COLUMN: Bureaucratic fondle-fests, idiocy should be re-examined

---

by Bert Gall

---

That maxim, highly simplified, is this: Left unchecked, government grows and expands in order to increase its power. It creates bureaucracies that dramatically enlarge the public sector -- most of the time to the detriment of the private sector.

These bureaucracies will increasingly become more and more concerned with cultivating a loyal clientele and finding new tasks that make them "indispensable."

Undisciplined by the forces of the market, their main mission becomes that of self-preservation and growth. Missions such as efficiently responding to the demands of individuals in society and the changing realities of our country become secondary, even tertiary, goals.

Anyone who still believes that bureaucracies do respond efficiently to the demands of individuals in society has never visited the Post Office or DMV. Anyone who thinks bureaucracies are quick to respond to changing realities in the country need only study the Department of Agriculture and take note of the following statistic: In the past 50 years, the number of American farms has dropped about 66 percent.

The number of bureaucrats in the Department of Agriculture, however, has increased by 300 percent.

On the face of it then, the conservative maxim which explains bureaucratic failure and inefficiency is a wholly satisfying one.

After all, it is theoretically sound and backed up by much statistical and anecdotal evidence. So intellectually satisfying is this maxim that I thought it, and it alone, explained the growth of bureaucracies that promote the growth of big government and big incompetence.

Then, however, I picked up a copy of the Houston Chronicle this Sunday and perused Section A.

As I flipped through the pages, more concerned with reading articles about the end of the baseball strike than anything else, I spotted a story buried on page 18A that caught my eye. Its headline read: "Diversity Training Consisted of Abuse, Ex-agency Worker Says."

Basically, the story talked about how, in 1993, Transportation Secretary Frederico Pena eliminated management and sensitivity courses in "diversity awareness" after many of the participants -- most of them employees of the Federal Aviation Administration -- complained about the course content and unorthodox teaching methods. A former analyst at the DOT, Marie Birnbaum, testified before a congressional subcommittee that "the training course consisted of three days of psychological abuse. I realized later it was like cult programming."

An air traffic controller from Salt Lake City named James Ferguson testified that he was forced to make a list of vulgar names that could be used to describe women and minorities. He also said that his instructor in the course forced participating men to run through a gauntlet formed by two lines of women. Mr. Ferguson walked between the lines of the women, with the following result: "The two lines collapsed around me, and the women started making vocal comments about me and my clothing. One of the facilitators started to unbutton my polo shirt and rub my chest, saying, ` Look at this hairy chest.' I made a move to remove her hand, and another woman put her hands in the back of my jean pocket and started to fondle my buttocks."

Representative Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia who chairs the subcommittee, claims that his staff has documented evidence of employees "being required to stare at lighted candles for hours, being physically tied to co-workers for hours and being required to strip down to their underwear in front of co-workers and reveal deep-seated problems."

Now, after reading all this, you are probably wondering what kind of contribution strip-downs, buttocks-fondling and the listing of racial epithets made to the promotion of diversity at the DOT.

I, for one, can certainly think of better ways to promote understanding between people than holding fondle-fests at taxpayer expense and employing "teaching methods" that even the KGB might have been ashamed to use.

Well, as it all turns out, strip-downs, fondling and listing of bad names promoted more insanity at the DOT than they did anything else. The "management coach" who taught the sensitivity programs, a man named Gregory May, was a disciple of a "West Coast guru" who believes that he "channels a 35,000-year-old spirit named Ramtha."

It would seem that Mr. Ramtha gave Mr. May some rather strange ideas about strengthening the bonds of human understanding and fostering respect for human dignity across racial and gender lines.

Now, as embarrassing as this whole incident must be for the DOT, officials there at least have a scapegoat to blame.

When asked how they allowed these "diversity awareness" programs to continue uninterrupted for 11 years, they can reply that the devil (Ramtha) -- not the failure of a bureaucracy to pick a sane diversity consultant, or more fundamentally, a failure to ask themselves why they should have even instituted a diversity program to build bridges of human understanding when they can't even build a decent bridge for cars -- made them do it. And maybe, just maybe, he did.

Have Newt and Co. considered finding out who has done management and sensitivity training seminars for the government since the eras of the New Deal and Great Society? Have Ramtha and his demonic minions been at work promoting bureaucratic expansion, inefficiency, and incompetence all this time?

If so, the conservative maxim about bureaucracies will require a rather strange amendment, and the world of politics, if it weren't already spooky enough, will get even scarier.

Bert Gall is a Lovett College senior.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the April 7, 1995 issue.

Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights Reserved.
This document may be distributed electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of:
The Rice Thresher, Rice University, 6100 Main, Houston, TX 77005-1892, USA.