License Plate Slogans as Short-Cut Philosophy: Is Life So Simple?

I pulled my car up to a stop light behind a person whose license plate had the slogan, “Respect Life”. I had to think about that. Does that person, who paid a premium for that plate in order to display that sentiment to me as a command to me to respect life, himself or herself truly practice and obey that order? Does he swat flies, set traps for mice and squash a mosquito on his arm?

The personification of respect for life was Dr. Albert Schweizer. He spent a long time in a jungle in Africa ministering to the medical needs of native Africans. He suffered when stepping on an ant his “reverence for life” went to such lengths. And he wrote the book on it in his service.

Well, of course, I know what that sentiment refers to, the issue of abortion. But I had to think further about that license plate philosophy, and all bumper sticker beliefs, short, concise summaries of difficult issues. Rather convenient ways to think for the narrow minded, if the bearers test out in discussion to be short-sighted. I was just wondering.

The Woman in Hillary Clinton: Do We Really Want Mundanity?

I had originally written a long essay on the qualities of women applied to Hillary Clinton and contrasted that to the qualities of men applied to Barack Obama, but it turned out to be bald-faced stereotyping of women and men. I should not stereotype anyone, even though there is a tendency in me and most people to do that, to want to do that. However, I have a strong feeling that Hillary Clinton has some quality of her gender in her campaigning that leads her to the “just words” attack on Barack Obama. She is smart. We all know that. I want to account for her saying that because therein is a key to her qualifications to be the chief power in our executive government. The words of Clinton carry the style of mundanity as she belittles Obama’s recognized power of expression in his speech and speeches.

I expect a President to have a style greatly different from that of the incumbent, George Bush. Dare I suggest that it be more “oratorical”? (I have heard respected commmentators and others sniff at that word.)

I compared Bush to the Brit Prime Minister Tony Blair and found an imposing contrast in style. Style IS substance. Style can show a more profound grasp of substantive issues because the issue has more depth and breadth in the way we conceive it and express it. Style, as I define it, is deviation from the mundane into a more varied rhetorical territory comparable to leaving behind the unalleviated flatness of the plains of the big-sky country and entering the big-earth country of the Rocky Mountains of the American West. (And, presumably, the East).

Bush is a Texan. I lived in West Texas. Mr. Bush has been roundly criticised, lampooned and cartooned for his West Texas, “good-old-boy”, plain-spoken style and illiterate mistakes. There is charm there, but it does not translate into a President’s need for the global, rhetorical currency of diplomacy and international politics. His diction is mundane and laughable, in my estimation, and does not rise to the challenge of national and international diplomacy and politics. I think the people in the U.S. have had enough of it over the past eight years.

Here is my great concern: our woman candidate cannot or will not rise to the higher style that I believe is required to evince a grand vision encompassing a better future that is the outcome of government policy. Her style is mundane. Words are the bricks in the yellow brick road to a brighter future. Why would she not esteem “words”? She said, “Just words.” Do we want that commonplace style in the highest order of our national leadership again?

 

John McCain’s Thinking: Let the Fall Election Debates Begin NOW!

Sen. McCain has said that the desire of the Dems to ease the extreme difficulties of people caught in now unaffordable home mortgages is just another huge $30 billion, tax and spend program the Democrats are always coming up with. I must ask in turn if he would consider the war in Iraq not to be a massive, budget-breaking government program instigated by Republican ideology, a program many times more massive than the Dem’s proposal for a domestic problem. Ah, the trip-wires of ideology! How they can explode the ability to think!

That nominee needs to be countered immediately. Therefore, I suggest that the Dem candidates stop right now attacking each other and begin the couter-arguments to Republican Nominee McCain’s early commencement of the fall campaign for the November election. How the Dems perform should be a factor in their value as the nominee.

The Electorate: The Absolute Lowest Common Denominator of Political Judgment

I just read a blog about a prominent public figure. I felt like I was in a smelly sewer pipe underground where the rats’ eyes gleamed with what little ambient light was there. Ugh! The stench of ignorance, slander, illiteracy! Minds were there which could not discern evidence from assertion, fact from fancy, on both sides of the case–it was an unbelievable experience. I was transfixed by the flimsy, vaporous, ad hominem and sleazy means by which people argued their side. It went on and on. Hundreds of comments on one person’s blogged accusations against that public figure.

I was seeing the public mind of the masses and had to assume there was most of the beast just below the surface. Did you ever see that cartoon of a man in a rowboat getting a nibble on his little bobber, line and worm by a whale under his dinky craft? Like that, those folks were representing the masses as a general know-nothing, with an occasional wise word.

Reading that blog was a distinct education in what our democracy has to deal with. And the great tragedy is that we think we can export democracy to the Middle East!!!

However, when the fate of democracy in the U.S. is taken to the masses at the highest level in the immensity of a national campaign, much of that slime and slander is sent through a purifying process, like sewer water becoming wholesome again, and appears more fit for general consumption in the mass media.

But now I know what lies beneath in the beastly minds of a vast number of those who will become “voters”. The nominees, whoever they are, will be those who run a gamut of terrible punishments to survive the worst tortures the darkest of minds can devise. When it is said Kerry was “swift-boated”, that is not saying half of what went on underneath. That was only what survived of the smears that were conceived.

There is only one cure: an education for everybody in the methods of historical scholarship, the search for evidence by internal and external analysis to reveal the truth of what has happened. Schools provide history classes over many levels of instruction, but, from my experience and personal observations, elementary pupils and secondary students do not write histories under the watchful eyes of a historian. If they did, the terrible performance of commenters on that blog might have been improved.

Clinton, Obama: Please! No picky-picky, bicker-bicker, unless—

 —unless it’s on he fine points of differences and

priorities on establishing a national health care,
the education of children, alternative energy systems,
mobilizing against global warming, repairing and
maintaining infrastructure while providing full
employment, stabalizing the economy, ending
the Iraq war, promoting free trade, balancing
the national budget and resolving the trade
deficit, social security solvency, ringing peace
in the Middle East, enforcing regulation of
business and industry to provide consumer
protection, building back military preparedness
for a new style of warfare in fighting
terrorism at home and abroad, installing
transparency and accountability in government,
controlling over-population of the globe
with ZPG and then NPG, forming policies for
the preservation of public lands and the
conservation of water—it's a long list. 

There is a very large class of people
who must lean on government to provide
a safe and prosperous environment. Is
this a time for picky-picky? I don’t think so.

It’s a time for important questions: what is
the difference between a political solution
for the raq war and a diplomatic solution?

I am waiting to hear the language of diplomacy.
One of them did when he gave his disquisition
on race. Now I might expect the other candidate
to hold forth on gender, since that is the
revolution in politics she represents.

Remember the Bickersons? The comedy routine
pitted Alice Faye against Don Ameche
(real-life husband and wife) in hilarious
verbal battles between their characters,
the Bickersons.
I am reminded of that by the non-fictional
situation in which Obama and Clinton find
themselves, a situation that borders on
comedy if it were not so shattering
for the Democrats.

Charles Lamb wrote an essay, called
“A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG”, giving an account
of how the art of roasting a pig was discovered
in a Chinese village that did not cook its food.
A child accidentally set fire to a house in which
there was a pig. Poking through the ruins. the
people discovered the roasted pig and found it
to be delicious. There was then a rash of houses
burning down.

The moral of the story is appropriate to the
Democrat Party’s search for a nominee:
Do you have to burn down a house
to roast a pig?

A Reporter’s Flub (Chris Matthews)

In a blog entry , “Hillary Clinton and Mysogyny”, I wrote: “ ‘How do you know that?’ (Five words few reporters use.)”

Well—

—finally, I heard a reporter, Chris Matthews, ask one of his panelists that critical question. The panelist’s answer was, “I’m a reporter!” It caught Matthews by surprise. He answered with the consternation of a chuckle, as did the others on the panel. (Sun., 3-23-0 My reaction was: “Hah! There you have it! In a tough nutshell!” Matthews, Mr. Hardball Matthews, let him off Scott free. The panelist totally avoided the real question by taking refuge in what is supposed to be the natural expectation and reputation of all reporters. Hardball became badminton where the ball became a bird that slowly floats. The man did not answer the question!! What I have strongly maintained, journalists do not ask that strong question, and really mean it, and persist if the question is not answered. From that fact issues, unquestioned (except by a teeny-tiny minority), a war and death and vast treasure lost in following a man who wanted to be a hero of 9-11-01 and a war President, assuring his re-election. (See: “Buying the War” on Bill Moyers Journal (3-7-2008)”, a previous blog entry of mine.) The subject is the incompetent media, newspapers and radio and television, especially their reps who show up at briefings at the President’s news conferences. The books long after the fact analyze and report, but by then they are writing history, and it is far too late to influence emerging stories and events.

Getting answers to “How do you know that?” yields either reliable knowledge or unreliable sources.

Obama and Clinton, Sliced and Diced: A Demographic Operation

Race v. gender is a simpleton’s analysis. Instead, why not consider the whole array of factors, known as demographics, in addition to race and gender: blood (family), age, nationality, education, religion, economic status, social class, politics, occupation or profession?

Other categories to be evaluated regarding the “just words” and “speeches” issue between Clinton and Obama should be the categories of their usage in the verbal code (vocabulary, syntax, semantics, style) and the nonverbal code (kinesics, haptics, oculesics, vocalics, appearance and dress, facial expression, etc.) That judgment is much tougher than judging them on two rather obvious surface appearances. DUH!

That is, if you really want to know. Is the person we are to put in the office of President worth a thoroughgoing analysis? I think so.

Measure each factor using a scale of evaluation, a nominal, ordinal, or interval scale to rise above the simplistic analysis. Everyone right now is groping around in a dimly lighted discussion. The additional criteria are really being used but in a way that voters do not and probably cannot know what they are doing, judging without awareness. Most can only say they have a vague feeling of affinity or repulsion. Using the additional categories should brighten an awareness. Isn’t it possible that Obama or Clinton can be compared in the whole matrix of criteria and a calculation could be made into a better index of suitability for each candidate?

List the categories vertically and make two columns, three,with McCain thrown in. Assign 33⅓% to each of the three. Then adjust the percentages according to some nominal evaluation you wish to make. Such an exercise would sharpen one’s view and support a more rational choice.

I have done it, and I have made my choice. It is the one person I would choose to be the personage I would be more delighted to hear in all the ceremonies pertainng to that office, and in addition would be more likely to make the better decisions. I grew to see that candidate perform brilliantly in a diplomatic role for relations abroad and in a political role making the agenda for policies that would work for the betterment of all U.S. citizens.

On Hearing Sen. Obama’s Pastor: The Flip Side

I heard Sen. Obama’s Church of Christ pastor preaching today. I can hear the uproar now even before turning on the talk radio station or the news. I know without listening what they all are about to say. He must denounce and reject that man’s preaching against the singing of the national anthem. Well, hold on. There is a positive side that may not be heard.

Have we ever had indications from Sen. Obama that tell us how deep into the “culture of the black people” he is? Can that be judged by the voters? I know there is a domestic culture of black people that has language, paralanguage and nonverbal dimensions that most of us white folk know little about. I have encountered it and been found wanting in understanding the offenses that may innocently be committed without my awareness. (I know that political correctness should be defined as “cultural astuteness”. PC is an exhibition of CA.)

Since I believe one of our social goals in the U.S. is to have peace and understanding among all citizens of this melting pot, defeating in the long haul all vestiges of racism, sexism, and so forth, it is my obligation to continue my education in the best ways of communicating across cultural differences.

In that spirit, I see a black pastor preaching to his congregation with content I find ridiculous. But that’s his prerogative. His congregation accepts it rather enthusiastically. He is holding up the nation of “the man” as a villain to be disrespected. So that’s the status of our society. People need to know that. That feeling of disrespect is still strong. The report of his preaching puts it out in the open. And that’s the way it should be!

The kicker is that we might now have a President who will bring this society even closer to the problems of our racial divide. (Just as Hillary’s campaign has brought us all closer to an understanding of how a woman might campaign for President. Her campaign will constitute a model for future women candidates for President.)

Obama’s candidacy and perhaps eventual presidency may accomplish some additional healing, of the sort which I heard Bill Cosby and others talk about.

Hearing Obama’s pastor was not a bad thing. Hearing Obama’s pastor was an interesting event, not something Obama should have to show regret for. He should say that it was an event encouraged under Constitutional protection that we can all learn from, learn toleration, understanding, and something about a man who might be our President.

His incendiary speech set nothing on fire. He was asking, in a church building, his deity to damn the U.S. If there had been a tsunami or a tornado or a hurricane devastating our countrymen immediately after he uttered those words, that would have constituted, to the Jerry Fallwell or Pat Robertson types, proof of the deity’s retribution. There was no breaking of the rules of free speech by the pastor. How often and how many people everyday curse our government for this or that?

Comments on “Buying the War”, Bill Moyers Journal (3-7-2008)

“The story was there, but the vast majority ignored it.” We had all of the run up to this war on faith alone, faith in the administration’s willingness and competence in telling the truth and having motives of the highest order of responsibility for the best interests of the people. But the journalists just passed on and recycled the administration’s line, in the most prominent and respected journals.

After viewing the proigram, I am startled at the number of great news men and women in print and the broadcast and cable media who have, in my estimation, tarnished their credibility for their role in “buying the war”. Knight-Ridder newspeople and the organization come out as the rare heroes of a special, professional, healthy skepticism that dug deep and found the story and the truth, the Emperor had no clothes on, “bar nekked”. Now there will be lots of waffling among those who suffer from a disease of skepticism. They could not say, “Show me the evidence! The basis of your contention! Who are those who said so? We do not want your shills (Colin Powell, Condi Rice) to give it to us second-hand.”

To see those of my favorites under obvious stress as Moyers questioned them! A spectacle I was disappointed to see. They were all complicit in “truth-squadding” the President’s news conference at that time. Why did the press buy it? How were they flummoxed in a group-think approach to their professional duty? The answer: “Dissent is not only unpatriotic, it’s bad for business”, as Phil Donohue said in the program. They might have been ordered by their “owners” to squelch their better instincts.

Are these klieg-lights of journalistic organizations and expertise now feeling chastened and regenerated by their rough outing in this program? I might ask of the President and his minions, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Powell and all the rest, along with the journalists, don’t you feel the enormous weight of the deaths of our youth and the squandering of vast sums of our treasure in Iraq should rest on your consciences the rest of your lives for having sent them into a war for no reason except your own insane (and under-the-table) motives? You should never again have the ability to smile.

I will watch to see how they confront the candidates (nominees) for President. I will look for questioning abilities that probe for the important underlying issues at stake. On that basis so far, I must conclude that the focus of their questions has generally missed the core of all issues: how will you operate our government and formulate the policies you will submit to the people’s representatives, the policies and program of legislation? How will you present the face of the United States to the world? How? We must watch for the probity of our press corps carefully.

I Invented a New Word

Predicament. You are in trouble with some pr_ _  _.

Depricament. You got out of trouble with that pr_ _ _.

Bull Hit on Caucuses

I am a definition guy. That started at Northwestern University in graduate classes taught by Clarence T. Simon and Karl F. Robinson. Simon taught us to define in the philosophy of science, especially behavioral science, and Robinson taught us definition in pedagogical process. Both much revered.

Here is my feeling for an operational definition of the “caucus”. It is a meeting of like-minded people to discuss what they have in common. Now I am going to look it up in the dictionary.

Probably of Algonquian origin. (O-ho, a native American concept!) A conference of party or organization leaders (as legislators) to decide on policies, plans, appointees and candidates, etc. So, the native Americans had working, probably pure democracies?

My experience was not a good one as a model of democracy. There were too many people to have a “discussion”, as I define the term, NOT “conversation”. Ordinarily, there probably are fewer people, but it was our bad luck to have such an exciting political season. The leader said, to start, we will have only one minute for any comments. Several stood up and made speeches of very short duration to the large group, of whom I knew none living in my area, and they also seemed not to have connections to any supposed neighbors.

We had to have two counts on Obama and Clinton, one pre-“discussion” show of hands and one post-”discussion” stand-up-and-be-counted. Two had changed positions. That was it. I left thinking that could have been done by a ballot with hanging chads.

It was very cold and I had to park quite a distance from the school. I’m glad I went. The tribe is no longer a tribe but an overpopulated society which is a larger amalgamation of smaller communities of interest. Oh, if we only had a policy of NPG, and then ZPG! Someday it will be de rigueur .

The Bad-Feeling Test: Obama or Clinton?

Which candidate would give you the worst feeling if that candidate lost? I found that test to be a very telling one for me.

Bull Hit on Day-One!

When is day one? The day after the inauguration? There is no day-one. Not the kind meant by the oft-repeated phrase. Okay, do not take it literally. Then when is it? The first week is day-one? If there is a day-one, it means a general readiness to deal instantly with what drops out of the sky into your lap. No newly minted President could or should commit to an instant deal. We should hope that our new President has a deliberative mind with a process that is second nature (habit) to deliberate, and that process contains two words, experience with the mental habits of a history of applying a deliberative process, and judgement which is the result of decision making. The questioners should have been asking about the candidates’ process of making decisions, asking about their operational definition of deliberating and making decisions, personal exemplary cases of their problem solving techniques. I heard the governor of Colorado, before he was elected, give such an understanding, unasked, of how he would operate the levers of power.

I have never heard reporters ask such operational questions. That’s why I do not like the intrusive presence of journalists in the campaign and election process. They have a historical sense that adds to their value in reporting. But they have become managers of the agenda. I was extremely excited when, during the debates, a candidate would wrest control of the process from the inquisitors. YEAH! Reporters have been suspect for many things. There is the oft-raised question, where were the reporters when the question of going to war in Iraq was being proposed?

Day-one is a myth. Has no definitive value. But it has been a big question.

Judgment is the balancing of alternatives. Judgment becomes more difficult with the increasing number of alternatives. (The more candidates there were at the beginning increased the complexity of our choice. The two that remain have reduced the complexity to black or white. Uh…. yeah. Or, male or female. (Hmmm. It’s still very complex.)

Day-one is a “Saturday Night Live” sketch.

Republican-Democrat Nominees Debate- The Framework

Forget the journalists as moderators! Let them remain the copper wire, not the electricity! Let’s have real debates between the two nominees for President and the two Vice-President running mates!

There are professional, academic debate specialists in the universities and secondary schools who will not interpose their own roles between the candidates and the issues. They know debate. They know what argumentation is. It is NOT what we have seen when managed by the TV and newspaper newsgatherers who are wannbe stars of their own shows. The questions they present to the candidates are ripped from the latest headline-news and regard the candidates personalities too much. The reporters do not know how to frame propositions that make good debates sharpen the issues that are most important to the debaters and the people.

It is very important to have a debate, which is a series of speeches. It is extremely important to have speeches of a certain length IN ORDER TO AVOID RUDE INTERRUPTIONS BY FAST-TALKING OBFUSCATORS OF THE ISSUE. ALL TALK SHOWS THRIVE ON THE LATTER CONFUSORS, BECLOUDORS WHOSE SOUND-BYTE TALK GOES FAST INTO BICKER-BICKER. Those who “moderate” such gibble-gabble must somehow think that that mess of talk without respectful listening is drama demanded by the medium of TV. Case in point: The Mclaughlin Group, worst offenders. They allow a reporter to string together only two or three sentences before the over-talking begins. The deliberative mind does not benefit. We are given “conversation”, which goes a very short while before the subject changes.

I propose this framework:

1. A moderator who is a professor in argumentation and a “successful” coach of a university debate team in national, regional and local, interscholastic events. The National Communication Association will provide the roster of potential moderators who work within the special entity of university debate programs. It would be an honor conferred on those academics.

2. Each party, Democrat and Republican, will work with the chosen debate moderator to frame propositions for each of the issues to be debated, health care, economy, Iraq War, global warming, energy, education, immigration, infrastructure, judicial appointments, social values such as abortion and gay marriage, separation of church and state, NAFTA, United Nations issues, and so on. Such an intense, directed focus on our national problems is required to solve them with the Presidential powers to propose legislation and to eliminate irrelevant and frivolous matters.

3. The issues for each debate will be limited, and the propositions will be announced in advance.

4. The nominees’ arguments for or against each proposition will be given within a time limit to be predetermined. Perhaps four or five minutes for each speech.

5. The nominees will declare their stance, for or against, the proposition. It may happen that both will speak for, or both against the stated proposition where the proposition is supported or not supported, but the differences will be in the details of analysis, evidence, reasoning, history, plan of attack.

6. Each nominee will give three speeches on one issue, a constructive, a rebuttal, and a reconstructive. If one nominee declares support for the proposition and the other declares against it, then the debate proceeds thus:

I.

a. Constructive: for. Five minutes.

b. Constructive: alternative constructive. Five minutes.

(One minute break. Or commercial break.)

II.

a. Rebuttal.Three minutes.

b. Rebuttal. Three minutes.

(One minute break. Or commercial break.)

III.

a. Reconstructive. Three or four minutes.

b. Reconstructive. Three or four minutes

END OF DEBATE

(24 -26 minutes per proposition)

7. Moderator has the gavel to rap at the end of the alotted time. He or she presents the nominees, explains the process, states the proposition, clarifies terms, and generally oversees the debate.

8. All audience reactions should be prohibited.

9. Nominees should stand for all presentations.

That is a rigorous course for the nominees to run. Shouldn’t they have the stamina? Good ptreparation for their press conferences in their incumbency. We should be able to determine some of their style of leadership.

____________________________
Ron Lubensky wrote this comment. I am putting it here in case you may have missed it.

I agree with your starting point. Having the media run the actual debate benefits the media more than the public. Professional moderation would provide rigour.

However, the debate protocol defends a binary proposition: defend option A or B, true or false, yes or no. Of course, we need to be able to distinguish between the candidates and their positions. Rather than push each towards extreme positions, I’d prefer a format that permits the expression of broader, more centrist, overlapping positions, but where the detail and subtleties of implementation for example may differentiate them. I’m less interested in rebuttal, as it is too often scripted and done poorly with misinformation and distortion. I’d rather see clear expressions of commitments and understanding of the policy landscape by the candidates. Leave it to the viewers to judge the merits of the proposals and the competence of the candidates. Finally, and most importantly, the debate format you promote still doesn’t bring people into the process, which I think is what is really required. The questions addressed by candidates should be the result of a deliberative process that harvests them from a microcosm of the population. And the process needs to be able to surprise the candidates–after all, we are looking to see how they react unscripted on their feet under the glare of the camera.

My response:

Let me clarify. When I say “a”, I meant to indicate that is one of the nominees and “b” is the other nominee, not a proposition.

In the short time between the constructive round and the rebuttal round–yes, “rebuttal” as a hard job of any respectable debater– , nothing can be “scripted” except in the sense that the speaker-nominee “a” has generally practiced his or her stump speech so much that you might say, in a way it is “scripted”; it is extemporized from a long campaign of practice. Same for the speaker-nominee “b”. We have just had the exhibition season.Now it’s on to the finals.
What will be good for us is that we will have a direct clash between opposing parties for the first time, focusing on a subject matter restricted to just a few crucial issues in each debate.

No more “my friends” conversation. This is high level discussion and debate at the highest level, two specialized terms in the nomenclature of the debate specialists. Not for amateurs or the “minor” league.

The audience participation you desire should be done with demographically selected, as pollsters do the job, focus-groups after the debates at a remove from the debate hall, same building or across the continent in the regions blue or red. These debates should be a media event, primarily. Actually it should be the people who bring themselves into the process in discussion groups in libraries or some such meeting hall throughout the nation. Or, what’s better, livingrooms filled with neighbors or friends or relatives gathered to watch and discuss each event. What a “hotbed” of democracy that would be!