apparent relationship to what happened yesterday, last month, last year. For if his failures seem to form a pattern, the consequence is bound to be a loss of faith in his effectiveness next time.
As people can’t see everything he does all the time, the President need not to be concerned with every flaw in his day-by-day performance. But he has every reason for concern with the residual impressions of tenacity and skill accumulating in the minds of Washingtionians-at-large (and key particulars). If he cannot make men think he bound to win, his need is to keep them from thinking they can cross him without risk.

[From "Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents" - Richard E. Neustadt]

More Jack hero words

JACK: How are they, the others?

LOCKE: Thirsty. Hungry. Waiting to be rescued. And they need someone to tell them what to do.

JACK: Me? I can't.

LOCKE: Why can't you?

JACK: Because I'm not a leader.

LOCKE: And yet they all treat you like one.

JACK: I don't know how to help them. I'll fail. I don't have what it takes.

LOCKE: Why are you out here, Jack?

JACK: I think I'm going crazy.

LOCKE: No. You're not going crazy.

JACK: No?

LOCKE: No, crazy people don't know they're going crazy. They think they're getting sane. So, why are you out here?

JACK: I'm chasing something—someone.

LOCKE: Ah. The white rabbit. Alice in Wonderland.

JACK: Yeah, wonderland, because who I'm chasing—he's not there.

LOCKE: But you see him?

JACK: Yes. But he's not there.

LOCKE: And if I came to you and said the same thing, then what would your explanation be, as a doctor.

JACK: I'd call it a hallucination. A result of dehydration, post traumatic stress, not getting more than two hours of sleep a night for the past week. All of the above.

LOCKE: All right, then. You're hallucinating. But what if you're not?

JACK: Then we're all in a lot of trouble.

LOCKE: I'm an ordinary man, Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in the real world. I'm not a big believer in magic. But this place is different. It's special. The others don't want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it. Is your white rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here, happened for a reason? What if this person that you're chasing is really here?

JACK: That's impossible.

LOCKE: Even if it is, let's say it's not.

JACK: Then what happens when I catch him?

LOCKE: I don't know. But I've looked into the eye of this Island. And what I saw was beautiful.

[Locke gets up to leave.]

JACK: Wait, wait, wait, where are you going?

LOCKE: To find some more water.

JACK: I'll come with you.

LOCKE: No. You need to finish what you started.

JACK: Why?

LOCKE: Because a leader can't lead until he knows where he's going.

“Quando só uma visão mil vezes mais aguda do que a pode dar a natureza seria capaz de distinguir no oriente do céu a diferença inicial que separa a noite da madrugada, o almuadem acordou. Acordava sempre a esta hora, segundo o sol, tanto lhe fazendo que fosse verão como inverno, e não precisava de qualquer artefacto de medir o tempo, nada mais que uma mudança infinitesimal na escuridão do quarto, o pressentimento da luz apenas adivinhada na pele da fronte, como um ténue sopro que passasse sobre as sobrancelhas ou a primeira e quase imponderável carícia que, tanto quanto se sabe ou acredita, é arte exclusiva e segredo até hoje não revelado daquelas formosas huris que esperam os crentes no paraíso de Maomé. O almuadem não abriu os olhos. Podia continuar deitado algum tempo ainda, enquanto o sol, muito devagar, se vinha acercando do horizonte da terra, porém tão longe de chegar que nenhum galo da cidade levantara a cabeça para indagar dos movimentos da manhã. É certo que ladrou um cão, sem resultado, que os mais dormiam, talvez a sonhar que em sonhos estavam ladrando. É um sonho, pensavam, e deixavam-se dormir, rodeados por um mundo povoado de cheiros sem dúvida estimulantes, mas nenhum tão urgente que os fizesse despertar em sobressalto, o odor inconfundível da ameaça ou do medo, para não dar senão estes exemplos elementares. O almuadem levantou-se tacteando no escuro, encontrou a roupa com que acabou de cobrir-se e saiu do quarto. A mesquita estava silenciosa, só os passos inseguros ecoavam sob os arcos, um arrastar de pés cautelosos, como se temesse ser engolido pelo chão. A outra qualquer hora do dia ou da noite nunca experimentava esta angústia do invisível, apenas no momento matinal, este, em que iria subir a escada da almádena para chamar os fiéis à primeira oração. Um escrúpulo supersticioso representava-lhe na imaginação a sua grave culpa de continuarem os moradores a dormir quando já o sol estivesse sobre o rio, e acordando de repelão, aturdidos pela luz clara, perguntassem, aos gritos, onde estava o almuadem que não chamara à hora própria, alguém mais caridoso diria, Por seu mal estará doente, e não era verdade, desaparecera, sim, levado para o interior da terra por um génio das trevas maiores. A escada, em caracol, era trabalhosa de subir, de mais sendo este almuadem já velho, felizmente não precisava que lhe vendassem os olhos como às mulas das atafonas se faz para que lhes não dê o mareio. Quando chegou acima sentiu na cara a frescura da manhã e a vibração da luz alvorecente, ainda cor nenhuma, que a não pode ter aquela pura claridade que antecede o dia e vem tanger na pele um arrepio subtil, como de uns invisíveis dedos, impressão única que faz pensar se a desacreditada criação divina não será, afinal, para humilhação de cépticos e ateus, um irónico facto da história. O almuadem correu a mão, lentamente, ao longo do parapeito circular até encontrar, insculpida na pedra, a marca que apontava a direcção de Meca, cidade santa. Estava preparado. Uns instantes ainda para dar tempo ao sol de assomar aos balcões da terra a sua primeira aura, e também para tornar clara a voz, porque a ciência proclamativa de um almuadem há-de ficar patente logo ao primeiro grito, e nele é que tem de demonstrar-se, não quando a garganta já se dulcificou com o trabalho da fala e o consolo da comida. Aos pés do almuadem há uma cidade, mais abaixo um rio, tudo dorme ainda, mas inquietamente. A manhã começa a mover-se sobre as casas, a pele da água torna-se espelho do céu, e então o almuadem inspira fundo e grita, agudíssimo, Allahu akbar, apregoando aos ares a sobre todas grandeza de Deus, e repete, como gritará e repetirá as fórmulas seguintes, em extático canto, tomando o mundo por testemunha de que não há outro Deus senão Alá, e que Maomé é o enviado de Alá, e tendo dito estas verdades essenciais chama à oração, Vinde ao azalá, mas sendo o homem de natureza preguiçoso, ainda que crente no poder Daquele que nunca dorme, o almuadem repreende caridosamente esses outros a quem as pálpebras ainda pesam, A oração é melhor que o sono, As-salatu jay-run min an-nawn, para os que nesta língua o entendem, enfim concluiu clamando que Alá é o único Deus, La ilaha illa llah, mas agora só uma vez, que é quanto basta quando se trate de verdades definitivas. A cidade murmura as orações, o sol apontou e ilumina as açoteias, não tarda que nos pátios apareçam os moradores. A almádena está em plena luz. O almuadem é cego.


Não o tem descrito assim o historiador no seu livro. Apenas que o muezim subiu ao minarete e dali convocou os fiéis à oração na mesquita.”


[A História do Cerco de Lisboa]

Jack Hero Words

It's been six days. We are all still waiting.
Waiting for someone to come. What if they dont?
We have to stop waiting.
We need to start figuring things out.

A woman died this morning just going for a swim.
And he tried to save her and now you are about to crucify him?

We cant do this.
Every man for himself is not going to work.

Last week most of us were strangers.
But we are all here now.
And god knows how long we are going to be here.

But if we cant live together, we are going to die alone.