The Chest-Thumping Posture: A Visitor from the Right Celebrates Our Impending Electoral Rejection
The following is an exchange which occurred earlier this week on the thread “One Problem with the Media: Robert Reich on How the Search for Ratings Degrades Discourse” at www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5816.
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Welder wrote:
I hesitate to post since I abhor censorship, but I feel that I should give you folks a heads up.
You’ve lost, the great unwashed have figured it out, and they want no part of your hopeychangey nonsense…
Mission Accomplished.
Welder’s posting elicited responses from several people. One of those was Alex, who wrote:
We have our conversations here, mostly in the spirit of searching for truth. Every once in a while, a comment comes in that is not really so much about content but about revealing the true spirit of the person speaking. Welder’s comment here is one of those occasions.
For Welder, he now shows us, the words are not a way to speak some truth about the world. They’re just a means to assume a posture. Welder’s posture is about chest-thumping. He’s like those figures in some gory video games who jump on the bodies of their victims, or do a celebration dance for having slain them.
Welder, I see you.
Welder’s words are not to be engaged on the level of their supposed truth value. That’s irrelevant to the man. We are simply to behold the joy that he takes in finding an occasion in which to make this dance of a hateful spirit.
For a while, I’d taken you as better than that.
Both of those led me, in turn, to post this:
Interesting perception, Alex. Surely there’s some truth to that.
But I also believe that Welder’s beliefs ARE important to him, and that when he makes an assertion, that assertion has some meaning to him.
So when Welder says that there’s going to be a tsunami sweeping away the Democrats this fall, I expect that at some non-trivial level Wleder DOES believe that this is going to happen, and the imagining of that actual outcome is an exciting one for him. Maybe so that he can dance that dance over his fallen victim, but for whatever the reason Welder I think sincerely believes there’s going to be this tsunami.
Now, the conventional wisdom is that there’s going to be some non-trivial loss of numbers in the House. Welder’s seems to be saying it’s going to be a lot worse than that. I’d like to know just what it is that Welder is saying, put into clear language. If Welder is just saying that the Democrats are going to lose something like 35 seats– well, then he’s just putting forward the conventional wisdom. That’s what our liberal champion, Nate Silver, is predicting. And he thinks the Democrats’ position is potentially still a strong one. He sees the situation in the country –regarding Obama and the Democrats and the Republicans– as being not great but far from desperate. As do I.
But the very way Welder does his dance suggests that he thinks it’s going to be much worse for the Democrats. Nate Silver still has the Democrats as the dominant power. Welder is saying that he’s in a position to dance over our prostate bodies.
So I’d like to ask Welder: are you serious about this tsunami prediction of yours? If not, why entitle yourself to this hateful dance that Alex has observed? But if you ARE serious about this prediction, exactly what is it that you’re predicting this tsunami will amount to.
You talk as if you are so terribly confident of this “Victory” of us hateable people, you seem to think it’s in the bag. I don’t know how you come by that kind of confidence in judging such a complex landscape, with so many moving elements. I think the spectrum of possible scenarios is enormous, from a disaster for the Democrats (perhaps the public will truly sour to the Democrats and turn power back to this terrible Republican Party) to a disaster for the Republicans (perhaps the party self-destructs over the next decade)
But whatever the source of this great confidence of yours, just how many seats is it that you’re confident that the Democrats will lose this coming November in this tsunami you’re predicting?
Here’s part of Welder’s response:
I’m not interested in dancing, my focus is stopping the Obama plan to “fundamentally change America”…If Obama does not moderate his hard left turn and continues on his present course to force legislation on a majority that clearly does not want it, I expect Repubs will regain control of the House with a real shot at a slim majority in the Senate.
And I responded then:
Your description of Obama seems to me so deluded that I marvel that you can hold it in the face of all that’s visible. What has most characterized Obama in terms of policy has been his cautiousness. He’s done no more than the political force of half the country would easily reach a consensus behind. In many areas, he’s done less. His moderation has been extreme. To attempt to do what a mainstream consensus has been wanting to do –actually, to do a fair amount less than the liberal consensus would find optimal– and the characterization of Obama as this agent of radical change –this guy who shrank from taking over the big banks, as was done with the Savings and Loan crisis– your characterizing this guy as such a fundamental radical gives some hint about just where you diverge from reality.
I don’t get it: you’re a smart guy, at least smart enough to be able to put a picture together with the thing. How can YOU buy this folly about Obama being so radical. Do you think the Democratic Party –which represents in general more than half the American people– is in itself “Radical”?
If so, then you’re a hell of a patriot, to hate half your country.
If not, then how can a smart guy like you buy this nonsense? Obama as extremist! Indeed.
And once you see that some folks have been selling you nonsense –calling Obama “socialist,” calling this modest program of rules and subsidies a “government takeover of health care”– so many lies. From wall to wall– and once you see this one about Obama being such a radical force, to take America off its rightful course in a fundamental way BY ENACTING A HEALTH CARE PROGRAM THAT LARGELY OVERLAPS WITH WHAT A BIPARTISAN TEAM (HOWARD BAKER AND ANOTHER BIG REPUBLICAN FIGURE STOOD BEHIND IT) PROPOSED. Once you see how profoundly the picture of things that you’re being sold differs from what is plain right in front of your face, then I would think that a time of reflection would be called for, combined with a long-term effort to discover the sources of one’s errors and to develop habits of perception and of thought that would make it harder for me to be manipulated by hateful fear-mongering lies.
(The rest of the exchange can be seen on that earlier thread.)
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Postscript:
As I post this exchange, I am imagining some here on NSB objecting that I’m being too harsh and unkind in my responses to Welder. I would disagree: I see myself as speaking the moral truth to someone who, wittingly or unwittingly, has made himself into a channel for the lies and belligerence that have been degrading this country.
It is the need to fight against that dark spirit that brought NSB into existence, and that presumably is the core of what holds most of us together in this forum. The fight involves not just those who deliberately poison the country with their lies, like a Dick Cheney or a Rush Limbaugh, but also those who allow themselves to become channels of that poison, carriers of those lies. Not just the lies, but some of that same spirit of scorn and animosity.
And the fight that needs to be fought required more than just about complaining, among our own kindred spirits, about the pathologies of the right. It requires also –and most especially– confronting directly those people who have aligned themselves with this lying and bullying spirit about the role they are playing in this ongoing crisis where the soul of America hangs in the balance.
Here on NSB, in recent weeks, and especially in recent days, we’ve been discussing the failure of liberalism to stand up and fight against that dark spirit. If my imagining is right that some here would be uncomfortable with my direct telling-it-like-it-is, that very discomfort would make a good case study, I would suggest, for uncovering more about that failure.
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March 4th, 2010 at 2:09 am
Alex wrote:
“Welder, I see you.”
It is fascinating to me that this is precisely what the Buddha would say whenever Mara – the representation of deception and evil – would appear (as he did a number of times after the Buddha’s final liberation-awakening).
Meanwhile, let us look closely at the “triumphalist” mindset: the glee of “winning” and letting the other know they have “lost.”
Adolescent male stuff, to say the least.
I suspect the love of power implicit this kind of language, is a reflection of a deep and ancient emptiness. In reality this kind of person never really experienced – the power of love.
Something bad happened to such people; they were hurt, probably long ago. It is likely that they were severely undermined in formative years, such that the sense of self is actually impoverished, enervated, and enfeebled.
Deny as they will (the nature of this kind of character structure is itself founded on the absolute denial of these impacted self-schema) the “crowing,” only reflects more clearly a deep, usually unconscious sense of powerlessness and impotence.
March 4th, 2010 at 8:43 am
Andrew Bard Schmookler said,
For what it may be worth, I don’t object to anything you’ve said in your opening post here, Andy. I agree with what you’ve said.
However, I do want to add that I think Welder deserves some credit for having shown up here willing to engage in discussion, discussion that has so far been rather meaningful and also relatively low on belligerence aside from the initial post of his that you quoted above. I for one have learned something from him, and I sincerely hope that Welder may be learning a bit from us just in the course of that discussion.
Contrast Welder with those many who would rather not engage in any discussion at all about the major news of the day except possibly during a very few days leading up to an election day. Many feel they have more important (and more pleasant) things to talk about, much less listen to what anyone else has to say.
Larry
March 4th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Well, while I consider the labels of “channel of poison and lies” and “soldier of darkness” to be a bit melodramatic, my purpose in posting is primarily to rouse you from your stupor of self delusion. I remain incredulous, just as I was before Obama’s election, that seemingly intelligent people could be hoodwinked by such an obvious snake oil salesman. Fortunately, for most of the country, the veil of hopeychangey nonsense has been lifted.
And it’s probably a misconception on my part to consider you folks, or at least most of you, as deluded about our young narcissist. I suspect most of the participants here are on board with his dreams of a more controlling and all powerful federal government and would be all too happy to cede more of their freedoms to the nanny state.
I’m merely part of a growing movement that sees more government, more entitlement programs and a ballooning dependency class as clear and present dangers to this republic. It’s time to draw a hard line since BOTH parties have been derelict in their duty.
The back room deals, not to mention the lack of transparency with which the Obama administration has pushed their “healthcare reform” agenda has merely served to sour an already skittish electorate. Obama and Co. have essentially hoist themselves on their own petard. One prediction I made early on is apparently coming true; our new president is becoming a casualty of his own hubris.
If my desire for a return to the core principles upon which this country was founded makes me a “hater”, a “chest thumper” or a “belligerent”, then so be it.
Apparently, I have a great deal of company…
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/right_direction_or_wrong_track
March 4th, 2010 at 10:32 am
You really love that sort of company, don’t you, Welder? You love to cite these polls, always well-selected to bolster your sense of being in an advancing army.
(I do wonder if you also take the polls seriously when they point in different directions from your political allegiances. Not only polls like those that showed Clinton so widely approved even after the Lewinsky affair, or those that showed 2/3 of the American people “strongly” disapproving of George W. Bush, but even polls today that show widespread public support for most of the basic provisions of the health care reform bill, that show Obama to be still pretty well liked, and that show the Democrats having more favorables than the Republicans.)
BUt let me come back to that tsunami of yours, just to see whether your confidence about our delusions is as great as you muster up in your chest-thumping about “hopeychangey nonsense.” (By the way, should one infer that you are an advocate of hopelessness and stagnation?)
I’m wondering about what I asked you before: are you really asserting anything more than a little bit stronger than the conventional wisdom? I mean, the convention wisdom says that the Republicans will gain ALMOST enough seats to take over the House. You say that you expect the Republicans will take over the House. Big whoopee: you’re predicting what? three more seats than the conventional wisdom?
Or are you asserting something stronger, Welder. If we need you to pop the bubbles of our delusions, you’ve gotta be saying something stronger, no?
So what odds are you giving on this Republican takeover of the House. 2 to 1? 3 to 1? What?
And are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? Here’s a great chance? I’m ready, and I’m still possessed by the delusions you’re so eager to liberate me from: I believe there’s a real possibility this November will not work out so well for the likes of you, and all that great deal of company you’ve got. So take advantage of me. Show me the strength of that chest-thumping confidence of yours and give me some odds on that expectation of yours. And tell me how much you’re willing to put on the table to put your money where your mouth is.
We both live in the same area. We can find someone trustworthy to hold the stakes until November.
March 4th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Welder, if both parties have been derelict, for whom will you vote? Or do you intend to opt out of the electoral process?
You consistently cite Rasmussen Reports. Here is an article by someone whom I consider quite credible which claims that although Rasmussen surveys do not seem clearly biased per se, some important caveats apply:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/is-rasmussen-reports-biased.html
March 4th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Welder said,
The problem for a huge number of Americans, including me, is that there are only two parties that have a chance at winning elections, neither of which involves exclusively or mainly people that we would necessarily want as friends. One thing can be said about President Obama that I am sure you will agree with: He succeeds in giving the appearance of being a much smarter and more articulate man than was George W. Bush. I was ashamed of George W. Bush just for looking so dumb. But I don’t necessarily place any great hope in President Obama.
But just because I don’t does not mean I think I should turn away from it all in hopeless disgust and do and say nothing.
Larry
March 4th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Welder said,
Those proposals are acts of desperation in the face of the desperate economic situation that faces everyone but the seriously wealthy. Unless you yourself are one of those people then I think you also are facing, willy-nilly, a bad and worsening life-style situation than you may expect. And it is not the poor that you have to blame for that. You can blame them, and you clearly do. But you are missing the main target.
In the discussion at http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5816 , of which this is a hopefully-not-too-repetitious continuation, William Meyer said,
Welder’s arguments are disingenuous.
The discussion there continued to be interesting for quite some time after that.
Again, Welder, it is very clearly that elephant that is the problem, that elephant problem that represents, among other things, the military budget as well as for major financial institutions being out of control. And the military budget is the thing that is most responsible for our taxes, not “entitlement programs” at all. You might want to verify that for yourself and save me the time of finding the evidence.
Larry
March 4th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Hanu Man – No, Alex doesn’t, nor do you or Buddha for that matter, but you did give me a chuckle. I thought the quote was from a recent movie, though, so I learned something.
Larry – Yes, indeed I have been enlightened, and I appreciate the civility.
Andy – Actually, Nate Silver, of whom you are apparently enamored, has said that the Rasmussen poll:
“would probably be the one I’d want with me on a desert island.”
Source:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
I think I offered to wager on the last election and you declined.
You would have won that one handily.
What do you have in mind, I’m not normally a gambler but I’ll bite.
Or we could just meet on the dueling green at dawn…
March 4th, 2010 at 11:05 am
The world is full of Welders, true……There is an underlying bitterness and a lot of judgement to his posts – his true spirit? – which do not seem to me to impart any revision of thought nor add to the discussion. Perhaps he has something to add but his tone is one that turns off rather than engages.
We are in this together.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:13 am
First step would be for you to answer my question: what are the odds you give on this Republican takeover of the House?
Or, if you prefer this way: how many seats would you be willing to assert –as a 50-50 bet, i.e. even odds– the Republicans will take from the Democrats this November?
If your tsunami claim is as strong as you presented it, and if your confidence corresponds to your posture, you ought to be willing to make a pretty strong assertion of those odds on the takeover, or be willing to bet –on even odds– on a fair number of seats beyond the conventional wisdom.
If you are, I’m prepared to put some serious money down. If you’re not, we’ll see that it was the posture and not really any conviction that you were conveying.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Andrew Bard Schmookler said,
Well, Welder has already said he’ll bite. But just so you know, I’ve never bet money on anything in my life, no matter how certain I was.
Larry
March 4th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Carol said,
You are for sure right, Carol, that we are all in this together. Welder has made it clear that his purpose is not to turn us off. I hope you don’t mind my suggesting, with respect, that you simply make up your mind not to allow yourself to be turned off. For what it’s worth.
Larry
March 4th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Here’s a snippet from a Chris Hedges piece on Truthdig titled Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama. Seems relevant to this discussion stream.
“The timidity of the left exposes its cowardice, lack of a moral compass and mounting political impotence. The left stands for nothing. The damage Obama and the Democrats have done is immense. But the damage liberals do the longer they beg Obama and the Democrats for a few scraps is worse. It is time to walk out on the Democrats.” Mind you, this Hedges not Welder.
http://www.truthdig.com
March 4th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Odds? At this point, I’d say very good to excellent, particularly if the “healthcare reform” bill gets passed against the majority will of the American people. Maybe we could wager on that…
Since you are doubtless being bankrolled by one of your back channel pals anxious to teach this humble joiner of metals a lesson, and since you proposed the wager, I’ll let you folks propose a suitable one.
And we can meet face to face to transfer funds, there’s no need to involve a third party. I take you at your word.
Since my side lacks the vote buying advantage, that gives you and your banker a considerable edge…
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-now-selling-appeals-court-judgeships-health-care-votes
March 4th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
This process has been building since Reagan. The levels of childhood abuse yielding authoritorian posturing are much higher than most can afford to admit .., except for those who have worked with little ones over a long life.
It has been proven that massive amounts of taxpayer money are being funneled to “teaparty” groups via the national Chamber of Commerce. It is sad that so much authoritarianism in American homes yields such blind “chest thumpers” who really are carrying the flag for the plutocrats.
I am chary to bring it up again, but; Mussolini defined his country’s drift like this ~ “What we have done should be called, CORPORATISM….” Look deep into your soul and carefully consider _everything_ that has happened in one’s life….
Margaret Atwood’s _Handmaiden’s Tale_ lays it all out and it is a very absorbing read. The film starred Robert Duvall and Angelica Huston (I think – mayn’t be right….)
March 4th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
As if there were something else to walk in on.
As good ol’ Don Rumsfled said, you gotta go to war with the army you’ve got.
March 4th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
I’m on my own here, Welder. Your fantasy of my being bankrolled is in error.
Odd are “excellent.” We need numbers. Bets involve a) outcome bet on being clear, b) amount bet, and c) odds of pay-off from A to B or B to A.
I’ve asked you for c). If you put forward odds as aggressive as the original message you delivered suggests, I’ll be interested in a bet. If you’re really more tame and tentative in your expectations, then I see no reason to wager on the proposition. I’m a bit more optimistic than the conventional wisdom, but I have no conviction on the matter, and am talking about wager only because you seemed so certain that something so dramatic was about to obliterate us deluded liberals.
So fill in the blanks, Welder.
March 4th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
This doesn’t sound correct, Lee. Since when does taxpayer money go to the Chamber of Commerce? The C of C has plenty of deep pockets working through it.
March 4th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Read it in Danny Schecter’s column today… failed to record citation. I have been having lots of vertigo….
Reading Winston Graham’s POLDARK books and found this: “All those gentlefolk who’s talent for commerce was in inverse rate to the length of their pedigrees. They might affect to despise him but he knew in his heart that many of them already feared him….” “Chest Thumping”is often born of fear.
March 4th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
ToddR – The tea party movement is, in part, about bringing wayward Repubs back to their conservative roots. Any Repub that can’t get onboard that train probably needs to be left at the station. We’re going to look at what they do, not what they say. RINO’s need not apply.
Larry – As you said, Obama gives the “appearance” of being a really smart guy, and there’s no doubt he’s articulate. But appearance isn’t substance and being articulate isn’t a strategy. Bush may have “looked” dumb, but he got the economy back on track post 9/11 and Al Q was unable to launch a successful attack for the remainder of his term. We have had two successful terrorist attacks and one near catastrophic one in the first year of Obama’s tenure. The smartest sounding guy in the room is not always the most effective one. And I’m not blaming the poor for anything, just a government that enables dependency. We have been fighting the war on poverty for a very long time and have redistributed massive amounts of treasure in the process. It appears we have made very little progress for all that. It’s time to try something different.
Carol – I’m sorry you’re unhappy with my tone and I’ve nothing about which to be bitter. I’m living the American dream. I’ve also just had a rather tasty bowl of black bean gumbo.
Harvey – Well, he’s right about the damage part… and there’s room for you in the tea party, there are lots of disaffected Dems and independents among us.
Andy – I’ve been advised that any online wager that involves real money is illegal in VA. It’s a C3 misdemeanor for the participants and a C4 felony for the site owner. And since this is a public forum…
You might want to do a bit of research and \ or email me. Or if you like, I can drop by. I’ll be in your neck of the woods tomorrow.
March 4th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Interesting news, Welder, about the legal aspect. I’m willing to drop the wager dimension. We can leave the money out of this.
I’d still like to have you quantify your expectations: 1) odds on the Republicans taking over the House, and 2) what number of seats you actually believe –on a 50-50 basis, i.e. as likely to be more as less– will be gained by the GOP.
March 4th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
“I suspect most of the participants here are on board with his dreams of a more controlling and all powerful federal government and would be all too happy to cede more of their freedoms to the nanny state.”-Welder
Parly right, Welder. It’s YOUR freedoms they want ‘surrendered’ and of the self reliant enterprising traditional Americans.
The anti-traditionalist ‘progressives NEVER KNEW WHAT IT WAS/IS.
Let them list their occupations and from whence their bread is buttered
and yoiu will see that is correct.
And you ‘progressives’ I challenge you to prove that I’m wrong !
HOWEVER, THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE MIS-READ THE RIGHTS OF THEIR CALLING. LIBERTY HAS LONG BEEN BELIEVED TO BE A DIVINE BLESSING
TO BE WILLING TO WALK BY ON THE OTHER SIDE WHILE THERE ARE THOSE TRULY IN NEED IS TO RISK LOSING YOUR OWN. (and you see what is happening)
I DO NOT SUPPORT THE OBAMA PROGRAM AT ALL . . .
BUT IT IS THE SELF CONCERNED ATTITUDE OF THE REPUBLICANS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS THAT TIPPED THE LAST ELECTION TO TOTAL DEMOCRAT CONTROL.
AND I CHALLENGE WELDER TO DISPROVE THAT. ( Don’t even try !)
March 4th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Andy – Ok, I’ll be willing to give you my best guess after “healthcare reform” either passes or tanks; and that should be in the next couple of weeks. Passage makes the tsunami bigger, failure makes it smaller…
We can still do a wager if you like, I believe you have my contact info.
David R – Ok, I won’t. But I would argue that 8 years of nearly nonstop Bush bashing was the most telling factor in the last election.
He didn’t get much of a break. You’d think that if you could get a Nobel for essentially just showing up, you could get one for liberating an entire country…
March 4th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
I would say just the opposite, Welder, about the impact on the Republicans’ chances of whether healthcare reform passes or fails. The worst that can happen to the Democrats is to fail to pass it.
If the Republicans really thought it would be so good for them politically for healthcare reform to pass, how do you explain their doing absolutely everything they can to block it (including making robo calls to the districts of vulnerable Democrats, and trying to intimidate the Senate parliamentarian)? Do you think they’re so “Country First” that they’re sacrificing their own political interest in order to prevent some terrible “gummit takeover” of healthcare from ruining this great nation of ours?
Not likely.
March 4th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
If the Dems fail to pass it, the president is wounded; if they DO pass it against the majority will of the people, the entire party will suffer. You will have folks coming out of the woodwork to campaign against them in November.
And the Repubs have to make every attempt to block or stall the bill. They’ve been viewed as ineffectual for too long, and they can read the polls too. The majority of the country doesn’t want this bill and that’s where the smart money’s going to be.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/24/rel4ha.pdf
March 4th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
The Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t necessarily mean squat if you do not agree with the ‘choice’. I like what Harry Truman said when pointed out a certain person was so awarded.
“I didn’t give it to him. ”
(ONE OF MY FAVORITE RETORTS)
March 4th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
As William Gallston points out in a recent piece, our Founders deliberately created a system in which leadership was about more than just following opinion polls:
But even if we are to take public opinion, and polls, as our “proximate source of wisdom,” the evidence is far from clearcut.
The estimable Nate Silver wrote this, a few weeks ago, regarding public opinion on the health care bill, drawing on a poll by the also reputable Kaiser Foundation:
March 4th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
This is just a small thought on traditional values and freedom.
I would like to assume that everyone agrees that it is good that we have cops who stop dangerous highway speeders at some times and some places and that governments tax somebody to pay cops for that work.
That is a starting point for a discussion of curtailments of freedom and necessities for taxation that have developed since the Founding Fathers lived and died, due to new situations that obviously could never have occurred to them.
I don’t think I am much interested in actually having that discussion. My point is that there have been unforeseen developments that have occurred since the time of the Founding Fathers that make the simple argument that we should go back to traditional freedoms and personal responsibility values more complicated than one might think. I respectfully suggest that that might be worth a small bit of contemplation, particularly for you, Welder.
Larry
March 5th, 2010 at 3:03 am
Welder,
I’ll alter my comment to: “I INTUIT you.”
I perceive that a number of folks here are getting a sense of you which is deeper and more accurate than your own self-image. It seems quite clear to me that the source of your inability to see what to some others is obvious – is one or more consequential lacunas or blindspots.
I believe that the best thing for any of us to do is to always be ready to be wrong – about anything. I would guess that one of the issues that gets in your way when it comes to clarity is that somewhere in your life, power was abused and you got quite hurt.
This the only explanation I can imagine re- situations when it is clear to a great many others that misuse of power (exploitive, vengeful, authoritarian, kleptomanic, etc) is occurring – and yet you are unable to see and grasp that this is the case.
Why not transform yourself into a man who truly has an open mind….. and accept the possibility that your vision may be quite skewed? It’s possible, you know.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:12 am
Andy, looks like Welder has answered you. The object seems to be Politics now not ‘healthcare’-whatever that really means at this point.
The Republicans have to publicly fight it if for no other reason thatn to demonstrate themselves as in that position (aligned tith public opinion)
Then that supposedly makes them The ALTERNATIVE in November as the public demonstrates their position at the polls. THAT’S SIMPLE ENOUGH, NO ?
Welder is probably on the winning side. The problem is, does America win with either Party ?
The ‘progressive’ BELIEVERS in ‘science’ and a New Morality and other peoples’ money
OR the self-styled New CONSERVATIVES
who see Abortion as the great ‘sin’ of the day (afraid to mention covetousness, fornication, adultery, divorce and re-marriage- actual Biblical sins- and believe in 9/11, that Osama was the bad guy so we should attack Iraq and hang Saddam Hussein , and wave the flag for America the Aggressor.
(BTW, Where is Osama)
Ho ! ho ! And it ain’t funny at all.
I vote once again for freedom of speech. How great that both ‘sides’ can demonstrate their own particular stripe of moral insanity.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:29 am
“How would public opinion change if people were fully informed about the content of the bills? ”
With all the millions of words flowing in this ‘issue’ and yet this question can still be asked !
“if the people were fully informed ”
What pray tell is the reason why not, and by the Pres ?
The public smells a dead rat somewhere,
and That AIN’T HEALTHY at all .
March 5th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Andy – I’ve seen the Kaiser polls, they look to be outliers; I was unable to find the internals for the one you cited. It’s true that if you parse individual portions of the bill you can get the responses you desire from the questions you pose. That’s true of any poll. It’s also true that the taxation from the bill, if passed, starts immediately and the supposed benefits won’t kick in until several years down the road. That was simply a budgetary trick in order to minimize the perceived financial impact of the bill.
The Founders also provided for the people to be the ultimate arbiters of how they wanted their government to behave; that’s why we have elections.
If “healthcare reform” is passed, the Repubs, supported by the tea partiers will run against the Dems who supported it with a single focus and rallying cry: repeal. It may take a couple of election cycles to flush the system, but that’s going to be the goal. Nearly 50 % of the country pays no income taxes; 10 % of the electorate provides 70 % of the country’s revenue. As I’ve said ad nauseam, we’re drawing a hard line.
Larry – Ah, there’s the rub; what constitutes promoting the general welfare? Free everything for everyone who shows up with their hands out doesn’t meet that standard for me. Doubtless, your mileage will vary, but that’s why we have elections. We simply can’t afford to keep writing those checks. It make take a few million folks declining to pay their taxes for the government to get the message. That’s an option that’s being seriously contemplated. I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that; the IRS is going to need a lot more agents…
March 5th, 2010 at 8:33 am
This is particularly to David R, who seems to believe that all who supported Obama are of a certain ilk. (and Obama is too “centrist” and compromising for me. It was either him or “bomb Iran”, and I just didn’t feel we should start another war…)
I DO want to curtail the freedom of the powerful to prey on the powerless. If you make your money by investing in companies that set up puppet companies offshore to avoid the patriotic duty of helping the nation, I’m against it. If you make your money by going to foreign lands to take their oil and game the system so that wars are started in the name of a lie, I’m against it. If you make your money by lobbying (buying) Congress to write laws that keep the voice of individuals effectively silenced in redressing grievances, I’m against it. If you think that America will win a world wide war against terror by committing the very acts they accuse the enemy of (bombing civilians and torture), I’m against it. If you make your money by either denying coverage to sick people or scamming not so educated needy people into usury, I’m against it. If you want to use up the wilderness or pollute the air we breathe or the water we drink to make a killing in returns, I’m against it. Yes – I want to limit your freedom if that is what you want to do.
I wasn’t sure what David R is implying by his comment “let them list their occupation and where their butter is spread”…but – fine. I am a stay home mother/Catholic Religious Education Director/Teacher with degrees in Biology and Chemistry and Secondary Education (worked 2 jobs while at college and was just shy of honors), with a husband who has degrees in Business Finance and Electrical Engineering.
I came from a single parent family that had no help from my father, and we cared for my Grandparents until they died. All without help from the government. I want no Welfare, just jobs. Our jobs where I live have disappeared due to Offshoring. Our health insurance rates have skyrocketed. We play by all the rules the conservatives tout, holding lots of the same values; free speech, responsibility, liberty, but two more I do not see the GOP ever show any affinity for – the dignity of equality and the common good.
So David R, how does that stack up on your “scale”? Are we elitist enough? Or did you predict we come from the lines of entitlement?
Oh yeah – we live in the Midwest-iest of the Midwest states…never having lived on either coast.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Welder said,
This is a small piece of an article by Rabbi Michael Lerner of spiritualprogressives.org, a site I have yet to visit. He wrote in response to a March 1, 2010 article by Chris Hedges entitled “Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama.”
http://www.tikkun.org/article.php?story=20100304052514257#lernercont
I highly recommend reading the entire piece. Rabbi Lerner begins by repeating the text of Chris Hedge’s article as background. He then discusses many topics in an intelligent way. Near the beginning he explains,
Larry
March 5th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Hanu Man – No one here, given the brief glimpse of me offered them in our meanderings can possibly know me as well as I know myself. They’ve not seen me interact with my five granddaughters, wrestle with my rather large dog or followed me about on my volunteer weekends at the senior facility where my wife works.
Perhaps it is your own perspective that is skewed; one should be prepared to embrace any possibility…
David R – The public does indeed know what the bill entails, Obama has given more than 30 speeches on the subject. As Juan Williams said recently, “the dog just doesn’t like the dog food.”…
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33967.html
March 5th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Therese, I vote for you 100 %; you seem to speak for me very well.
If we had a majority of Therese’ I could go fishing and enjoy watching the world go by.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:02 am
I noted that you were dubious about the “internals” of the Kaiser poll. Nate Silver is the smartest polling guy around, and the Kaiser results, which contradict what you here so confidently declare, passed muster with him. Even to the point that he devoted a whole, major column to what the polls reveal, as I quoted above.
I do wonder, Welder, about your educability in matters of this sort. You seem to insist on a lack of ambiguity in your picture, and in it conforming to your political prejudices.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Hanu Man Ji said,
Welder said,
Of course I’ve never said any such thing. What constitutes promoting the general welfare is a serious and complex question, and there are many answers. Probably I think most in terms of working to get the military budget reduced, hopeless as that cause may be, and seeking truth for myself and others in the face of massive propaganda being generated by the super-wealthy class on a variety of topics. But it is not as if I pretend to have detailed solutions for everything. Not yet anyway. lol
Larry
March 5th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Kinda flip, there W’ldr. No one I know knows whats in the bill. We hear some things and have read a few. The mega pages I have heard about would seem to daunt most attempts at inquiry IF AVAILABLE, if FINAL and IN TOTO! When was that ?
My friends want people to receive what they truly need and cannot afford with their best efforts on their own,
Tony Blair went before Parliament with 55 pages to present a false account of WMDs in Iraq,
So called ‘health care bill’ . . . how many ? 1000 . . . 2000 ? pages ?
Somehow I think Tony Blair when I hear this
and seem to sense that dead rat stink somewhere.
NOT HEALTY ! WRONG WAY !
March 5th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Welder,
Once again I’m compelled to use the metaphor of Nazism.
Imagine that the internet existed in 1944. Now imagine that a basicly good man is blogging and clearly unable to see that Hitler is doing what he’s doing – and in fact using te rhetoric of the time to justify same. (Plenty of people were doing just this).
It wouldn’t take a genius to be able intuit stuff about a fellow writing along these lines. In terms of a character structure and mindset that is distorted around the issue of misuse of power -having fun wrestling with his dog, or being loving with his grandchildren would in no way contradict this assessment.
For that matter I have heard that many men in the Gestapo (not to mention German citizens in the know) exhibited exactly these appealing family values.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Therese said,
David R said,
Me too. Therese I have sent the entire text of that post, with its link, to my blind email list of family, friends, and others who have not so far told me to stop sending them my selection of things I think are important. Thanks! Larry
March 5th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Andy – Nate is indeed a smart guy, and he is often quoted on liberal blogs. That does not negate the fact that the numbers generated by the Kaiser poll appear to be the exception and not the rule. Google up some pollsters for yourself. And Silver has been quoted that Rasmussen is the poll he’d most like to have with him on a desert island. It’s not so much that I’m not educable, it’s just that you haven’t made your case. Brown ran in MASS unabashedly proclaiming that he would be the 41rst vote against “healthcare reform”. He won the seat formerly held by the foremost champion of that reform. I understand your willingness to find a silver lining in NJ and VA as well as in the poll numbers, but I don’t currently see a lot of joy for the Dem’s future. But, a lot could change between now and November. If the bill passes the House, Obama signs it and the numbers begin to move in your direction, I’ll reevaluate my stance.
Larry – I’m not adverse to a reduction in the military, as long as it’s brought about by a commeasureate diminishing of the global threat level. I don’t believe that’s in the offing.
And there’s a great deal of propaganda being slung about by both sides.
Hanu Man – I could make the same observation about your being blind to the progressive darkness that is the Obama administration. I still think you’re probably a pretty good guy though and not a Nazi…
March 5th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Kaiser an outlier? Here’s from a piece (by Juan Cole) I just read, thanks to John Cochrane’s calling it to my attention.
As William Gallston says, what the public declares in polls is not what our leaders are supposed to base all their decisions on. And yes, the public ultimately does decide through elections who gets to lead (as indeed they did just over a year ago in going by a big margin for a candidate who promised to do just what he’s doing). But if we go along with you in your sense of the centrality of public opinion polls, here’s another one that paints a picture rather different from –certainly at least more ambiguous than– your “the public has rejected it” version.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Welder said,
I agree with you that a diminishing of the global threat level is probably not in the offing. The “global threat level” is and most likely will continue to be created, jacked up, and maintained by the well-publicized wrong actions and false words of the super-wealthy and their sycophants. That is why I said, reducing the military budget may be hopeless.
Larry
March 5th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Welder writes:
Here you touch upon something that, for me, is most profound: both true and unsettling. It has to do with the amazing mixture of things we human beings are, or at least can be. Observing America during this time of the rise of darkness has prompted me to marvel and puzzle over how the whole and the broken, the good and the evil, can co-exist in people, and can govern within them different realms of their being.
It is not at all difficult for me to imagine that you are a fine man, with sterling qualities, benefitting the world through the expression of your virtues. If you and I were neighbors, and interacted only around things like helping one another get out of ditches, my impression of you might well be quite dominated by those sterling qualities.
In America in these days, people who are quite wonderful and good in some ways have also willingly (if likely unwittingly) also aligned themselves with perhaps the most destructive and almost certainly the most dishonest force that’s operated at center political stage in the history of America. As I say, this observation I have found unsettling, and it has really altered my sense of what it means to talk about a person’s “character,” or their goodness.
You and I have met not over getting each other’s cars out of the ditch but over the issues we face in the political sphere. And even while I readily can believe you possess excellent character in some very important human ways, I have also observed about you that your relationship with some relevant domains the truth is not whole.
I see this lack of wholeness as having two major dimensions. First, when it comes to matters of politics, for whatever reasons, you have embraced a whole raft of falsehoods. For whatever reasons, you’ve given a lot of credence to people who habitually lie– they lie to people like you, and quite likely (from the evidence) a lot of their lies grow out of lies they tell themselves.
Second, and I say this on the basis of a fair amount of interaction between us, your system of belief is a closed one, pretty immune to its errors being corrected.
I’ll leave out of this picture the part that’s pointed to by Alex’s “chest-thumping” image, but I do believe that it has a connection with both of those truth-related elements just mentioned.
Because your system is closed in the ways that it seems to be, I hold no expectation that you’ll see (much less acknowledge) any important validity to what I’m saying. I am also not optimistic, though here I do hold out a bit of hope, that you might make use of these observations over time to bring greater intellectual integrity to bear on the process by which you come to and hold your political beliefs.
But mainly I want to say to you that I am entirely ready to see you as you see yourself, in many of the domains of your life, while at the same time I perceive you to have brought some kind of brokenness to your posture and process in the political realm, or at least that you have allowed the forces of brokenness to shape your thinking and make you much less good of a man in that realm than the man who volunteers weekends in the senior facility where your wife works.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Andy – I had seen that poll earlier, and again, sadly, no internals.
And I find your comment about “embracing falsehoods” ironic considering the state of the Dem party these days and the folks that enable them. I believe Nancy Pelosi uttered words akin to “the most ethical and transparent House in history” when she took the speaker’s gavel. I won’t bore you with the inconvenient links that give lie to those words but I do find something else that amuses me.
When Bush was running the country, the Dems could blame all of the world’s ills on him. Now Obama and the Dems are running things and the Repubs in Congress are nearly ineffectual from a legislative standpoint; they really haven’t got the votes to stop anything on their own. In this instance, we’re back to dumb old John Q. Public, he’s just buying the lies of those rascally Repubs and tossing a sabot into Obama’s dreams of a prog utopia.
Like I said earlier, “the dog just doesn’t like the dogfood”…
Even more amusing, and a bit sad really, is that many here are incapable of even acknowledging that it might they who exhibit some “brokenness” and perhaps, occasionally, may even have gotten it wrong…
March 5th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Welder said:
“Hanu Man – I could make the same observation about your being blind to the progressive darkness that is the Obama administration. I still think you’re probably a pretty good guy though and not a Nazi…”
>:)
March 5th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Welder, you may not be aware of all the background for this that exists not only in many other places but also right here. For one example that I think is major, I have recently discussed in two other threads the four hour 2002 BBC documentary The Century of the Self, which I only discovered recently. See
http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5948 and
http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5923
for a bit of discussion and also the link to Part 4, the last hour, of that documentary. Many have said, and I fully agree, that everyone should see that documentary. I have not yet watched Part 3 myself, but Parts 1, 2, and 4 have been fascinating and informative.
You’ve said, “…the dog just doesn’t like the dog food…” concerning the health insurance reform proposal. I think you will find it easy to see after just the last hour, Part 4, of that BBC television documentary just how that statement comes to appear disingenuous.
Larry
March 5th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
What is that sound ? A whistle ? the unpire ? Ah yes, both teams out of bounds !
March 5th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Andrew Bard Schmookler said,
Me too, Andy. And it has gotten considerably more unsettling since I’ve been watching that documentary.
Larry
March 5th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
I would say that it is also important to delineate (as has already been done on this site) in what precise ways, the Right-wing politics in our nation show much kinship with fascist themes and tendencies.
Without letting the left off the hook, I’d say it is also good to remind ourselves that Fascism, authoritarianism, and the dominator approach to social systems are dangers to humanity and to the Biosphere as a whole.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
David R said,
I think I hear it too.
Larry
March 5th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
To paraphrase Mal Reynolds:
I just don’t think you see this coming…
http://www.moonbattery.com/capitol-view-big.jpg
And that shot was taken at the embryonic stage…
The left not a current danger to humanity?
LOL
March 5th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Could be, Welder, especially if China attains its wish,and replaces the U.S. as top-dog.
As I see it, “authoritarianism” – whether the ideology be left or right, is a more useful way of describing the culprit (as it has been for thousands of years). My observations of people on both the left and the right is that we all tend to be unconscious regarding the degree to which this paradigm still dominates our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
So, more accurately, I’d say it is our deeply embedded authoritarianism whcih is a major danger, and which all of us belonging to the human species finally need to face and handle.
March 6th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Hanu Man – So we’re in agreement then, that too much authority placed in the hands of a central entity, be it right leaning or left, is a bad thing.
Fair enough.
March 6th, 2010 at 10:22 am
That looks like a picture of the people whose jobs have been exported. But what’s missing is the overwhelming numbers of police putting nonviolent people in pens and beating them over the head like they have been doing lately, i.e., outside the Republican national convention in 2008.
Interesting website though. Hateful.
Larry
March 6th, 2010 at 11:53 am
So far I have not located any information on who it is that is running moonbattery.com or on who is paying for it. I would be interested to know. It clearly serves the purposes of the families of the Bilderberg group and their ilk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group. Larry
March 6th, 2010 at 11:55 am
In a letter to the editor of the Daily Mail, published Thursday, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.) blasted the West Virginia newspaper for an editorial the paper ran on earlier this week related to health care reform.
Byrd charged that the newspaper demonstrated a clear misunderstanding of congressional rules and procedures, which resulted in the publication confusing its readers.
From Sen. Byrd’s letter:
With all due respect, the Daily Mail’s hyperbole about “imposing government control,” acts of “disrespect to the American people” and “corruption” of Senate procedures resembles more the barkings from the nether regions of Glennbeckistan than the “sober and second thought” of one of West Virginia’s oldest and most respected daily newspapers.
March 6th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Larry – That just happened to be the first place I could find a link since I couldn’t u\l from my machine. The folks in the linked pic also left the grounds much cleaner than the mess that was left after the inauguration. They were not allowed to use the Mall as it had been reserved, or so they were told, so you’re not seeing most of the crowd’s overflow. And if you want to see how the left protests, I have a link, but after perusing at again, I decided not to post it. It’s just too offensive for this venue. Here’s one of the less offensive images, though:
http://www.zombietime.com/anarchist_bookfair_march_18_2006/IMG_5894.JPG
Hanu Man – Interesting that you should quote a former Grand Klaxon of the KKK. That also reminded me that the KKK was an arm of the Dem party back then…
March 6th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
If anyone still needed evidence that our fellow Welder is incapable of honest exchange, or perhaps even honest thought, this latest remark should close the case: “That also reminded me that the KKK was an arm of the Dem party back then.”
Touche, thinks he? Good Lord, what does he think he’s proving with That?
Setting aside his slurring Senator Byrd (again– Isn’t this the second time we’ve heard this from Welder?) with an affiliation he made more than sixty years ago as a young man, and which he’s repudiated many times– what kind of mind does it take to try to score points like this with the old association of the Democratic Party with the racism and violence of the Klan?
We all know what’s happened since then: the Party of Lincoln has turned around and become the Party of the kinds of bigotries and hate-mongering that once fed into the Klan. (The Democratic Party lost the white racists when it passed the laws for civil rights. )
The Solid South of old is the Solid South of today: only the party has changed, from Solid Democratic to Solid Republican. The ugliness the region solidifies around is still the same hate and fear. The same hate and fear that informs (or misinforms) Welder’s endless spewing of Republican talking points.
That he thinks he can score with that Klan remark shows just how profound his blindness is.
Part of me wants to tell you, Andy, to just block this Welder so we don’t waste time with his incorrigibly (and likely willfully) blind “ideas.” But then I stop myself from recommending this because a part of me thinks it is not a waste of time because Welder keeps in front of our eyes the pathologies that afflict so many people in the United States right now. He helps us not forget what it is, besides the criminals who feeds these people their lies, that has to be overcome if the country is ever to be healthy again.
I’d be interested to hear whether other people think it’s useful or a waste of time to deal with this fellow. (We’re surely not going to teach him a thing, are we?)
March 6th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Sam – I’m not aware that I said anything “dishonest” and where’s the slur?
I have a neat pic of Byrd in full Klan regalia if you’d like to see it. We’re all aware of *that* part of his life.
As well as the history of how the Civil Rights Amendment was passed.
And I can only assume that when you brand me “incapable of honest exchange” you’re merely offended that I don’t agree with you…
It’s amusing that you mention pathologies, lies and blindness though; I was thinking along those lines while reading your post.
But Andy doesn’t have to block me; once he tells me here publicly (or privately) to get ghosted, I’ll honor his wishes.
We do agree on one thing though; it’s useful for both sides to get a glimpse of how the other thinks. And in that respect, this thread has been extremely useful…
March 6th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
I thoiught discussion was about presenting ones ideas for agreement, correction or, addition or conflicting ideas that are truly ideas.
No place for propaganda. and intentional dis-information.
What ?
Welder may be a Rightist but his outlook does not seem what I always thought a Conservative to be.
Hpwever, seems to me the ‘progressives of today’ have no more foundation than he does.
Each imagines they have the numbers at the moment and so the so called reasons don’t matter.
I don’t believe either one …
March 6th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
With respect to those two parts of you, Samuel, I tend to side with the “what’s the point” side. I don’t really see that we need these reminders of how the consumers of the right-wing lies think and behave. We see it all the time across the nation. I don’t see what good it does us to have these “conversations” with one of them.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Welder said,
I suspect that you really are able to understand why some people see you as dishonest, Welder. To show a picture and say the people in the picture are “the left” (or any other collection of people larger than will fit in a picture)? Sheesh. I’m afraid that seems either 1) totally dishonest, 2) inexplicably ignorant of the diversity and disagreements that exist or likely exist among a collection of people, or 3) simply idiotic, one or the other, take your choice. Or I suppose you can try to come up with some explanation other than those three that I may not have thought of.
And don’t bother with “[Somebody else] lies too!” Whatever you might say in that format would not excuse you. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Ye Gods!
Larry
March 6th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Harry – Particularly when those conversations illuminate the “inconvenient”…
Larry – All of the folks illustrated are leftists… no?
Harry – Larry – does anyone else find this chortle-worthy…
Really, you folks need to lighten up a bit.
March 6th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Welder said,
How the h*ll would I know! That’s the first picture I’ve ever seen of anything like that, much less know anybody like that. I would have to ask “the folks illustrated” whether they identified themselves as “leftists.” Then we would know.
But Welder, do you know that in asking that question you risk appearing dishonest again? It is hard to see how you could in honesty have missed the point so badly–that even if those particular people were to say they are leftists, it seems either dishonest, ignorant, or stupid to suggest that they represent everyone who identifies as a “leftist,” if there really are any such people. Me I haven’t met anyone who has said that he or she is a “leftist.” As far as I know the term is only used by people on the Right as a caricature.
Welder said,
I guess that’s easy for you to say. I’m afraid you are a serious cause for concern, especially if a significant portion of the “tea party” people are anything like you. I feel that I haven’t been able to communicate with you much at all. Probably communication would work better if we were face to face, but I don’t know how that would happen.
Samuel said,
Welder, in hopes that you may understand some subtleties, the dishonesty involved there is different. The statement Samuel quoted may be true on its face. The dishonesty is in bringing it up in discussion as if it were of some relevance to anything is going on now.
Samuel said,
Welder is not just some cardboard figure to me. I myself have never had any back and forth conversation with anyone like him except one who is far less polite than Welder is. I have found Welder somewhat interesting so far–in ways I didn’t enjoy at all, such as discovering moonbat.com this morning–but somewhat interesting nonetheless. That I wasn’t aware of points up a phenomenon that Jim Z mentioned recently–that we just do not have time to keep track of all the different segments of society and so remain completely unaware of the communications that take place in more than just a few of them.
It seems to me that how much time anyone wants to spend “dealing with this fellow” is an individual matter. Responding to Welder or anything about him is one option. Skipping that is another option.
Personally I feel a bit apologetic to Welder for having participated in your question publicly even to this extent. If you want someone banned for any reason then you might want to consider discussing that privately with Dr. Schmookler.
Larry
March 6th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
I side with the other part of you, Samuel, from the one Harry picked. I agree with Harry that we don’t need to see Welder-type people here in order to have plenty of exposure to them in the America of today. And I agree that there is little if any chance that Welder will allow himself to learn anything at all, no matter what anyone here might possible say to expose either his errors or the lies he’s bought.
But there’s something else useful, or at least I’ve found it useful in these recent discussions. I’ve really appreciated seeing Andy in particular modeling ways of confronting Welder’s tricks and distortions, conscious or otherwise… Straightforward, telling it like it is, neither kind nor unkind.
That comment about the mixtures in people of good and evil I thought was especially strong and useful.
By useful I don’t mean that it would change Welder, though maybe that could happen. Welder sure isn’t going to tell people here about any changes or even second thoughts he might have on Anything.
Useful means instead it shows the rest of us how to call our Welder-like fellow citizens out on their stuff. As recent discussions here have indicated, those of us who have been not been in thrall to the right-wing hate and fear machine have been remiss in standing up to the ugliness and have let it get big and dangerous in our time.
It’s time we learned how to do that standing up and speaking out. These discussions give us a chance to do so, and some good modeling about how it can be done honestly and powerfully.
After a while maybe our time would be spent better ignoring the provocations. But I think these recent exchanges have been of value.
March 6th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
And Welder, sorry, no, I don’t think that picture is funny even if it might have just been posed by some friend of yours to be used for marketing some idea or other. Larry
March 6th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Larry – I didn’t take the pics, but I know some cops on the left coast. I’ve been told that the images on the site are more the rule and less the exception as far as left wing demonstrations are concerned. But google up “anarchist bookfair” and do you own vetting; I don’t expect you to take the word of a “soldier of darkness”…
I do indeed understand what passes here for “subtleties”, mostly, I just like to occasionally remind the other side that they were not always the sole reservoir of ultimate truth, social justice and wisdom in the world…
And even my pedestrian sensibilities can appreciate your unwillingness to patronize or condescend. It makes the conversations less tedious.
Roberta – I understand that Andy tolerates my postings because, perhaps, he considers me useful in illustrating how the “darkness” manipulates it’s minions. I also like to think that I provide him with some additional fodder for his bloggings; compensation perhaps for the minor irritation I incur. But I’m encouraged that you’re of a mind to stand and speak out and I’m glad you’ve found something here of value.
March 7th, 2010 at 1:30 am
Samuel wrote:
“Part of me wants to tell you, Andy, to just block this Welder so we don’t waste time with his incorrigibly (and likely willfully) blind ‘ideas.’
“But then I stop myself from recommending this because a part of me thinks it is not a waste of time because Welder keeps in front of our eyes the pathologies that afflict so many people in the United States right now.”
My two-cents is that the act of banning Welder, or someone with similar views is unworthy of the community members who gather here. We simply are and need to remain better than that.
Now, I also must be honest in saying that one of the levels/lenses through which I view the behavior and thought-forms currently on display on the Right – is that of psychopathology. (Obviously, other lenses would include economic, sociological, and spiritual).
It is terribly important that we study – in a precise and careful way – the character structures, intra-psychic defenses, and cognitive paradigms of folks on the right.
So, I’ll come right out and ask your permission, Welder: Would you be so generous as to allow yourself to be considered as a person, (for sure), but also as Raw Data?
Mr. Welder, you, of course, would be free to turn the same kind of lens on me.
(On second thought, I’m suddenly feeling protective of you, and might suggest that you avoid peering directly at my “dark side.”
Others reportedly have gone blind…
It’s big and dark and dungeon-y in there, and I wouldn’t want you to fall in – (‘Ho, Ho!’ – with apologies to Dr. David R.) So, I guess, it would be compassionate of me to flag almost anybody passin’ nearby this Grand Canyon – and indicate that they’d be better off to just keep drivin’ on by!
.
Seriously, a detailed analysis of the generic conservative psyche (including defenses used) always seems apropos. Although, various experts have discussed this subject, there is much “unpacking” yet to be done.
It’s one thing to name right-wing thinking and behavior as “pathology.” It’s quite another to make an exacting study of same.
So, at the moment I find myself wanting to invite psychotherapists of any and all schools of thought (Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, humanistic, transpersonal)- at some point in the near future to offer their own analysis of what has gone wrong to produce the kind of emotional/cognitive “twisted wiring” we see on the Right.
March 7th, 2010 at 10:46 am
1. Welder said,
and then later,
It simply never occurred to me that you might use the terms “the left” and “leftists” to mean “anarchists.” You might consider that using the term “the left” could be considered seriously misleading. My serious impression is that way more people consider themselves to be a bit to “the left” than just anarchists. In fact anarchists are a tiny minority. I have a strong suspicion nearing certainty that lumping them together is a marketing technique that was developed by one or another of those whose job it is to be Karl Rove types, or possibly by Karl Rove himself.
Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Hanu Man Ji said,
That seems just a bit confusing, Hanu Man Ji. We are all, each of us raw data to others, whether we them give permission for that or not. I am afraid you might be suggesting a direction that would lead to an illusion that there exists anyone else anywhere who is exactly like Welder.
Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 10:57 am
I said,
…and furthermore, Welder, you apparently used the terms involving “the left” to mean violent anarchists, which is even further misleading. Violent anarchists are, I believe, only a small segment among those who consider themselves anarchists.
Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Welder, may I respectfully suggest that you sidestep the notion of giving your imprimatur to people discussing you as if you weren’t here?
Just a thought. Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 11:23 am
The notion that the liberal side of our political divide –meaning, perhaps, people like Obama and those who voted for him– are in some meaningful sense associated with “anarchism” of a “left-wing” sort belongs with that bit of folly that bothered Samuel (that it scored points to note that once upon a time, the KKK was associated with the Democrats and not the Party of Lincoln).
If there is at work today in America any anarchistic impulse of any consequence, it is on the right wing with the rabidly anti-government strain of the Tea Party movement.
If Welder wanted to make the point that there are crazies on the left as well as on the right, he’d be on reasonably firm ground. The difference is that on the left, nothing the least bit extreme has an iota of influence– not on the U.S. government, but also not even on the Democratic Party. On the right, by contrast –and this is where the pathology of our times comes into focus– the extreme element has substantially taken over.
I remember when Barry GOldwater was considered extreme. BUt as Goldwater’s daugher wrote a couple of years ago, today’s Republican Party has an extremism (and a dishonesty) about it that GOldwater himself would repudiate.
And there was a time when the central intellectual figure of American conservative thought –William Buckley, founder of the National Review– rejected the crazy elements like the John Birch Society from participation in his movement. Now, the John Birch Society is being welcomed back in, and are a major constituent element of the Tea Party movement.
The Democratic Party is moderate to a fault. In many ways, it is to the RIGHT of the conservative parties of Europe, like the Christian Democrats in Germany and the Conservatives in Great Britain.
To try to score points against Obama and his supporters with some image of left-wing anarchists is simply absurd.
March 7th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Larry,
sardonic humor it was.
— yoda
March 7th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Hanu Man – Thanks for the “no ban” vote, but, really, Andy’s vote is the only one that matters. And it’s quite possible you don’t have a “dark side”.
I’ve pretty much considered myself in the “raw data”, curious irritant category since I got here; the thought gives me zero pause.
Larry – One of my friends who visits here on occasion admonished me that comparing the anarchists on the left to the mainstream left was a bit Rovian. I agreed but argued that my purpose here is to show you folks how you are perceived by most of us on the right. I don’t expect to see any of you play “pin the Molotov on the police cruiser”…
Having said that, it should also noted that the left oftentimes portrays those on the far right as the mainstream. I can offer numerous examples, but one of the more current ones is the recent Pentagon shooter. He wounded 2 officers before he was rendered DRT. Immediately, a cry went up from the Dem’s willing accomplices in the media that he was a right wing, government hating whack job. That take kind of evaporated when it was discovered that he was actually a registered Dem *and* a 9/11 truther. So essentially I was using absurdity to illustrate the absurd. And the absurdity is rampant on both sides.
Andy – I’ll admit to being a bit of a troll with the KKK factoids, but the fact remains that if you’re going to rally your forces in this battle against the “darkness”, you need to understand what you’re up against and have previously prepared countermeasures. There’s a lot of half truth and disinformation being disseminated on both ends of the spectrum. Sun Tzu uttered it and it’s still just as valid a tenet of warfighting today:
“If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.”
I did learn something today though:
The Republican Party was not so badly split as the Democrats by the civil rights issue. As it turned out, only one Republican senator would participate in the filibuster against the bill. In fact, since 1933, Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights in Congress than the Democrats. In the twenty-six major civil rights votes since 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.
Source:
http://www.congresslink.org/civilrights/1964.htm
I didn’t know that the JB Society was now a “major element” of the TP movement; I’ll have to check that out.
And I guess I could drag up Obama’s former long time “spiritual advisor” who has now reemerged in the company of Farrakhan and Pfleger or Obama’s former “green czar”, the self pronounced Communist and 9/11 truther, but I have to get back to work…
March 7th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Of course that’s the case. Up through the passage of the civil rights legislation, the Solid South was solid with the Democrats. Then came the civil rights bill –opposed vociferously by the likes of Ronald Reagan at the time, who began his 1980 presidential campaign near Philadelphia, MS, as a signal to the Southern whites that he was with them, and not with the civil rights workers who were murdered nearby back in the 60s– and also Nixon’s well-documented “Southern Strategy.”
Strom Thurmond –Mr. Dixiecrat– became a Republican, along with others like Shelby of Alabama and Lott of Mississippi. Now the Republicans count on carrying the South, despite the black vote, because they’ve transformed themselves into the party that appeals to the people that the Dixiecrats and George Wallace used to get.
This is not about some HISTORICAL fist-pumping and salute to the Democrats or to the Republicans. The parties can change their natures, and have with respect to race and racism. What we SHOULD be concerned with is not the parties but the nature of the spirits active in the political system.
Right now –and NOT JUST IN MATTERS OF RACE, or even most especially in matters of race– the spirits that the Republican Party is serving are ALMOST UNIFORMLY destructive, divisive, dishonest. No one who really cares about morality, no one who cares whether they are serving good or evil, should give TODAY’s Republican Party the least bit of support.
The Democrats may be flawed, in the way that political parties are ALWAYS flawed. But this Republican Party is worse than flawed. It has aligned itself with the darkest of forces in the American cultural system. And its defects are, for a major American party, unprecedented in more than two centuries since the Republic was founded.
March 7th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Hi Welder,
I was both “kidding and not kidding” (see SNL’s Kristen Wiig’s hilarious schtick re -this):
http://tv.popcrunch.com/kristen-wiig-just-kidding-judy-grimes-snl-weekend-update-video/
We all have a dark side, which the great psychologist Carl Jung called, “the shadow.” By definition, the shadow is the place where we put all the “inner stuff” we can’t accept about ourselves.
He also made a crucial distinction…that the shadow side of us is not the source of evil. Rather, evil arises out of our failure to “meet the shadow” – and integrate – the “forbidden” parts of ourselves that we have disowned and rejected.
These “negative” parts of the self are actually not negative per say, though they usually do challenge our “blameless and shining” self-image.
However when we choose to stay unconscious and do not take ownership of these integral aspects of ourselves, we have no choice but to use the defense called “projection” in order to see these qualities in some devalued “other.”
March 7th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
There’s a big difference batween a concerned American whether somewhat liberal or conservative or a little of both depending on the issue as are many of us Americans. I say, a difference between such and the scoff-law progressive (moral OR civil) and with them the crackpot hobbyist of the Righist variety.
I have made the acquaintance of a number of religious leaders in the course of my journey and there is some parallel the religious with the political.
Discussing the Methodists, who have become somewhat liberal, he said to be their minister they want the ‘hail fellow well met’ type.
He himself was of the very rigid ultra conservative type (actually they struck me as pedantic- not really understanding) yet always contentiously debating. He said “Looks like we get all the ‘cracks’ ”
Seems so . . .
Hmmm !
March 7th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Welder said,
You came across as giving your own personal opinion. The secret purpose you just stated is not an excuse for giving opinions that appear designed to mislead. You may be correct that most of those who identify as conservatives and/or tea party people believe that the class of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 are all violent anarchists. Or perhaps not.
Welder said,
I really hadn’t noticed that. Regardless, I have already said that two wrongs don’t make a right. The falsity simply leaps out at me when you pretend otherwise.
Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Welder, actually I perceive those on the far right as being the ones spending huge amounts of money to market, both subtly and not so subtly, ideas that they feel will give them more social power and increase their business, not the ones with just a gun or two.
Now please don’t bother playing tit-for-tat with that. :-7 I am aware that people in the Karl Rove group turn the situation around to talk about “the Dem’s willing accomplices in the media.” But it is totally clear that the Republicans are the ones who in fact have many many more sycophants in the major media willing to spread the talking points of Karl Rove and his ilk, ideas that are partly generated by “public relations” experts–marketers, many of whom have professional degrees in psychology and backgrounds in crowd psychology. They sell their talents to the highest bidders, to serve the ends of their clients. Reference the BBC documentary I mentioned above about certain developments, in America and Britain in particular. Any messages that cry “Poor us conservatives, look how overwhelmed we are by the ‘Democratic-controlled media’” are just so much more of their upside down turn-truth-into-lies marketing cr*p.
Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
If that is correct, it would be another instance of that right-wing pathology that leads me to think frequently of that line in Alice in Wonderland (or is it Through the Looking-Glass) about believing a bunch of impossible things before breakfast.
There’s anarchism, which is no government. And there’s totalitarian dictatorship, which is complete government control. They are direct and absolute opposites. Like all or none.
Most of the Tea-Party fantasies regarding Obama and his program that I’m aware of are toward the totalitarian dimension. Hence the fabrication of “government takeover” and the fear-mongering falsehood of “socialist” and so on and on.
If the same people who see Obama and his ilk as threatening a government takeover to obliterate our liberties and our great capitalist system, ALSO AT THE SAME TIME see the Obamites as anarchists, then their relationship with logic is on the None side of the ledger rather than the All, or even Some.
March 7th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
For you again, Welder, and for everyone else as well:
The GOP’s Dirty War
by Tim Dickinson, Posted Mar 03, 2010, Rolling Stone Magazine
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32537691/the_gops_dirty_war/print
Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Andy – Legitimate query: given your admission that both parties are flawed, the Dems less than the Repubs, would you prefer that if one party were to achieve perpetual dominance, it be the Dems? And, if Obama were to be given free reign to pass whatever legislation he chooses for the next 6 plus years, what would be your hoped for outcome for the country?
Hanu Man – That was good, I’d seen it before, and I know I have a dark side. I just try to infuse it with a bit of humor. You, I really can’t say; I don’t know you that well. Perhaps if we chatted over an ale.
Larry – No, I don’t think that all progressives are pants – on – fire anarchists, or Commies for that matter; I was just having a bit of fun, and perhaps attempting to provide you with some insight as to the mindset of some of your “opposition”. But the proclivity with which the lame stream (and mostly neutered) media attempts to portray those on the right as extremist crackpots is legion. If you like, I can provide ample verifiable links. Most of the major news organs have leaned left, but are losing viewers \ readers. That has diminished their voice. The folks have simply realized that they are being ill served and begun seeking other sources. If you don’t think that the left is pouring huge amounts of lucre into pushing their agenda, then I’m at a rare loss…
Andy – Actually, I see the left as a mostly non cohesive mass of fringe groups; they only get together when it’s time to vote against the evil conservatives. Poll the kook left crackpots, and I’ll wager they vote Dem in the high nineties, be they anarchists or Communists.
It’s almost as if the radicals of the 60′s have finally gotten access to the levers of power and they feel that this is their last shot at that “fundamental change”.
My job, as well as that of a growing majority of now awakened citizens is to make sure that this particular opportunity is stillborn…
March 7th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
The main point on that is, having ANY party achieve perpetual dominance –ie. to have a one-party state– is long-term sure to be a disaster. So what I want is to have two healthy and decent parties, and my hope for the Republican Party is not that it disappear but that it return to some degree of integrity.
As for your question what I’d like Obama to achieve if he could have free reign, the heart of the answer is what I’ve been writing about here for some years now: that the damage done to this country by the previous administration be repaired, and in particular to restore the rule of law and the respect for the Constitution.
Beyond that, I’d like for legislation to be passed that redresses the balance between the powerful monied interests, whose dominance has only grown over the past thirty years, and the interests of the American people generally.
Beyond that, I’d like for American policy –international, environmental, fiscal, energy– to provide for the future, and not just take care of the desires of the moment at the expense of the needs of generations to come.
March 7th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Welder said,
To my knowledge, the FOX Broadcasting Company has by far the largest number of viewers in its television audience. The FOX Broadcasting Company is owned by an Australian news (and other) business mogul by the name of Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch takes a great interest in American business and politics. He also recently acquired the Wall Street Journal but is said to exercise less editorial control with the WSJ than he does with Fox television. You might find it of interest to study him a bit. Reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_murdoch would be just a start.
Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Perhaps everyone but me already knows, but I just discovered on his Wikipedia page that Rupert Murdoch is also the owner of Billy Kristol’s The Weekly Standard. Isn’t that interesting! Billy Kristol has long been considered to be among the conservative (neoconservative) leadership, elected and unelected, that rose to power with the new administration in 2001. I see from a quick search at his paper that he is a big tea party activist now. Larry
March 7th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
An unqualified Yes to your generous invitation to hang out and shoot the breeze (not each other!) over an ale or two or three.
Just honestly cutting to the chase for now, my strong hypothesis is that aspects of your disowned “dark side” (though I certainly don’t know you…or your shadow!) are the driving force behind your worldview and the way – (which to my sight is often quite distorted) – you view specific political issues.
This is not, in fact, a condemnation of you. I’m simply sharing my thoughts here.
****
However, an idea literally just occurred to me. As an experiment, you might (again with a generous and playful spirit – which you do have!) try this out…
All particpants would make a specific effort to keep things very, very simple —and for a period of your own choosing, you could take on the role of “learner.” You then would engage in a very respectful, straightforward way (for example, sans statistics) and, with an open mind and heart agreed to be “taught.”
(Should you decide to accept this mission) the key would be for any others here who have a beef with your ideas to agree to engage in ZERO negativity. Folks here would need to be willing to honor you for your very brave spirit and your willingness to put yourself on the line in this way.
You and everyone would agree to do everything in your power to avoid comments that would serve to make anyone “right vs. wrong.”
If there was something you (or another person) disagreed with, you could simply say,
“I don’t see your point. Tell me more…. OK, then what I hear you saying is” – (mirroring what you’ve heard and understood – thereby giving the other person the opportunity to clarify what they said, if they do not feel that you had grasped the gist of a particular statement. And vice-versa, of course.
“Fighting” about stuff, as well as sarcasm, pot-shots, etc (sorry, David R.) would be strictly off limits – on both sides.
And….. both sides would have to agree to strictly adhere to a deep, quiet, intention to develop understanding of another point of view. And, in particular to renounce both “attack and defend” words/behaviors…that means no defensiveness or knee-jerk reactions.
Obviously, a very tall order. Twas just an idea that came to me…
*****
And yes, I do have a dark side. I keep it close by – as in “keep your friends near and your enemies nearer.” I do my absolute best to see it clearly and continue to keep in well in sight, in order that it not sneak in the back door.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:34 am
Andy – Rare agreement on your first para, I had assumed you would have wished for a permanent Dem majority and total centralized government control. My bad.
And I’m just not sure how you reassert that balance you refer to without putting a prohibitive amount of power in the hands of the federal government.
As for the “damage” you mention, I can offer voluminous examples of such being done by the current party in power both now and in the past. I’m of a mind that the current administration isn’t going to get you where you’d like us to be; and a growing number of Americans are of a like mind.
Larry – I’m familiar with Murdoch’s history. Fox reached it’s current pinnacle by providing it’s viewers with a more balanced perspective than what they were getting on the other major networks. Doubtless you’ll disagree with the “balanced” part, but left leaning bias on the parts of ABC, CBS and NBC is well documented. The folks are simply migrating to an outlet where they feel they are better served.
An interesting piece on the tea party movement:
Yesterday, the Des Moines Register released some of the information from its Iowa Poll. The poll asked if people supported the Tea Party movement regardless of their political affiliation. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said that they did not consider themselves to be supporters of the Tea Party movement, but 33% did. The interesting part of the Iowa Poll is that, of the the 33% who support the Tea Party, 49% are independents, 34% are Republicans, and 17% are Democrats. Many people have wrongfully assumed that the Tea Party movement was mostly a Republican effort. It’s not.
Source:
http://theiowarepublican.com/home/2010/02/08/tea-party-movement-takes-center-stage/
March 8th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Welder said,
I am way more cynical than you about the “perspective” being provided through Rupert Murdoch. Reference that BBC documentary I keep mentioning. Having watched that documentary, it seems clear that the “public relations”/marketing techniques that have been developed by those whose overriding personal value is increasing their own wealth no matter who gets hurt are of overriding importance throughout the Fox Broadcasting Company programming. The same applies to most of the other companies in the major media to a greater or lesser extent. The McClatchy news corporation is said to be a major exception unless something has changed recently. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/
Welder said,
I am under the impression that FOX has been a very popular channel for years, and of course it’s true that’s because its audience feels well served. As we all know, we all sometimes engage in behavior that is at least arguably contrary to what is our true best interest, such as when we are influenced by unhealthy addictions. Sometimes these “unhealthy addictions” are encouraged quite cynically by people who make money from them. One major example is the tobacco companies having spent big money encouraging people to believe that smoking does not cause cancer. I respectfully suggest that that thought applies to viewers of the FOX Broadcasting Company much or most of the time. I would be interested in the source of any information that its viewership has taken any big jump.
Larry
March 8th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Clarification:
My post just above –
Hanu Man Ji Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 11:10 pm – was addressed to Welder.
March 8th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Larry is of course quite correct to question the notion of Fox as providing a more “balanced” perspective. If one were to somehow create a space in which to chart the presentation of the world and its issue from a whole variety of sources, FOX would be off in a little island or bubble with a handful of other American right-wing propaganda outlet, while the rest of the American media, the leading newspapers from around the world, and scholarly/academic analysis from the major universities on the planet would be off –not in unison, but in some meaningful alignment– in some other space on the chart apart from that right-wing bubble.
One of the major achievements of the dark forces of the right has been to create this bubble of information– anti-science, anti-intellectual, ati-foreign, sans any notion of genuine journalism– that keeps the right’s followers in a closed system. The idea of the “liberal bias” in the media –quite laughable to most of us, and largely refuted by various empirical studies of actual coverage– was one of the opening components of this achievement: hence, someone like Welder –not stupid– has found it possible to believe that Fox somehow is a corrective to the bias and misinformation issuing out of that “Other” worldview. When the “Other” is really pretty much everything but the propaganda that’s being spewed by a coordinated set of Republican politicians and Fox News and right-wing talk radio people.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Larry – I think you’re swerving close to that “the people are too dumb to know what’s good for them” bromide again. I’m a bit more optimistic as far as the intellectual chops of the average American are concerned. I’ll see if I can find some numbers documenting Fox’s rise in viewership.
Hanu Man – I’m open to learning, but on my own terms. At my age, I’m pretty comfortable with my worldview; someone a bit younger might be a better choice for your experiment.
Andy – I could cite the UCLA survey on media bias, as well as some others, not to mention the disgraced Dan Rather’s attempt to pillory Bush on the eve of an election. And anyone who has critically listened to Maddow, Olbermann, Matthews and others in the “objective” news media would probably find *your* stance laughable. But I don’t have any expectation that we will find any agreement on the subject of media bias. At any rate, the problem for you side now is not so much on the right or in the media. T
March 8th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Sorry, premature posting syndrome… one of the perils of using a netbook.
I meant to continue:
The Dems are now starting to eat their own..
March 8th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Welder said,
It’s not lack of intelligence. Modern professional “public relations” techniques deal directly with the unconscious mind, of which none of us is much aware. I just consider myself very lucky not to have grown up with a television in the house. I own a good television now, but weeks go by that it does not cross my mind to turn it on when I am on my own. My intelligent wife, who has not been without a daily dose throughout her life except for short periods argues that she is able to see through lies and resist their effect. I certainly respect her efforts, but I’m afraid studies of the effects of various marketing techniques on large numbers of people show it to be unlikely that she is entirely successful. To answer your question, yes, she and I are able to talk. We get along very well sharing two separate residences.
Larry
March 8th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Welder, you might be interested in a book by Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage. I have long been familiar with an earlier book of his titled The Medium is the Message. That earlier one, which was I widely read best-seller as I seem to recall, appears, amazingly, to be out of print now. But looking at the reviews for this newer one, it appears to convey the same or similar extremely important ideas about how the various communications technologies in use affect our lives. This will not replace that BBC documentary The Century of the Self. Marshall McCluhan’s astute observations strongly complement the historical video demonstrations of the marketing techiques as they have evolved based on professional psychological analysis of small groups of people in focus groups that are given in the documentary.
http://www.amazon.com/Medium-Massage-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/1584230703/ref=pd_cp_b_0
Larry
March 8th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
An interesting discussion here. Too bad its so huge and I came too late to participate.
In general though, Welder’s position is all too typical of our time. It reminds me of the classic passive aggressive pattern.
Its essentially an obstructionist strategy that gives the superficial appearance of active engagement and effort while diligently avoiding accomplishing anything. The glib and breezy references to many and varied shallow caricatures of events and issues masks the inability or unwillingness to deal with them in earnest so that nothing can be done in the end. Sadly, this motion with great heat and no work is what passes for sagacity in this debased age.
(Larry: glad to see that you’re getting something from the Century of Self series. I think its a borderline profound insight into what’s happening around us. Parenthetically, I just learned about a week ago that Matthew Freud, a NY PR whiz, is Rupert Murdoch’s #2 son in law. Small world, eh?)
March 8th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Larry – It’s good you and your wife still talk; sometimes distance is good…
And I may indeed take you up on your book recommendation; Goebbel’s *is* getting a bit tedious…
MM – Thank you, I’ll add “passive aggressive” to “soldier of darkness” and the various other descriptors I’ve accumulated here…
March 8th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
No matter how slim, a counterargument is still a counterargument.
The self-righteousness of the right will know no bounds when faced with draft dodger Bill Clinton, but when the Repubs realize *their* only viable candidate is also a draft dodger — well, the left should just bite its tongue and sit on its hands. Cos the right can dish it out, but can’t take it.
The media, to me, does seem to be mostly liberal. Because the media is staffed by well-educated people, and well-educated people are mostly liberal. Liberals, in fact, are so well-educated that they’re able to understand the point of view of their, er, less well-educated Republican cousins; thus, they fall all over themselves trying to make allowances for them, as this commenter appears to be saying in this, a seemingly right-wing comment I found pertaining to the Charlie Rose-Dick Armey exchange:
“Charlie Rose is your typical liberal. They’re all for tolerance and against fascism. But there is a problem with this — the tolerant society fears to be perceived as fascists so they let all the fascists in so that nobody can accuse them of being fascists.”
Exactly! The way the liberal bias of the media manifests itself is that it fears being accused of bias, and so always gives the cry-baby right a pass.
March 8th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Welder wrote:
“Hanu Man – I’m open to learning, but on my own terms. At my age, I’m pretty comfortable with my worldview; someone a bit younger might be a better choice for your experiment.”
And, there’s the rub, my friend.
I’d be interested to know what ‘your terms’ for learning might be.
From my own perspective genuine humility (which of course is not likely to become anything like “perfect humility”!) is perhaps the greatest virtue of all.
Humility is a great virtue precisely because it creates space for new learning and growth. And we know that without growth, the human spirit shrivels.
With humility
- (connected with ‘humus’ — earth, and the ‘humor’ of being human’ or as Becker put it — “A god that shits”) -
we allow ourselves to live and fully accept our imperfection, our capacity to “get it wrong,” our fallibility and need for others and their often divergent points of view. And, we acknowledge how skilled we all are at self-deception.
March 8th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Communique to Mr. Welder (con’t)
I have seen more than my share of men and women who, at some point in their lives, simply stopped learning anything truly new.
Now, as a human bean with the power of choice, you are of course, welcome to ensconce yourself in your worldview and stay cozy and snug…..content and (perhaps) smug. We all are free to make this kind of choice.
My own passion is to do whatever work is necessary to allow my worldview to keep evolving and transforming to encompass ever larger vistas. For me this is simply more fun than the stance of, “This far I’ll go and not a step further.” I seek to practice a “dedication to reality” which in turn allows me to become aware of, and enjoy more of it!
Yet, (speaking of reality) the stance I aspire to entails a constant “willingness to be wrong” — about anything. And a continual openness to questioning my taken-for-granted (and therefore “sacred”) assumptions about life. My goal is to become ever more “teachable.”
I would say that your posting allows a peek into where you choose to be (from my point of view, but obviously not yours) —– stuck.
My fellow homo sapiens sapiens, I must at last call a spade a spade: what I observe is a rather militant unwillingness to consider that in fact, you might have “gotten it quite wrong.” “Reality be damned, if it means I might be mistaken!!”
And, as I said, you’re entitled to choose to feel “right,” rather than explore new territory….which might just lead to actuality or Truth.
And yet, if I am to be honest (and loving) toward you, I must say that by placing yourself in such a box, you can’t help but conform to the slogan on which Andy’s site is based: “None So Blind As Those Who WILL NOT See.”
………………………………………………………………………..
I know. I know….
Welder: “Hanu Man – I respectfully disagree with your point of view re- me.”
Hanu Man Ji – “As you wish, my friend.”
………………………………………………………………
Ah, Bartleby…Ah, humanity!
March 9th, 2010 at 7:37 am
MaskedMarauder said,
MaskedMarauder, one of my initial impulses upon seeing your post was just to withdraw myself from NSB.
You might want to keep in mind, MaskedMarauder, that what you have described is the openly adopted strategy of the entire group with which Welder has claimed to feel most comfortable and which he has claimed to represent here to some extent. So it is not necessarily quite as personal about Welder as your words suggest.
Do note, Welder, that MaskedMarauder was careful to say that your position reminded him of “the classic passive aggressive pattern.” To whatever extent you may be representing your comfort group here at NSB, you might decide, somewhat reasonably not to take MaskedMarauder’s words personally. I appreciate that you have managed to avoid the appearance either of agreeing with MaskedMarauder’s words about your position or of overreacting defensively.
As to the the Century of the Self BBC documentary, to me the information contained came as a most profound shock recently, with no equivocation. For those recently arrived, look for a bit more discussion in
http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5948 and
http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5923
Search those pages for “BBC.”
Larry
March 9th, 2010 at 7:45 am
William Meyer said,
I know some Republicans who are reasonably well educated, at least by some standards. It is not necessarily that they might not be able to understand the points of view of individual so-called “liberals.” It is that many of them simply see no purpose in spending the time and effort.
Larry
March 9th, 2010 at 9:38 am
I am quite sure we have all heard many times that “we are products of our environment.”* It is important to keep in mind that those who grew up in poorer** environments have a more difficult time becoming educated than others of equal basic intelligence who were born a bit luckier.
That might be relevant here.
Larry
* For an extreme demonstration see http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/psychology_everyday_life/50707 concerning the well-known Stanford Prison Experiment.
** I avoided making that sentence needlessly complicated. By “poorer” I meant, of course, in this context, child environments containing fewer adults with somewhat decent liberal arts educations. At minimum, liberal arts educations provide a cursory review of the essentially the whole scope of man’s accumulated knowledge. One may not know anything of immediate value after such an education, but at least one knows something about how to access reliable knowledge. Having in one’s environments adults who are aware of how to do that is in my strong opinion a great asset. We’ve had that discussion here, so I know that many others here would agree. In my own case the lifestyle in which I grew up would be considered “poor” financially, but both my parents were graduates of Cornell University. My Dad had three years of divinity school, as it is called, after that. And they were able to keep their children fed and in school without any outside help.
March 9th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Just fyi, my last three posts were in no way in response to Hanu Man Ji’s recent posts. The last five posts were made public here all at the same time, and I had not seen his. Larry
March 9th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Larry, could you e-mail me? (Anyone else who might wish to is free to as well)
williamuumeyer@gmail.com (replace the two u’s with a w)
March 9th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Larry,
I;ve been thinking more about the selfish/altruism polarity which you touched upon.
My college thesis was eventually published under the title: “Self-actualization and Unselfish Love.” There I explored the correlation between Maslow’s concepts of self-actualization on the one hand, and his constructs of D-love/B-love, on the other. (where D-love = deficiency or “needy” love, and B-love = love for the Being of another human being).
As I see it, the “answer” to the issue of whether humans are terminally selfish is not an abstract or intellectual matter. The resolution of the “selfish-selfless” dilemma arises out of the fact that humans are capable of self-transcendance.
I believe that self-transcendence is a higher need (higher not meaning “better” than, say, our need for safety or food). From my observations we are unable to be become healthy and whole, without meeting this need on a regular basis.
And a major doorway to self-transcendance is Love.
Hohn (bless his heart) Lennon was very clear on this when he sang:
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
“We’re playing those mind games together,
Pushing barriers, planting seeds,
Playing the mind guerilla,
Chanting the Mantra peace on earth,
We all been playing mind games forever,
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil.
Doing the mind guerilla,
Some call it the search for the grail,
Love is the answer and you know that for sure,
Love is flower you got to let it, you got to let it grow,
…..
Yes is the answer and you know that, for sure,
Yes is the surrender you got to let it, you got to let it go,
…..
Keep on playing those mind games forever,
Raising the spirit of peace and love, not war,
(I want you to make love, not war, I know you’ve heard it before)”
March 10th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Larry: withdraw? on my account? I didn’t know I was so scary. It isn’t my intent.
re:
I don’t think it is an openly adopted strategy of the group. Passive-aggressive behavior is a defense mechanism and so can only work when the performer is unconscious of whats actually being effected and by what strategy its being pursued. Its the sort of thing that you can’t do if you try to do it on purpose.
That’s not to say that the behavioral pattern can’t be adopted as a conscious strategy, as in deliberate street theater politics, or the elaborate bipartisanship pageantry that never actually accomplishes anything of substance, for example, but I don’t think that’s the case. Its more of a bird-of-a-feather kind of relationship, I think.
Also, P/A pertains to individual people, not groups, so I’m not trying to imply a rigorous “diagnosis” here. But, to the extent that it can be said that any group of people has a discernible human-like personality, I have to say that the TBers, with their kith and kin, remind me most of the P/A type in word and deed.
March 10th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
I read and appreciate your post, Hanu Man Ji. With the greatest respect, I prefer not to further this particular discussion in this particular thread. Larry
March 10th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
That’s fine, Larry. You had already stated this. I just wanted to share some current thoughts that arose re- our previous discussion, and did not expect a dialogue.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
MaskedMarauder said,
I was referring to the strategy of saying “no” in unison to anything and everything the Democratic administration proposes no matter what it might be. I do not have an immediate source in mind, but it is my understanding from numerous commentators that that strategy is commonly understood to be the Republicans’ primary strategy and that they have many or most of their constituents on board with that. They hope thereby to cause things like the economy to fall apart faster than it might otherwise so that people become angry sooner and, they hope, put them back in power. It seemed to me that that could be called obstructionism and even passive aggressive behavior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_aggressive_behavior .
The particular initial reaction I had to your post was because the ad hominem argument generally causes a bad atmosphere, ruins open dialog, and also, being one of the classical logical fallacies, wastes time. But this is Dr. Schmookler’s site, not mine. So it is not for me to say what you can or should do here, and I would understand how you might find any such appearance on my part annoying. Mainly I found what appeared to be an effort on your part to incline Welder either to disappear or to become defensive counterproductive to what I was trying to do, which was to have a conversation with him wherein he and I and of course others might trade ideas on a personal basis without being totally dismissive of each other.
Larry
March 10th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
A question for you, Larry: Could you provide the quotation from MaskedMarauder that contains what you think was an inappropriate and counter-productive way for him to address Welder? You have raised the question of what kind of standards I am and should be enforcing, with the clear implication that you think I have not enforced a proper standard in the case of this MaskedMarauder ad hominem approach to Welder. So perhaps we ought to take a look at that issue of proper standards.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Andrew Bard Schmookler said,
I do not want to be involved in that discussion, especially not publicly. I was trying to explain to MaskedMarauder my reaction to his first post of two in this thread. You are asking a lot–too much–of me to be the one to repeat it. I would be happy to share my thoughts further with you privately, Andy. I have never engaged in a public discussion of how the moderator or moderators of a site are doing their jobs or how I think they ought to be doing their jobs, and the discussions I have seen on that topic have been ugly. This is your site, Andy, your rules, regardless of whether or not I think I might do one or another thing differently. The fact is, I don’t want your job.
But again, I’m willing to have some private communication with you if you like.
Larry
March 10th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
I don’t find that response reasonable, Larry, or appropriate. You have criticized MaskedMarauder’s approach, publicly, and it is publicly, too, that you bring up the issue of whether I’m enforcing proper standards.
Those would be reason enough to regard it as appropriate for you to be called upon to spell out your criticism.
In addition, as you know, but others do not, you have on a couple of occasions, in the past two or three months, expressed serious disapproval of SOME of what I do here on NSB in dealing with one or another of the people with whom I have a confrontation of one kind or another. As I have indicated to you, privately, I understand your position but I believe in the basic rightness of what I’m doing. This is something we’ve gone through more than once, which implies that you think highly enough of your standards that you think it appropriate to challenge me with them and to continue to do so.
So it seems that you are the one that has made these standards of yours an issue, both publicly and privately. And I am seeking a public forum here in which we can put forward our arguments and see where the search for what’s true and what’s right takes us.
You put the issue on the table, and I’m asking you to make it possible for people –the people who have read your public criticism here– to give consideration to whether those standards of yours are the ones that should be observed in the course of such discussions as we have here on NSB. Sounds legit to me.
And I think the issues raised about how it is or isn’t OK to relate to people on the other side of the divide in this Bushite era are important ones. As most of us seem to agree, the liberal half of America has not done a very impressive job of dealing either with the arguments nor with the representatives of the right. So these questions may indeed be absolutely pivotal to where we are in trying to make the liberal side of America into an effect force to strip the darkness of its power.
I am suspecting that you would disapprove of some of the most important messages we are called upon to deliver to our countrymen who give their support to the forces of darkness on the right. And by “important” I mean of the kind that can help to turn the battle against those forces.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Andrew Bard Schmookler said,
Yes of course you are right that I think highly of my standards. And, as you point out, the social context is very difficult. But my first concern of course is not trying to change you, but how it is best for me to spend my time. Larry
March 10th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Do I understand you to be saying, then, Larry, that the use of your time to advance and defend those standards of yours, in a form where the number of readers is in four digits and the quality of the group is high calibre, does not make the cut when other better uses of your time get their quota?
March 10th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Andrew Bard Schmookler said,
That’s not exactly it. You are the one in charge here. Given the discussion so far I believe you have already decided that your methods work best for you. Not referring to you or anyone else here in particular but more from past experience with other forums I know that there are many in the world who enjoy being destructive for the sake of being destructive on occasion, and rational discussion does not change their minds. They can usually or often rationalize their behavior. Many of those same people are able to make positive contributions when being destructive is not an option. The question of my time had to do with whether or not NSB is a place where my participation is both rewarding for me and of possible value to others as well. I have generally felt very positive on both counts, as you know very well. Very occasionally I have been upset by the community dynamic in a particular thread or small series of threads, feeling that I just did not want to be here watching someone subjected to personal attack and sometimes being unable to do anything to help the atmosphere. I feel no need whatever to engage in defending myself about that feeling.
My having chosen to communicate with you about the problem at times has been mainly for the sake of our personal relationship and mutual understanding. You and I have been communicating with each other off and on for what, four years or so now? So given that background, maintaining ongoing communication with you one way or another is of some value to me. But as you know I have other calls on my time as well. NSB is not my main job, as it is yours. 
Larry
March 10th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
I will certainly let you be about this Larry. You don’t have to engage with me here. But I can’t say I really understand what you’re explaining when you say
It seems to me that the issues involved here –about how to talk in situations like dealing here with Welder– are of great importance and would be as useful for us to discuss as anything.
One of our members here (Roberta) recently cited me as “modeling” some good ways of speaking in such exchanges. These seem to have been some of the same ways that you were not approving of. I myself also regard such “modeling” as part of what I am seeking to do, believing that I’m onto something. Whether I am right in that belief, and whether Roberta is right, or whether you are, seem to me worth hashing out.
But we’ll evidently let that issue drop for now. Let me say for the record that I did not see anything in what Masked Marauder said to be objectionable. And so at the least I wish to weigh in in support of his having behaved appropriately, and not committed the fallacy of ad hominem that you perceived in his comment.
And with that said, I feel I’ve discharged my final duty here and am willing to declare this discussion of this “standards” issue as ended.
And btw I too regard our connection over the years as being of value.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:46 am
But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well.
Larry
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself–Rick Nelson
March 12th, 2010 at 2:21 am
The respect due the human ego (being a fiction, an illusion, “who we think we are,” but actually ARE NOT) is the kind one always should have when dealing with an intelligent and resourceful adversary – particularly one who is a master magician.
The respect due The Self (the eternal, unitary Light within all, which WE ARE) is infinite – “G-D respecting Itself.” Paradox upon paradox.*
*************
“”I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all,” Teddy said. “It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.”
~J.D. Salinger.
*************
“The Sage is not sentimental…she knows that all beings must pass away; she views all forms as ephemeral.”
Tao Te Ching
March 15th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Larry: sorry about the tardy response. I don’t visit this site every day, and when I do I don’t always have a chance to go back over “old” matters.
It may well be the case that they are being obstructionist deliberately and in full consciousness because they think that strategy will be the most effective. But its nearly impossible to argue on motives since I’m not on their distribution list for strategic planning. The public record is all we really have to go on.
Quite so, it is obstructionist. But P/A behavior is not necessarily the same as P/A personality. That’s my point. The P/A personality is an unconscious defense mechanism that lets a person avoid some distasteful situation obliquely without having to confront or resolve the intimidating or dangerous core issues directly. To one degree or another its a common strategy at one time or another in most people’s lives. One reason its common is that it works well. I’m sure this has been noticed by observers and so it can be adopted “in cold blood,” so to speak, for practical purposes via cynical means and be just as effective as the real thing for the same reasons.
I can see why the thought occurred to you, but I don’t consider my observation an ad hominem argument exactly. The thing about P/A and obstructionism in general is that it is a fundamentally dishonest approach. For the authentic P/A he’s lying to himself first and then being honestly disingenuous, whereas cynical and conscious obstructionism is honestly dishonest.
Either way, its a subjective psychological posture, not an objective empirical posture, and, it seems to me, should be confronted on that level or risk irrelevance. For example, the climate “debate” is not a debate about the climate or the impact of human activity upon it. That’s why no amount of evidence will dissuade a science denier. Reason is madness in the realm of emotion.
And finally,
My experience in such things come mostly from dealing with people opposed to evolution on religious grounds. These are the past masters and the Barnum & Bailey of the reactionary agitprop circus. Like here, they say they are knowledgeable about and supportive of science, and are only concerned with the quality of the deeply falwed science behind evolution.
But clearly they are not. Consciously or neurotically they’re lying. When that is properly understood its hard to deal with that central fact without dealing with their personal character because their character, not the theory of evolution, is the source and substance of the issue, no matter how much effort is made to draw away attention from this awkward fact.
I rarely make much headway with serious creationists. Although they say they’re open to rational discussion they almost never are, not unlike the oblique political discourse we suffer through now.
Superficially it may seem futile and uncouth to butt heads with recalcitrant obstructionists with no ostensible progress. But you have to keep in mind that there’s an audience watching. Remember, this benighted pageant was launched for their benefit, not the already fore sworn partisans putting it on. The audience is not so indifferent to the drama as the actors and so is sometimes salvageable. Forget the clowns, play to the audience, sling some good honest pies with purpose and accuracy if you must, and some good may come of it in the end.
March 16th, 2010 at 7:23 am
MaskedMarauder said,
I always have in mind that there’s an audience watching even as I address a particular person.
I see a difference between saying directly to a person, even with an audience, “[With all due respect(?)] you seem to have what is called a passive aggressive personality that seems typical of our time and here’s why I say that and why you might want to think about it” versus turning away from the person and saying to the audience as if the person weren’t still standing right there, “Folks, he’s got a passive aggressive personality that is typical of our time [so don't pay any attention to anything he says(?)].” I know for sure that I am not the only one who sees the latter approach as counterproductive rudeness and/or as gratuitous meanness, especially when the first approach is available and gets the point across just as well to the audience, or perhaps even better.
Please note also the judicious use of the words “you seem…” and “you appear…” The purpose is to acknowledge the fact that I am not actually inside the other person’s mind and that it is conceivable that what I heard was not what was intended.
I understand your temptation to refer to creationists as “clowns” just out of frustration. But as you said, you have an audience. One reason I have hung around here as much as I have is that people here generally display the personal respect that is more common face to face with people than is as common on the faceless and somewhat anonymous Internet.
I am blessed not to have encountered a lot of creationists. But I do have significant experience as an active member and moderator of a large discussion forum that included many kinds of people.
Thanks much for your thoughtful reply. As usual from you from what I’ve seen, it is worthwhile reading.
Larry
March 16th, 2010 at 9:11 am
P.S. MaskedMarauder, I feel I should clarify my impression that we have been using the term “creationists” to refer to people who think the earth was created, along with all of its evidence of millions of years of change, about 6,000 years ago. I think many people just do not become aware of that line of thinking every day. Larry
March 17th, 2010 at 1:32 am
Larry: When I was a kid I liked to watch the Burns & Allen Show. It was a great sitcom, but with very non-linear humor. Every once in a while George would step away from the situation and talk into the camera to the audience directly in order to explain some aspects of Gracie’s strange and confused predicament. Besides being amusing and novel, the stepping out of character to clarify a point of plot is sometimes necessary, not rude, because some things just can’t be made plain through in-character dialogue or action.
Indeed, even The Bard resorted to using a soliloquy, aside or even an undisguised narrator from time to time to make sure that people would understand what had just happened but was not made clear through the words and deeds.
Most spontaneous or informal human interactions are negotiations, not the execution of signed, sealed and notarized contracts. So when another person adopts some pose or other, it is an invitation to play into the scene as he sets it, not a command. But if I am not obliged to follow my cue, where do my obligations lay?
One of the most amazing things I learned in college was that The Merchant of Venice is a comedy. It came as quite a shock that what I had thought was a brilliant drama was actually a dismal and unfunny comedy. It was then that I concluded that even with the best intentions and lots of talent, nobody can ever really control what any set of words will mean once they’re spoken (or written).
The best compromise with this reality, I believe, is to be loyal to the purpose of the play, as I read it, not stylistic norms, the form of the plot, the letter of the script, the intention of the author, or the interpretation of the director. Its improv, not kabuki.
Also:
This is what I mean about the slipperiness of words. I had thought I was encouraging people to pay especially close attention to what was said by augmenting the context in which it could be interpreted.
re creationism: I use the broader definition that is not restricted to just the “young earth” variety. I include specifically the ID crowd who are perfectly happy with life coming from a roll of the dice three billion years ago (as long as its accepted without evidence that the dice were loaded and the game is fixed).
March 17th, 2010 at 11:43 am
MaskedMarauder, you might want to check with Andy privately on this, but I don’t think he intended NSB to be a comedy or a play. The social dynamics here are very different. Regardless of Andy’s intent, I don’t think most of the participants here consider themselves to be actors/actresses in a comedy or a play. Some of us are trying to be real here. That’s important. You might want to think about that in connection with what I had said just previously. In a play generally no one gets hurt, because everyone understands there’s nothing personal about anything that gets said. If what Andy is after is people being real here then I respectfully suggest that it is counterproductive to suggest that we consider ourselves actors and actresses. I suggest that some of the more modern works on interpersonal communication strategies might be relevant.
I respectfully suggest that from a social standpoint perhaps some of these these things are better not made plain at all with the victim still standing in the same room. But in my experience a great lot does become plain through dialog, given just a bit of patience and the use of such techniques as giving feedback, i.e., “So what I hear you saying is [rephrase whatever you thought the other person said].”
Of course, and well said. But I don’t think that helps me any when I see ugly things going on between and among others in the “room.”
Of course in an improv there are choices of ways to follow cues.
I keep learning that over and over again myself. :-7
I’m afraid I find that confusing. I have no clue what you might mean by that. On one level yes, it has occasionally crossed my mind that I’m in a play. But I for one am not committed to the notion that reality has a “purpose.” Yes I know, billions differ on that question. :-7
If you’re talking about your purpose then yes of course you want to be loyal to it. Again, I’m not sure how that helps me any. Purely hypothetically your purpose could be what I consider good or it could be what I consider evil. I can only go by what you say your purpose is. But a person’s purpose does not always match the effect. :-7
If you’re talking about Andy’s purpose then I wonder what idea you have about what that purpose might be such as to require you to play George Burns, Welder being Gracie Allen. I believe I understand what you said. But, with respect, my past experience with such things both in live interactions and in other major Internet forums is that that approach generally does harm to many of the members of the group–not just to the intended victim–that far outweighs any possible benefit.
Larry
March 18th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Larry,
Don’t be too distracted by my abundant use of the word ‘actor’. IN systems analysis an actor is any thing that interacts with another. Its just a way of using a common vocabulary across diverse types of interactive situations. So, while Dustin Hoffman is an actor, so is your thermostat, or the light bulb in your refrigerator that comes on when you open the door. An actor is just some element in a situation capable of doing perfoming an action effecting change in other elements.
That said, I don’t find the inherent ambiguity of the word distasteful in this particular context. People have been drawing attention to similarities between everyday human behavior and formal theater since the invention of theater. Indeed, theater couldn’t work at all unless we’re pre-equiped with a theatrical sense that allows us to permit other people’s arbitrary words and movements to engage our emotions and sensibilities. I suggest we have evolved a sophisticated sensory system through which we perceive social structure through actors strutting and fretting their hours upon stages, be they organic or contrived.
Jung, for example, used the metaphor directly in his theory of personality types. While we’re all complex, multifaceted and holistic internally, at any one time we only present one or at most only a few of those facets depending on the immediate circumstances. These restricted subsets of our personality are what Jung called a persona, from the word for “mask” in ancient theater. We show one persona (child) to a parent, another (parent) to our own child, another (servant) to a client, and etc., etc., etc. And there is nothing inherently abusive, insulting, unethical, frivolous or otherwise “bad” about this, its just the nature of how and what people are. [of course it can be and has been abused, e.g. a con man's fraud]
Humans are the most socially adept and complex species we know of and we routinely switch personas quickly and rapidly without thinking. Watch somebody answer questions after a talk. The speaker’s posture, tone of voice, facial expression and body language can all change in the blink of an eye while going from one question to the next. This is how it is by nature.
There’s nothing underhanded or manipulative here. I personally have no problem or see any ethical difficulty with putting some thought into choosing my persona to fit some situation or other instead of delegating that task to my unconscious self by default. Taking a meta-perspective, stepping back to regard my response as the public performance it is, in order to better craft my response because it is no less authentic for having been thought about and crafted. No violence is done to Truth, Justice or The American Way, in my opinion.
Equally respectfully I suggest this isn’t always so. Here’s a real life example.
A common “flaw” with evolution that creationist savants like to raise is the alleged scandal of all of the “missing links” littering the landscape. They might say “see! There’s fossil A and living species Z with no intermediate fossil form bridging the two.” The crowd gasps in wonder at the revealed catastrophic failure of science. So, I say, “Wrong. Look at fossil P, halfway between A and Z.” And Caliban comes back with “Look! There’s no bridging species between A and P, OR between P and Z!” The crowd gasps louder, one missing link has been replaced by two missing links!!
The thing is, any line segment comprises infinitely many points, there’s no way to cover any interval by a finite set of points. If I provide a hundred intermediate species there will be 101 holes. Providing a thousand missing links only generates 1001 gaps. There’s no end to this nonsense. He knows, or should know, that this is a bogus objection to the theory of evolution. And he knows, or should know, why it is bogus. The only reason he’s using it is because he knows it works with casual or sympathetic audiences, not because he thinks its cogent.
The best, quickest, surest and most efficient way to short circuit this farce, in my opinion, is to decline the invitation to play his stupid game in the first place. Its much better to ignore the challenge by pulling a George Burns and turn to the crowd and telling them flat out that that guy is just a buffoon or a crook because he knows, or should know, that N species will always span N+1 gaps, a structural constraint factored into the ToE and so presents no material threat to or refutation of it.
[disclaimer: any resemblance between the creationist caliban depicted for purposes of illustration herein and any character participating in this discussion, is purely coincidental]
And I would say in all sincerity that reality has no purpose because it has many purposes. That is, no one (singular) purpose. And, what’s more, confusion and uncertainty is the perfectly appropriate response because I don’t think anybody knows what any of those meanings are, or that any objective meaning actually exists.
I take the earlier bit about the two-faced Merchant of Venice above quite seriously: nobody knows what they mean when they say or write something until somebody else hears or reads those words, and that interpretation will vary from time to time, place to place, ear to ear, and eye to eye. In a very literal sense I can’t fairly claim to know what I’ve said until you tell me what you heard. Its all deeply recursive, you see.
All these ruminations triggered a memory of something I read a long time ago. Its taken me a while to ferret it out of the Great Heap O’ Knowledge littering my rooms. Its from Dewey’s “My Pedagogic Creed.”
Why he put the word “like” in the last sentence is a mystery to me.
March 18th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
MaskedMarauder, that is one great post, most interesting indeed.
You might be right about playing George Burns being the quickest, surest and most efficient way to short circuit “this farce,” but maybe not the best, for the reasons I’ve already given. My ways may take a little longer, but I think they are better in this situation.
That is very much worth emphasizing. My experience these days is different from yours, although I can identify it from it having happened to me occasionally and from observing others’ surprise and confusion sometimes when I point out to them what it sounds to me like they’ve said. It happens, but only rarely now do I make any discoveries about what I meant from people telling me what they heard. But it remains important in “[knowing] what I’ve said” to include finding out what the other person heard. For our onlookers, see my misunderstanding of your purpose in your original post about Welder’s alledged passive-aggressive personality, said misunderstanding having been a significant trigger for how I responded to you. I would be surprised if others here had not read your meaning the same way I did. For whatever that’s worth to you.
How about this: Because the purpose of art is art. The purpose of the art involved with communication is to enhance communication for the sake of communication. That’s how it is with me, anyway. Not that I compare with the real communications artists.
Larry
March 18th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
I said just now,
On further thought I have to add that responses from other people do quite frequently trigger my thinking to go deeper into what I meant, some further insight into myself, some new articulation. So perhaps that is similar to the process in yourself that you described.
Larry
March 20th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
You don’t know these people. They’re a nasty bunch. With very few exceptions, and its usually easy to distinguish an authentically confused person from a deliberately useful idiot, they’re just cynically performing a role written for them in order to deform science into just another religious ideology. The strategy is known as “Teach the Controversy” as part of the larger Wedge Strategy to subvert the public’s confidence in and respect for science but what is, in effect, nothing but a well funded cynical smear campaign against science and reason. These apparatchiks have no interest in seeking truth and are impervious to evidence and reason. They should be disposed of as quickly and cleanly as possible. If you can show in the process that they’re just there to manipulate the audience’s emotions, that’s just a bonus.
Yes. But I think Dewey meant it in a larger sense too.
There’s more to the process of communication than just getting feedback, which is, I agree, very important. Everything you say or write or think in words is channeled through a language invented by others and which you have no control over. You draw examples and metaphors from a public library of shared images, cognitive templates and mythic shaded parables. Elsewhere Dewey says “Society not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication.” I tend to agree.
In a sense, communication is private thought rendered into public form where it becomes a part of the collective work product of the society. Before the invention of writing this hovering cloud of accumulated public discourse, to which everyone contributed their experiences and lessons learned, and from which everyone drew precedences and normative forms of understanding, was coextensive with civilization and culture. Before the invention of the vote communication was a sort of public consciousness, contained in differing versions distributed across many individual minds together, whose “temperature” was taken in conversations and the telling of stories through which consensus was perceived and collective public actions determined.
Technology evolves quicker than species. So while we are lucky enough to have crooked voting machines and glib corporate persons to correct the numerous errors in our atavistic personal judgments, this antique human cultural mechanism stubbornly remains behind intact. It has a ravenous appetite for social meaning and participation that aren’t being met in our current circumstances but can’t easily be ignored yet.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:09 am
MaskedMarauder said,
My bottom line, MaskedMarauder: Two wrongs don’t make a right!
Larry
March 21st, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Perhaps I should add, for what it’s worth MaskedMarauder, I am not adamantly opposed to private site owners exercising censorship, very privately, according to what ever rules they may have and according to whatever may seem to serve their purposes best. They are, after all, the owner(s). Free speech is only a right when we’re talking about government funded forums. Owners are free to exclude any or all posts from people whose posts don’t serve owners’ particular purposes. And of course owners are free to exclude posts privately without having to be the slightest bit rude in the process. Larry
March 21st, 2010 at 3:13 pm
MaskedMarauder said,
Another, further, thought, MaskedMarauder: One possibility for you if you think someone ought to be “disposed of,” hypothetically, for the good of the site, is to write to a site owner and make that friendly suggestion. Just a thought.
Larry
March 21st, 2010 at 5:39 pm
By “disposed of” I meant exposed and discredited, not taken out and shot or banned from the premises. The Socratic method of discovery just doesn’t work on mules or blocks of wood.
I guess we’re going to have to disagree on this. I don’t think its wrong in those circumstances. Shortcuts are necessary.
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:56 am
Jumping back just a tad to what originally triggered this current discussion with MaskedMarauder, it occurs to me to add that I don’t use the concept of mental illness to discuss anyone’s behavior unless he or she has been certified by three psychiatrists and perhaps not even then.
For reference see Thomas S. Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. I see that that book, first published in 1961 and then revised in 1974, has just been reissued.
http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Mental-Illness-Foundations-Personal/dp/0061771228
Thomas Szasz is very old, but I believe he is still alive and kicking butt. I saw him being interviewed on his ideas quite recently. It was an intelligent conversation.
I only mention this. I will not become involved in the ongoing debate over Thomas Szasz’s ideas. I will be interested to see how it comes out among the professionals, if it ever does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz
In the meantime, for myself I find it more useful just to avoid the mental illness line of thinking.
Larry
March 24th, 2010 at 12:43 am
I’ve been a fan of Szasz since the ’70s. Iatrogenic diseases need to be taken more seriously. But patterns of behavior are patterns of behavior. Whether one is labeled ‘illness’ or not is another matter. Yesterday’s virtues are today’s crimes, and vica versa, but they are what they are.
March 24th, 2010 at 7:37 am
Welder said,
Ah, but of course our choice of words to describe a perceived pattern, our categorizing of the pattern, may affect what we do next, which then affects what other people do. And it is that choice of words that we have been discussing.
Perhaps Albert Ellis, with his ABC model fits in here. A is some input. C is what we say or do next. B is the thought, often fleeting, that is in between A and C. We can change B through self analysis if we desire to change C to produce a better result for ourselves if and when future similar A events may occur.
Larry
March 24th, 2010 at 9:38 am
I said,
Or mental filter or framing.
March 25th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
An interesting phrase: “choice of words.”
I’m not sure we have much choice in words. Except, of course, in cases of industrial “engineered” speech (advertising, business documents, political speeches, etc). Thought always precedes speech and seems to hold the whip hand. If we’re confronted that defies comprehension we’re “struck speechless”, we can’t even fake it when our mind doesn’t know which end is up. Steve Allen used to say that the secret to success in broadcasting was to keep your mouth moving even when your brain wasn’t, but then he was a pro.
Sometimes thought just ignores choice altogether and just says what it thinks (Freudian Slip), and its often the case that we don’t know what we’re thinking until after we’ve expressed ourselves. Even in deliberative speech, choice is hard to come by. Even Luntz, as cold blooded a wordsmith as can be imagined, has to conduct polls to choose his words.
The real choice part is the choice of the frame. The words to build that frame are typically inherited with the frame, or maybe slaves indentured to the notion, not really chosen. I think that’s one of the reasons for the stereotypical dialogs we have now. The firmer and starker a mind set, the fewer degrees of expression. When we think like robots we tend to talk like them.
One of my favorite lines comes from an old Phil Ochs song where he describes listening to futile arguments: “voices break before they bend,” which is drastically different from how we usually imagine failure to occur: bending under stress toward or past the breaking point. In the instant I heard it I knew it was true, but its only true for words, I think.
March 25th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Marauder said,
My point in bringing up Dr. Albert Ellis is that he proved that we can, by thinking things through, re-evaluating, and perhaps rehearsing, choose to have a different instant mental/emotional reaction before we open our mouths the next time something like “A” occurs. Dr. Ellis wrote many books and articles. An amazing number of his books are currently in print. I have read several of them in the past 50 years or so. One I happen to have now is The Albert Ellis Reader: A Guide to Well-Being Using Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (1998), in which Dr. Ellis and Shawn Blau collected what is said to be Dr. Ellis’s most important writings from the previous 50 years of his career. On page xvi of the introduction, Shawn Blau wrote:
The ABC’s of REBT
For further on Dr. Ellis’s life and work see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ellis_%28psychologist%29 .
Larry
March 26th, 2010 at 8:23 am
I don’t know much about Ellis, I never heard of him before actually. I’ll look into it, it sounds interesting.
I sort of think he & I are thinking different things though. At the bottom there’s still the chicken & egg thing: how do we choose what we want to make choices about? What makes the A an A and not a X? Yes, consciousness can be used to manage, somewhat, our own emotional environment, especially with respect to achieving/failing to achieve goals, but who chooses the goal, and why? Like the song says, who wrote the book of love?
I think Antonio Damasio is one of the best contemporary writers on “how it all works.” He’s a neurologist, not a psychologist or psychiatrist so he talks more about the nuts (no pun intended) an bolts than philosophy of consciousness. His take is that consciousness, what many think is or should be the master, is just a sort of sensory or perceptual system, like the visual cortex, that senses the emotional landscape instead of the visual field. His “The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness ” is an interesting and accessible read.
March 26th, 2010 at 9:51 am
MaskedMarauder said,
One chooses one’s own goal(s). The purpose is to reduce frustration and solve one’s practical problems as effectively as possible, one’s ability to make better progress toward one’s own ends. In many of the cases Dr. Ellis wrote about, a person’s angry response to A-type events was producing undesirable consequences for that person. The goal is to produce more desirable outcomes for oneself.
One of my major continuing goals is to eliminate internal resentment from myself. I do fairly well at it using a variety of techniques. I had the great privilege of hearing one Rabbi Amy J. Sapowith speak last year on that topic. Here is the short summary I wrote at that time based on what I heard:
I asked for and received the text of the Rabbi’s talk as a pdf file. Andy may be willing to forward it to you if you ask him. I am forwarding it to Andy now.
In turn I had never heard of Antonio Damasio. I have put the book you mentioned on my wish list. It looks most interesting. Thank you! From descriptions and reviews I doubt there is any conflict.
Larry
March 26th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
I took a quick gander at some Ellis material. It seems that REBT is used for things like stress/anxiety management. I know someone who’s taken behavioral therapy, I don’t know if it was REBT, and he says it works well.
But it seems too narrow in focus, too small a scope. I don’t see a Big Picture in it anywhere. Not that that’s a bad thing, it does what it does well, it seems, but I don’t see it answering any large questions. Maybe that’s an artifact of how its usually used and promoted; perhaps it has more depth to it than at first glance.
Still, I have to say, I find it uncomfortable. Its certainly a good idea in general to reduce anxiety and self-loathing by clearing away some of the emotional clutter, distractions and misconceptions, but I don’t see how it gets beyond the local context or immediate moment. Like MLK said, there are circumstances where being mentally well adjusted is the wrong response.
I have trouble with his use of the word “rational” in REBT. I’m inclined to use it in the science or math sense: something objectively and demonstrably true or close to true. He seems to use it in the sense I’d call practical or pragmatic. That is, the quickest, cleanest, easiest, cheapest path promoting some self interest. That’s good for a lot of things, but its definition necessarily depends on the goal because what’s practical for one goal might be impractical for another. Where does the goal come from? It has to come from outside his model and it almost certainly isn’t conscious or rational.
As you’ve seen from The Century of Self, this self-actualization that Ellis, and others, promote as the desired end point of therapy and healthy society is responsible for many of our miseries today. After all, by declaring profit their goal and pursing it emotionlessly, efficiently, and indifferent to social norms (musterbation-free), the neoliberal technocrats and their infernal rationalized markets are the very incarnation of Evil.
April 2nd, 2010 at 12:21 pm
MaskedMarauder said,
That could be. It’s not an orientation that I have noticed. But I might point out that one way to manage stress and anxiety without drugs is to become more effective at making problems go away. The possibilities are not limited, contrary to the impression you appear to have gotten, although of course some problems are more difficult than others and some might even kill us. Hopefully, though, the problems we might encounter in an Internet forum are not going to come to that extreme for either one of us.
In fact I thought about that as I was mentioning Dr. Ellis to you. My main response is I don’t want society to go back to where it was before the self-actualization movement started, as that state of society was described and shown in The Century of Self. The writings of people like Albert Ellis and Fritz Perls (Gestalt therapy) have been important to me. So I have no response to the problem of our having become more responsive to targeted marketing of all sorts. I don’t watch television, for whatever that’s worth. :-7
Otherwise as to Dr. Ellis, I suggest that actually reading some of his books might give you a better understanding. It doesn’t make sense to me to try to rewrite them.
Larry