Thursday, October 19, 2006

not that im really impressed with the democrats but i do hope they win something back. only because i am tired of the republicans having so much power that they are able to frame every argument. there has been no dialogue for years now because the republicans have been able to set up all these false choices in front of the american people. you are for the administrations policies or you are for the terrorists. you are against gay marriage or you hate the family. you are for the republicans or you are unconcerned about the threat of terror. you have white christian religious values or you have no values. these are false choices. this is political checkers. it shuts down the actual dialogue because real topics get discussed. with all the difficult and arguably unprecedented problems this country faces we need a real exchange of ideas. this means we need both sides of the conversation. as corrupt and silly as our system is, and show me one that isnt, at its best it can produce a broad spectrum of approaches to most problems. and right now we need all the variety we can muster in our problem solving. variety breeds creativity and creativity is what we need. a distributed system is a better decision maker than any one man. especially when the one man is as limited in scope as george w. bush.

7 comments:

stevenhuffaker said...

Hey Eric, Have you read anything by George Lakoff?
check it out:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Essential-
Progressives/dp/1931498717/sr=8-2/qid=1161374233/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-2383969-7558505?ie=UTF8

Do you think things will invetibly get better in the long term as a result of this stuff?

On the one hand, it seems like the increased access and spread of information will inevitably make things like ethnocentrism and xenophobia less and less common.

But on the other hand, it's really disheartening to see how effective it has been to manipulate people and appeal to their worst instincts. It seems like the 90's were obviously a better time than now? but still, the effect of something like Fox news, is so much more powerful than reality is. It's like they are making reality meaningless, like it in the future it won't even exist anymore.
Hopefully people's consciousness will become more aware of some of these blatant manipulations (fear...) after the Bush era .

What'd you think?

-ea. said...

thanks for the link steven. i havent checked it yet but i will. but i was just thinking about what you said. i think that these are bad times because some nuts who believe in fairytales blew up 3000 people and then we responded by killing even more people. i think there has always been a fox news. i believe in general it is proportional. fox news is currrently big and powerful because it has to be in todays media staurated environment and it happens to confirm a popular and current viewpoint. but i dont think it is anything particular. i think fox news types dont make bad times, they just make bad times worse.

Brian Smith McCallum said...

EA,

I think you really hit on something with the "false dichotomies" and "forced choices" that emanate from the mouths of politicos. Where, I ask, is the logic? Many of our leaders need a refresher or a first course from The Fallacy Files: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/

Tanya said...

With the popularity of FOX, and people focusing on the best soundbites, is it possible for people to still have civilised discourse?
Chris, you're definitely onto something with the logic. Those running have tried keeping the fear tactics going and appealing to emotions number one. The issues are not black and white.

Aside from voting, I think people need to actually get involved in some way, be it an issue or local government or organization.

healtopalm said...

so very true. many in this country and certainly our leaders are just too polarized to be effective. issues are not black or white. where has the gray gone? where is the middle ground?

-ea. said...

healtopalm, i dont know if you have seen or heard barack obama but he sounds to me like a politician that has that ability to talk about the 'grey' that you are talking about. it was refreshing to see him again on meet the press last sunday. to hear a politician talk about some of the pressing issues without having to squash every topic down into silly little bite size morsels. very refreshing. now, if he decides to really run for prez he will probably get dumbed down for the game he would have to play like everyone else. there is an old seventies movie called 'the candidate' starring robert redford that is about the corruption of the machinery of politics. its not the greatest flick ever but its netflixable.

healtopalm said...

i think you are right. barack obama just did a reading at our city library (philadelphia). he has a lot of interesting things to say without assuming his audience is full of morons. it would be great to see him run for president. he probably would have to change, but maybe he could start to redefine the rules of the game. god knows somebody has to.

i will definitely get "the candidate".