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Those of us who keep a toe in politics have noticed unquestionably the polarization occurring between conservatives and the rest of the world.. It is as if one side is living in a world structured by different facts than the world the rest of us live in…
Guess what?
They are, (or we are, depending on which terra firma one stands on…. )
In a national poll by this conservative leaning think tank, we see that 81% of us agree we cannot agree on basic facts with our political opponents. That is 4 out of every 5 of us….
What are facts? Definition, please.
The earth revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the earth, are two examples of facts. You may have contrary opinions, but your having them will not change either the trajectory of the earth or moon.,,,
Those are facts.
Here is an example of two opinions masquerading as facts:
A) Terrorists are coming into our country with the massive influx of Syrian refugees.
B) America has the most stringent vetting of any refugee on the planet and only plans to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees across all of 2016.
One is the fact propagated by right wing fear mongers, the other is the official policy of the US government.
This causes great arguments in social media with threats and charges being tossed around by both sides, based strictly from feeding off different facts, and the result is that each is unwilling to listen to the other because their facts prove the other is just “spouting crazy…”
Sound familiar?
Now with myself a rational human, if A) were true, that is if we had accepted millions immigrants and were just rounding them up, putting bodies on boats and giving them papers in New York and saying, “here you go”… most of us would say this was ridiculous policy and very dangerous… I would put myself among them.
But as a rational human, if we are only letting in less than 10,000 a year, and we are vetting them extremely well, and some of these, like our ancestors will do great things for their new nation, then this would be the sane policy to take, and you know what? With all this in place, we could probably take more…
So you see: when on social media or in argumentative comment sections, to banter back and forth with:
A) You’re @#$@# crazy….
B) No, you’re #$%#$ crazy
ad nauseum
makes one totally miss the point that neither is crazy at all, but are in fact very similar; Both agree on the actions to be taken in both scenarios, but are just arguing because both were fed different facts, that’s all... Again most of us would be in agreement if we were all fed the same facts and only those facts…
Why has this gotten worse since the Internet, something which was supposed to put all the world’s knowledge at our fingertips?
Well, this might be a good place to remind you that the Internet is a two way street… You use the Internet to learn about the world; the world uses the Internet to learn about you.
Everything you do on the Internet leaves a record… Everything! If no one cares what you do that is probably “ok” and inconsequential to you right now… Does anyone really care if you look at porn? No, then go ahead… No one will look for that needle in a haystack…
BUT, if at some future point someone does want to find out about you, everything you did since you first logged on is at their fingertips. It could be a hiring agent, a boss, a competitive co-worker trying to get you fired, your spouse, your mistress, your gigolo, your estranged gay lover, your bank, your insurer, your best friend, your worst enemy, a political opponent, or even someone making a mistake and accidentally thinking you are someone else … right now it’s for sale to anyone coughing up $78 dollars.
So what if someone found out what you like to see and fed you stuff that would keep you engaged, instead of the opposite, making you so totally enraged at the lies you were fed, you disconnected and walked out the door to live your REAL life? Would they use it?
Rupert Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal and is now the owner.
They have two Facebook feeds, one blue and one red… Someone put them side by side.
These are both coming from the same media outlet which we thought was a body that deliberated on issues and then fed us what they thought. That was a lie. They feed us what they think we want… Which means, both sides are seeing different things.. Period…
Each side probably for the most part thinks they see the one true Wall Street Journal on their FB feed.. If you are someone over 40, you have always had the WSM dictate things to you across your life, especially if you invest. So when they show you something culled from Breitbart, you take it they have certified its validity. Little knowing the person you are “politely” arguing with is also getting notifications from the same WSM, just on a different feed, and all facts they get are opposite of yours…
So on one side we only get all facts that Hillary is guilty of killing 4 people in Benghazi. On the other side we get facts that as many times as she gets hauled to answer questions, there is no “gotchu” and it it pretty obvious that she had absolutely nothing to do with that event.
And flipped? …On one side we get all the references of previous attempted rapes perpetuated by this Republican candidate; on the other side we only get to view the inconsistencies showing that these are gold diggers who are just piling on for some extra cash.. After all, our most “trusted” source in both cases… is who told us so…
Both from the same trusted source… So which is it, is Benghazi really a crime unpunished, or is it a political football just waiting for the quarter to end? So which is it, are these really true stories of attempted assault, or are they gross misinterpretations of fooling around?
The overall answer is we need some way to hold media to truth… If you are media, you have to tell the truth. You certainly can’t talk out of both sides of your month to different sides telling each a version of truth that pits one against the other… Especially when they would probably all agree, if they were all given the same facts.
There are two ways to control it: internally or externally.
Cutting to the chase, I tend to lean internally for several reasons. One, it is far easier to manage, both at the news gathering level, and at the monitoring level.. One of the principle arguments for first allowing faux news was that as entertainment it shouldn’t be regulated. Another was that Big Brother could more easily control all information if narrowed down to a tiny few. Both of those have been proven true. It is harder to control all media since faux news and Clear Channel has emerged as huge players.
The Internet provides balance but quite often, those “trees of knowledge” fall in the forest making no sound. The Internet is so big.
Having a bureaucracy follow up on every broadcast to determine truth, is simply un-American and therefore unacceptable…
Therefore having individuals and corporations police themselves seems to be the best solution. And the best way to do that is to facilitate the filing of lawsuits anytime an untruth is uttered.. What this does, is prevent speculation from going across the airwaves. And sometimes such lawsuits can be misused, as in the Scopes-Monkey trial of a century ago. But that trial became the news for a month, illuminated pride and prejudice in a new light, and opened the doors of enlightenment as the suppressors of information got overruled…
For example: one screen shot showing a Republican Congress-person being arrested for illegal sex while having a “D” next to his name on a blue banner, could cost Faux News a pretty penny. As a result, they would tend to internally outlaw propaganda and police those themselves.
Today, saying Global Warming is not man-made, would open one to a lawsuit. Saying Hillary Clinton killed 4 people in Benghazi, would open one to a lawsuit. For those already committed to truth, it would have very little effect. If one was sure of ones source, they could go ahead and release the story… if one wasn’t sure of their source, they could sit on it waiting for collaboration from someone else……
Those of you with a few years under your belt may smile at that last line. That is how journalism used to be accomplished by family publishers before corporations bought out all our media outlets, and before computers….
Essentially eliminating all non-fact based propaganda is past overdue… Our population deserves the facts to make their informed decisions on how we should run this country.. Anyone withholding those from a segment of our people is deserving of punishment for doing so….
And finally, as we today see threats from Trump again leveled against those medias putting forth stories of his penchant for playing with little young pussies, we could limit the threat of lawsuits for intimidation by forcing the filer to pay all expense of the filing, and defender’s legal fees unless the publishing party in the end is found guilty of publishing falsehoods… Then they would pay all costs including attorney fees of the plaintiff.
If you lie it costs you. If you always tell the truth. you remain untouchable…
Then, maybe we all will become less polarized and less contentious…..
Presidential politics is too early to contemplate… But what is worth our attention is today’s fight over the playing field.. As in….which stadium will the game be played? Then follows: what are the extenuating factors that could affect the game for either team if played in that location?…
In football, it translates: Phoenix? or Lambaugh Field? One favors one climate of teams, the other,… another…
This has turned into an interesting campaign, this battle for the playing field….. There are 30 candidates from the two major parties now campaigning….
29 are saying nothing about raising taxes on the top 1%…. One is.
29 are saying nothing about stopping global warming cold…. One is.
29 are not talking about the hardships everyone making less than $250,000 is experiencing… . One is.
29 are not talking about increasing the power of labor unions and getting rid of anti-strike legislation…. One is.
29 are not talking about getting huge,gigantic money out of politics…. One is.
29 are not talking about a fair and humane immigration policy….. One is.
29 are not talking about increasing the rights of minorities and have some equality of justice…. One is.
29 are not talking about growing government to provide large numbers of decent jobs…. One is.
29 are not talking about having a living wage become our minimum…. One is
29 are not talking about sending any child to college for free….. One is.
29 are not talking about setting stronger limits on Wall Street…. One is…
29 are not talking about women’s rights as fellow human beings…. One is.
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This is the “playing field war”… And the media is completely complicit in not addressing this.. That is why it has to come from outside America’s media to report real news, that is, what is really happening….
Either we play this election out on values…. as in which direction should America go? As in where do we want America to be in 8 years? Or we play this out as a freaking cat fight…
The media is ginning for the cat fight… and If no one listens they can gin all they want… Just like when you go to a party and all the nerds get together and leave you alone. The party goes on and in the real events of who hooks up with whom, the nerd conversations in the side-rooms don’t matter. Who cares who is the greatest Dragonball Z character ever?.. How many were there?? O-v-e-r-…….. Nine…… Thousand??
But if we don’t pay attention and don’t call out our media… (it’s hard for them to refrain, just look at Allan Loudell who of all people is savvy enough to realize the pettiness of cat fights this early on, but still as a reporter, can’t help but to report that way out of habit)… then ignoring the real issue is what we are going to get…
Instead of spending all day talking about Joe Biden’s upcoming run, (will he or will he not?), most would rather hear that the 7 person Wal*mart family brings in more income than the entire bottom 30% of America combined..(90 million people). Instead of discussing the wisdom of taxing them half that amount, and using that half each year to better America, which creates high paying jobs, we get threats against Hispanic children.
Instead of spending all day strategizing about the 29 candidates who are all the same, most Americans would rather here how much it would cost to wipe out student debt, so they could put that money to their lives…
Instead of spending all day whining about Don Trump not talking to anyone and drying up the entire American newsfeed,, most Americans would rather hear how much money they would be earning now had Al Gore won, and no Bush tax cuts occurred… ($10,000 per year is average…. )
Polling question: does anyone out there wish they were making$10,000 a year more, or are you happy where you are..?
In his later years, a biographer of George W. Bush, after seeing the wasteland the Republcans created in the middle class in just 8 years, admitted his part in framing the 2000 election as the question of: “who would you rather drink a beer with?”
Remember that? It went on weeks and weeks and weeks..
He ended with: “I wish we’d analyzed what Cheney was really like, or what cutting $200 billion a year in taxes would do to the deficit and eventually break the economy. ”
Well our media is at it again… Analyzing who’s ahead; who’s behind. Who’s on the rail; who’s on the outside.
Based on today’s media, the playing field looks like it is going to be in the land of inconsequence. Where politicians will rise and fall on the style of their hair…
You need to make sure on your social media that you start lampooning (with hashtag) major media every time they focus on the inane, and ignore the profound…
Truth is: we’re America.
We can slow and stop global warming.
We can provide free college tuition to all those who go to college.
We can rebuild every bridge in this country within ten years.
We can clean every river so fish can return.
We can raise the minimum wage and everyone else’s wage too.
We can pay for solar panels on everyone’s roof so they can have most of their electricity for free.
We can mandate an 11:1 student teacher ratio in grades k-5 and 9th, and staff them.
We can get rid of standardized testing in grades 3-8.
We can afford free health care to all in this country.
We can allow unlimited $$ of produce to be bought by SNAP card holders.
We can hire 100 Accountants at $100,000 each to look over the books of the three big banks.
We can make oil a non speculative commodity. Only transportation companies can be in on them.
———
After all expenses have been paid…. America has over $2 trillion dollars left over every 65 days… it’s called corporate profits….
We can put every person willing to work at a job. None of these are hard… It just takes money now held by the wealthy to do it…
OH, THERE YOU GO AGAIN… TAKING MONEY AWAY FROM THE RICH… SOCIALISM…
That depends on how you define socialism. I’m just trying to get back to Reagan’s economy.. If you think he was a socialist, I’ll have to call you out on that,… He was nothing near a socialist…
But his tax cut dropped the top marginal rate down to 50%…. just raising it back to that level and hiring hard working Americans with that new incoming money, is the dumbest definition of Socialism you could ever come up with….
And one more thing… All that money that the one percent is putting into their pockets? That used to go to you…. $10,000 more each year, used to come to you…
Just as audience consideration is a factor in deciding where to play the Super Bowl…. so it is when it comes down to where this election will be held… You can call up your tv and radio stations and say… Hey… talk more about Bernie Sanders. I really want to know about him……..
This is a reoccurring nightmare. There is a club of senior scientists who regularly meet in Delaware, often at the second official governor’s residence and share ideas about how to rule the world in the future. Though acknowledgeably some neurons have dimmed, the collective age of scientific knowledge sitting around that table, covers two millennium.
There are many disagreements based on personal perspective. However, there is one unifying theme on which all members agree, whether liberal, conservative, or libertarian.
That is that mass-hysteria trumps science in today’s world… Facts don’t matter. Knowledge is immaterial… Propaganda rules and against that, facts are simply shut out…
It used to be when facing a crises the leadership would call in the experts and ask what the best solution would be, and what fallout to expect. The experts dutifully told them.
Today that has been substituted by marketing… One calls the pollsters. Which idea do people think will work? How will the fallout affect this group of people; how will it affect the others?
Politics is certainly important, especially when you are the first black president and 47% of the nation is out to get you because of the color of your skin…
But the people who have no idea of the facts, and are given this enormous power to decide policy, will lead us to some really bad decisions… That is the trouble with our world today.
Dumb media spokespeople, fire up a dumb electorate, who then elect dumb officials, to enact dumb policy… That is how Europe found itself embroiled in WWI. Mostly because a bored population wanted war, and war is what they got….
Europeans changed their mind, of course after several months… War wasn’t pretty or glamorous at all. Things never are when you fail to listen to experts…. those people who know facts and face those fact’s reality every day… who know every in and out… Compare that to an “opinionator” who calls himself an expert because he watched one slanted newscast on TV.
So today we have people who won’t vaccinate their kids; and want all airlines and all hospitals to shut down to prevent Ebola. Today we have people who smoke 3 packs a day, and think Obamacare for others should be abolished because medical care should only be for those who can pay dearly for it. Today we have a Congress that won’t extend wind credits, meanwhile the sea levels are rising, wildfires are raging, and reservoirs are drying up. Today we have truly a deadly flu, largely ignored because it cannot be blamed on the Black president since it didn’t originate in… darkest Africa… Today we have people who want to send children back to their death in Central America, yet not allow safe abortions here in the US because of the of chance it could kill human cells. Today we have the core of human knowledge, accumulated over millenniums, thrown out for one certified nut’s personal creation, called “Common Core”.
It is all just stupid…
There have always been really stupid people… But they have never been the ones running things. Today they are… and not to sound partisan or anything, but they are all extremely conservative. The middle-of-the-roaders, often called RINO’s, or Liberals, or Socialists, or Communists, or Pinko’s by these uneducated louts, are as sane as they ever were.
They are shut out. To get on national TV, one has to first meet the high standard set, and be a kook…
Wayne LaPierre; Sean Hannity; Rush Limbaugh; Ted Cruz; Sarah Palin; Rick Scott; Scott Walker; Paul Ryan; Rand Paul; John McCain; Lindsey Graham; Jeff Christopher; St. Louis police force spokespeople.. just to name a few.
All are given ample time and platforms to discuss any topic whose intimate details are such that they have no clue…
So where are the experts? Where are the scientists? Where are the academics? They used to be there. Anyone over 50 who remembers watching the nightly news before think-tanks were invented, can remember when experts regularly appeared on news shows to discuss their expertise…
Why is our media dominated by dummies? Why do people who once had clout, now echo the dummies instead of ridiculing them?
I think it is because they believe Americans don’t care about substance anymore but just want entertainment. Ebola comes from Africa, and so did Obama… The media has to make that connection and the first one to do so, can charge higher rates to its advertisers……
After 6 years… it is still all about putting a black president in his place… The answer that changes things: is to vote. You must vote this November to have this president’s back. After all, he listens to experts and not dummies… We definitely need more of that…..
kavips 