Ross Perot, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin?

I'm perforce following the antics of the Tea Party movement. This organization couldn't have snowballed without the Web 2.0 social networking system to enable it. Perot didn't have any access to such power in 1992. Ron Paul tried, but it hadn't yet reached critical mass. This is probably the answer to a question I recently posted as a response on (facepalm) FaceBook:

Where was that Tea Party 7 years ago, after the president declared "Mission Accomplished" in that elective war? That excursion from reality was a significant factor in converting the budget surplus he inherited into record debt. As was his creation of the largest government bureaucracy ever (Homeland Security) nominally to do what other agencies were already supposed to be doing. Then his decision to roll back those pesky banking regulations established in the 1930's to prevent lenders from packaging bad debts as good bets, sure has worked out well.

But now there is a coordinated effort to undermine the legacy political process by uniting people of disparate intentions under a single banner. Anarchists, Libertarians, Christian-nationists, assault-rifles-for-the-kids, and anti-taxers now gather together in front of cameras from every corner of the nation. Who is the current figurehead of the movement? Sarah Palin. Not that Ron Paul is yet out of the running. But certain faith-based reports count him out of Tea Party support. Maybe I'm just confused, but I'd really like to see an actual Tea Party party in the next big election. This would be a true referendum on how much support they have. But as near as I can tell from my casual reading, the Tea Party goal is not to take responsibility, but rather to sink candidates from the other parties who disagree with their very particular simple positions on complex issues.

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People Are Idiots. A Cynical Observation

The video below from TED is chilling in many ways. Michael Specter touches on observations about the resistance people have toward anything that seems to threaten their hobbit-hole view of the world. A little of this, as he rightly points out, is fine, even agreeable, but when it burgeons into matters that threaten lives and seek to derail all that has made this present era as wonderful as it is---and it must be stressed, in the face of overwhelming negative press, that we are living in a magnificent period of history---then it loses whatever quaint appeal it might otherwise have. We respect the Amish, but they don't tell the rest of us how to live and try their level best to be apart from the world they disapprove. When you see people filing lawsuits with the intent to halt necessary, beneficial progress because they have bought into some bogeyman horror movie view of science or politics or morality, it behooves us to come to terms with a fundamental reality with which we live today. First, though, the video. Watch this, then read on. Okay, what reality? That many people are just idiots. I cannot think of a more tasteful way to phrase it. But when you consider the list, justifications and rationalizations fade. The Tea Party. The Anti-vaccine Movement. The Birthers. Young Earth Creationists. Medjugorje. Deepak Chopra. PETA. Free Market Capitalism. Global Warming Deniers. Holocaust Deniers. Abstinence-Only. Just Say No. The Shroud of Turin. Astrology. Texas Board of Education. Evolution Deniers. Frankenfood Protesters. Homeopaths. Herbalists. Psychics. Scientology. I could go on. [more . . . ]

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We’ve got serious problems

The United States is faced with dozens of serious issues. It would seem that our so-called news media wouldn't have have time to rev up deep-seated xenophobia to score cheap political points. Here's John Stewart taking FOX "News" to task:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
A Farewell to Arms
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party

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Warning stickers for the use of the word “them”

"Language is the source of misunderstandings."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 - 1944)

As I read the news these days, I am struck by the great power that is exercised by categorizing groups of people into “us” and “them.” The use of the word “them” so often seems like such an innocent and natural thing to do, but look what happens when we divide people into “us” and “them.” We give the benefit of the doubt to those in the “us” group. We take better care of the “us” people. We tend to trust the “us” people, even when we don’t really know who they are. We are rude to those in the “them” group. We tend to not trust those outsiders. We instinctively twist their words to mean something other than what they say, often the opposite of what they meant. We exclude “them. Many of “us” feel hostility toward the “them” people, ranging from annoyance to things much more terrible. Many of “us” feel justified treating “them” people as though they were farm animals, or worse. Maybe this tendency comes from ancient biological roots. Regardless, we need to learn to see around our own corner--we could do so much better than we tend to do these days. And perhaps some might argue that it is not the choice of a word that divides us, but that the word choice merely recognizes pre-linguistic instincts. To the extent that this is true, it is my belief that the choice of the word "them" locks in such pre-linguistic tendencies, making them seem more stark, more real. This subtle early linguistic move of categorizing people into the “them” category has great power to harm, power of which we are usually not aware when we make that quick initial decision to place people into the outgroup category. The dangers sticking someone into the “outgroup” is well known to psychologists. On the streets, though, we make “us” versus “them” categorizations without much thought, and then down the road, sometimes way down the road, many of us pay a big price for our thoughtless choices to use such a powerful word. The choice of the word “them” is often careless and even thoughtless, but great evil can result. That’s the thing about the greatest evils of the world: the greatest evils don’t usually result from conscious intent or malice. Rather, they usually result from lack of thought, lack of conscious attention. I’ve written about these concerns before—for example, I once suggested that all humans should refer to themselves as “Africans,” an scientifically-justified categorization that might avoid much of the conflict we now see between non-existent “races” of people. And see here. I suspect that much of our social distress, “racial” and cultural, is a result of failing to use the word “them” with the care it deserves. Here’s what I interpret to be another recent example. Perhaps the word “them” should always come with some sort of warning sticker (I haven’t figured out the logistics, of course). The warning would go something like this:

Careless use of the word "them" often divides humanity into ingroups and outgroups, setting the stage for highly polarized conflict, which often escalates into violence. “Them” is a powerful work that should always be used with great care.

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Definition of an insurgent

Apparently, an "insurgent" is anyone the U.S. military deems to be hostile, this definition being illustrated by the military's explanation for this horrific video taken from a military helicopter. It certainly makes you wonder how many other dead "insurgents" were, in any way, threatening American interests. Consider also, this recent statement by General Stanley McChrystal: "We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force." Then again, a person who is outspokenly interested in joining the Taliban is not an "insurgent" as long as that person is propped up by the U.S. government in order to rule over Afghanistan. See the latest on Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Will someone please tell me what the Afghanistan and Iraq "missions" are? It's got to be about more than feeding the military industrial complex, right (and see here)?

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