“If you don’t trust the mindset or the value system of the people running the system, you can’t even look at the facts anymore,” Mr. Grimes said.
And there you have it: a narrative-based reality unmoored from objective facts.
Please share widely!
Reality-based commentary on politics.
Who is running what. Multi-national corporations who can operate above the speed of governments, plural. I happen to go beyond the concept of disaster capitalism and point to a multi-year government/industry consortium of deliberate American job exportation dating back to Clinton and NAFTA.
Sure it prospered for awhile. China was named carbon exempt plus being OSHA, union free, EPA free and full of cheap labor on top of being financed by the IRAs of the entire western world. Oh, yeah, that worked out well.
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p>Then we have the world of Dark Mission. The launching pad for suppressed science, exopolitics, underground bases and classifications above president of the United States.
Larry Silverstein’s asbestos abatement project and not ending the two bogus wars and the pre-crime fascist police state which ensued. A “green” movement you can easily tie to depopulation efforts.
I think we strayed just a tad from our ideals.
The main factor in the destruction of the mezzo-structure of the alignment forces, is that all bats and balls sold on the open market for covert purposes generally end up on the trading market for cattle, meaning that all cattle ultimately will wind up being sent in a fashion which has a negative impact on the way the plumes drift.
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p>Of course, it’s obvious to most anyone that the allegorical settings of penmanship is at stake here, so it’s imperative that we save the yellow finches because if we don’t, the underlying economic backlash against us will take down the proto-revenue for all alligators.
a good surrealism stream of consciousness. Been a long while since I got to do one!
pick up your sword and smite the evil in the world.
I said, what evil is that.
The evil ones, the moorlocks who refuse to acknowledge Bob.
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p>There is a book in there somewhere.
… is really a symptom of the [population group] [people in a political movement (plural noun)]’ desire for more [oppressor] oppression. It should be obvious to any [obscure blog] reader that the [US government department] is but a puppet in the schems of the [ecomoic class]. Of course it goes without saying that the [political party] are just being used by [economic sector] leaders to manipulate the [large population (as adjective)] sheeple.
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p>Not great, but a decent start I guess.
So why stop at just money. It says “Life, liberty and the persuit of happyness”. Why deliberately destroy all that in under a single generation. Well America’s mission of advancing the technology to some sufficient level of military capacity to kill people off has to be complete.
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p>I think this is the crux of the matter: I plan to write more on this subject as time permits, but I suggest briefly that the only effective way to engage the Tea Partiers is on emotional — or dare I say spiritual — terms. Deriding, belittling, or trying to out-reason our political opponents is never going to work and will only fuel the fires of their passion/anger/fear. Ultimately it’s in everone’s best interest if we can extinguish these fires rather than continuing to stoke them. (Note that the Republican party has become rather expert in stoking these fires to their own cynical ends; they clearly “get” political psychology while we’re only just beginning to figure it out.)
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p>The key is listening; we need to understand the underlying (and unstated) fears of the Tea Partiers without first trying to analyze or fix them. It quite honestly doesn’t matter whether their fears make sense to us — fear doesn’t need to be rational in order to be legitimate. Fear is a powerful energy and can make life very unpleasant for everyone involved if it is not cared for properly.
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p>There are many examples of politically opposed factions coming together to bear witness to each other’s suffering: bereaved Israelis and Palestinians; Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland; “truth and reconciliation commissions” in South Africa; these are just a few that come to mind. It is only by creating an atmosphere of trust that we will be able to resolve our differences and move forward.
But I don’t know how it’s possible to have any sort of dialog at all – listening OR sharing feelings – with people who determinedly believe in their very souls that a) liberals are going to hell, b) that liberals are destroying America, and c) liberals are trying to destroy their religion, take away their guns, etc etc.
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p>The only thing to do is ride out the storm, IMHO, shine the light of day on the attitudes and rhetoric, which will turn off probably around 70% of the electorate, and make sure these guys never get what they think they want: unmitigated power to perpetrate their worldview on the rest of us.
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p>There is always, always a segment of the population which believes strange things that are blatantly not true. They are fearful people who want to blame their problems on externalities, and happen to pick the wrong ones. There are even some of these on the left (the ones who think any liberal who trucks at all with any corporation in any way is just plain a traitor to the cause, damn the facts. Such liberals are fairly rare these days, but they exist).
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p>The fear, coupled with a lack of education (or a culture of disinterest in education), can’t just be overcome if they think they are listened to. The only “listened to” they will think is enough is get what they want – to ban abortion, impose religion on everyone, and get rid of liberals. But some of this will take care of itself – such heat cannot burn forever, and once the economy is back up and running, and people find jobs, they will find less time and energy and inclination to do anything about it. Certainly, they will hold on to their Glenn Beck-inspired views, but they will be less inclined to fascism to do it.
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p>There is only a long term solution here – education, education, education. shrug Once a mindset has been created in a young person, it’s hard to change it, once past the age the brain gets hardwired. It’s possible, obviously, but harder. What we need is to make sure that all kids have the opportunity to have the ability to think for themselves and suddenly Glenn Beck loses an audience.
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p>Some authoritarian personalities are made, and some are born. But once made, it’s hard to unmake. Better to keep them from being made in the first place.
We need to let them know we can feel their pain.
… does wonders. The militia movement of the 90’s basically fizzled near the end of the decade.
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p>I think a major problem here is that one side’s suffering is invented and imagined for the express purpose of political opportunism. ‘Oppression’? Really? ‘Totalitarian’? Really? ‘Marxism’? Really?
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p>If they really believe these things, then this is the landscape from which we would have to operate and I really wouldn’t know where you start. These people have been taught who it is that is the source of their suffering. To the extent that this is because opportunists have taken advantage of authoritarian follower personality types, you’re going to have a hard time engaging them as a group. The amelioration of authoritarianism is exposure to alternate ideas (in ways that don’t automatically demagogue them). This is why so many parents bemoan the cultural consequences to sending kids to college – they come back changed.
But ultimately winning “hearts” affects change on a deeper level. The human intellect — powerful as it may be — is just the tip of the iceberg of our human experience.
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p>I would argue that the change results from broadening of emotional connections (the gut realization “Wow, these people actually aren’t very different from me!”), not just an intellectual one.
… but I see the over-arching problem is their organization. While they march together and such there is no penetrating the tribalism (remember they publicly derided a handicapped kid). When they are in this mode I don’t see a solution. Later, when they tire, it might be possible, but not now. They’ve written themselves into a corner where dialogue is impossible – just like the politicians wrote themselves into a corner where compromise is impossible. The change I describe above is not just intellectual but empathic. These crowds seem immune to empathy at the moment. They aren’t interested in your opinions at the moment and how much you “aren’t different”.
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p>Maybe later, but not now. The only way I see this working is with a change of context (which is precisely what the college experience mentioned above provides). To a certain degree this is a necessary condition.
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p>A good example is the abortion issue. If you approach an anti-abortion activist with the attitude that they don’t get it, they are uninformed, uneducated, religious zealots or whatever — you aren’t going to get very far in making them understand the whole picture of what abortion rights are. If you approach them with an understanding of the concerns, and a heartfelt desire to find a middle ground, you are much more likely to get somewhere.
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p>Examples:
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p>OR, you could say:
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p>You are going to have better results with scenario 2.
…, I just don’t see any opportunities for rational discourse at the moment. They aren’t interested. Your described conversation requires a cessation to shouting and ‘unerring faith’ in disputed facts and premises (as Harris points out – faith is a conversation stopper, and these people have it in spades). I mean sheesh, the language on abortion is right there in the bill but they still assert non-existent promotion of abortion is in the bill (like our private tax-break subsidized employer provided health care isn’t already a subsidy to insurance plans that can cover abortion services).
Did you watch Harris’s TED talk and read his subsequent response to the avalanche of criticism he received (despite the standing O at TED)? I’m looking forward to reading his new book on morality.
We will not be able to approach them when they are gathered as a group, large or small, and yes, for some, their faith will always stop them from hearing a different opinion with an open mind.
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p>You can call me an old “Okie from Muskogee” if you like, but I can see why they are upset. Do I have faith that Social Security will be there for me when I turn 67. Not totally, no, even though I’ve been paying for it all of my life. Am I happy about our country becoming a service oriented economy instead of a producer of products. Nope, not really. Am I worried about it. Yes, always. Am I fed up with government and the way it has mishandled so many things. Yes, I’m pretty damn peeved about it.
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p>I think the tea party movement is a group of very different people. What you see in the media is the drama aspect of it. You see the very religous speaking on behalf of the entire group. You see the anarchists speaking on behalf of the the entire group. You see leaders, who are not really leaders but self proclaimed leaders, speaking on behalf of the entire group.
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p>We do have to listen to what they are saying, even if we listen, converse, and debate one person at a time. This culture is age-old in our country, and they are just as powerless as we are. We don’t have to agree with them on everything, be we do have to respect them. The message getting out through the media may not even be what the majority of them are trying to say. We all know how the media can screw up messages. Look how misunderstood we are.
Funding for Social Security can be shored up simply by removing the income cap on the SS tax. Now would be a good time to do that.
what a ridiculous tax law that is.