Efforts to Enlighten the Bureaucracy a Waste of Time

Wayne G. Sayles comments on the low numbers of comments on the upcoming Libya MOU:

The general public's painfully weak response to this call for comment, a growing trend it seems, could tell a story. On one hand, collectors, dealers and those who just love the past are perhaps fed up with time-wasting efforts to enlighten the bureaucracy. Everyone seems to know where an MOU request is headed these days before it's even announced. CPAC doesn't matter, truth doesn't matter, law doesn't matter, justice certainly doesn't matter and arrogance reigns supreme in the world of Cultural Property Nationalism. An even weaker response here from the Archaeological community and proponents of MOU sanctioned import restrictions might represent among their rank and file a complacent view of the endless drumbeat. On the other hand, among some, it may also reflect such blatant self-assuredness that they feel little compulsion to act. In any case, the whole process has seriously drifted from the intention of Congress in 1983 and the prospects of fidelity to the law as negotiated and enacted are depressingly bleak these days. The Rule of Law has become the Law of Rule.