The concept of WORK in physics is deeply important, and the usual textbooks seem to miss its importance.
Real work always involves a complex interplay of forces and counterforces, pushes and pulls.
The final result counts as work if an object has moved in a single direction at the end of the complex interplay.
The forces may be physical things pushing and pulling, or may be AC electric fields heating up a filament to create light, or may be chemical forces changing the composition of a material. If the result at the end has moved in one direction, you’ve done work.
Back and forth isn’t necessarily work.
Rowing a boat without hitting the water is not work.
On the pull side you exert 10 pounds for +1 foot = +10 FP.
On the push side you exert 10 pounds for -1 foot = -10 FP.
Net of each cycle is +10 – 10 = zero.
If you drop the oar into the water on the pull stroke you start to do work, and the result is a steady motion of the boat.
On the pull side you exert 50 pounds for +1 foot = +50 FP.
On the push side you exert 10 pounds for -1 foot = -10 FP.
Net of each cycle is +50 – 10 = +40, and the boat itself has moved in a single direction.
Politics is rowing out of water. On the D stroke, some D asshole bashes some R asshole. On the R stroke, some R asshole bashes some D asshole. Most of the time they aren’t even bashing, they’re literally blocking. R blocks D, D blocks R. Nothing moves, nothing is INTENDED to move. No laws move out of Congress into the agencies, no money moves into budgets.
The ship of state is static.
The agencies themselves are doing plenty of work, pulling tax money out of some people and pushing it into other people, pushing armies into innocent countries, pushing bombs into innocent bodies. But the supposed control system over the agencies is fake. It’s not moving the control knobs of the agencies.
Polistra's Mill 