Seeking an Antidote for the Poisoned Well of Modern Politics

What follows is part of a blog post today in one of my blogs. If you're interested, you can read the entire lengthy stream of consciousness post by clicking here: http://lopezonpolitics.blogspot.com/2015/05/seeking-antidote-for-poisoned-well-of.html.

We’re off to the races again and the current crop of presidential contenders is popping up like so many mushrooms in the night. The coming year will bring with it an endless stream of money-driven ads, personal attacks and talking heads with their polarizing spin intended to align the electorate in accordance with its political charge (Ds to the left, Rs to the right and everybody attacking the center, trying to beat it into conforming with either a D or an R polarity). Liberals are Liberals (except when they re-brand themselves as Progressives, of course) and Conservatives are Conservatives and never shall the train meet in the middle. Once the battle lines are drawn and the likely voters in the middle who cannot be beaten into submission are small enough so that they can be effectively ignored, we go to war in a take no prisoners, the end justifies the means fashion that eventually leads to a “winner” in the D and R boot camp that can lead the country to the usual political civil war that is our election cycle. When the dust settles and the winning general gets the prize of free rent and board at the People’s House for four years with all the golf, free first-class vacations and fund raisers they can manage in order to prepare for the next election cycle. The country is left to lick its political wounds, beaten, bruised, bloodied and blue. Whoever wins, the losers vow revenge and begin an immediate counter-revolutionary campaign to undermine the winner and, if possible, destroy him/her with death by a thousand paper cuts.

We do the exact same thing every election cycle and hope for a different result, turning democracy or people’s rule from the original Greek into democrazy in our Americanized version.

But it need not be this way. Political operatives manipulate us only because we allow them to, because we buy into the polarization and the reduction of complex issues to a simple binary 0/1, black-white, yes no answer that ignores the tremendous shades of grey that any thinking person can detect while looking at any complex issue with a modicum of objectivity. The truth is we don’t want to be bothered with the huge swaths of grey areas and promptly attack people who point to them as delusional, misguided, uninformed, obstructionists who would stand in the way of PROGRESS. Those who worry about the grey areas and fail to see only the black/white choices offered them (be they observers from the left or the right of the political spectrum) are lectured ab infinitum in an attempt to refocus their vision on the black or the white ends of the spectrum. If they do not drink the Kool-Aid and don the required blinders to view the world in the “right way.”

Binary thinking is dangerous. All true believers engage in it, be they of the (ultra) Conservative, (ultra) Liberal, Communist, Socialist, Fascist, Anarchist or other absolutist persuasion. Racists use it. So do race-baiters. So do misogynists. It leads to the “if you’re not with us you’re against us” ethos of all radical wingnuts that makes it a capital offense (quite literally, all too often) to hold an opposing point of view. It makes it impossible for people to have honest disagreements since anyone who disagrees with the “right-thinking” dogma is the “enemy” to be “destroyed” by “any means necessary.” The seething contempt we see in political attack ads (and the somewhat subtler versions in too many supposedly objective news reports, interviews and round table discussions in both network and cable news channels) reinforces this type of binary thinking. The cheap tricks of partisans who try to stifle debate by obstructionist tactics or simply by raising their voice in an attempt to drown out opposing points of view also reinforce and perpetuate this mindset.

The political well has been poisoned for too long—from the beginning of our fledgling democracy in fact (for all of their many strengths and intellectual gifts even great men like Jefferson and Adams behaved very badly in the political arena and contributed in no small way to the brackish political waters that we’ve been forced to drink from their time forward). But its waters are not beyond redemption.

Good blog, Victor. Our political process has become a political circus with focus on entertainment. It is much like a spectator sport. What are missing are referees to control the game and penalize the offenders. As Vince Lombardi once said: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Winning is the main objective. The days of “It isn’t if you win or lose, but how you play the game” are gone. Our society is based on winners and losers. Playing the game fairly is no longer a consideration. Whatever scheme works to gain votes is used. “Whenever you throw dirt, you lose ground.” That truism has lost its merit. Throwing dirt works for some. Being forced to be on the defense against lies and innuendo takes time away from the real issues. The political game is rigged. Candidates with money can afford to hire experts to create commercials that appeal to target groups. Imagine playing a game where there are no rules. That is what our political process has become.

5/19

I may sleep this one out, I'm so tired of it and I think Gov. Bobby Jindal should be
taken out and horse whipped this man has gone crazy, then again why bother
no one listen.....

Cheers..Joe..... Very Happy

I feel your frustration, Joe. In the past election I traveled far just to vote. Not sure I will do it again. I can't forget the election where the popular vote didn't count to elect the President. Absentee ballots are not deemed important. We saw that with the manipulated election of GWB. I will vote for a sensible change to our election process where every vote counts and no one is excluded. The Electoral College is an antiquated system that requires re-thinking and change. On the positive side, for those who are privileged to vote, we have a chance to make our voice heard with a vote. That is significant when and if every vote counts in the tabulation of the national vote with the end result proclaiming the winner.

Admin Number of posts : 12662 Registration date : 2008-01-11 Location : UK

Things are looking good in the UK. There's an air of optimism that had been missing during the last five years. If you give poeople too much freedom, they abuse it; they assume rights of entitlement to better themselves at the cost of everyone else.

America is facing the possibility of future generations determining their own sexual identity regardless of their birth sex. Imagine the cost of this to the tax payer.

There is a wealth of information on the 'net about the transgender community, but there is a dearth of information about the "feelings" that transgender people supposedly share with the opposite sex. None of those making such a claim offers a description of those feelings. I have yet to read an accurate explanation of what it feels like to be a woman.

If asked, I could describe in great detail about the relationship between the mind and body of the female gender, whereas the transgender mantra is that "it's in the heart and soul", which is a man's attempt to describe his feminine side that tells us nothing at all. Were he really a woman at heart, he would be able to converse at length about how it felt to be a woman in mind and body.

Instead, we are told that anything biological is of no importance, and therefore not worth discussing. Do transgender people realise how insulting to females this is? It is impossible for a female to separate the mind from the body. Only someone born without ovaries would be able to do that. Therein lies the crux of the matter; a person born without ovaries cannot feel like a woman. That's all the transgender community needs to know.

The rights being claimed by this, what is now a small but growing group of people, are not individual rights that affect just the individual, the cost of their rights has to be borne by all US taxpaying citizens. The money could be so much better spent.

5/20
Shelagh..

You are right ! I've come up with a conclusion over the years, I feel
a man if he says he feels like a woman , it's because all men and women are born with
both sets of male and female hormons, so if a guy says he feels like a woman he has to
have 80% or more female horomons same thing if a woman says she feels like a male, I
feel that they have to be 100% of that gender to know what each gender feels.

Cheers..Joe

How did we as a country survive without all of this this gender business? Now it sees to be the only thing. I really think there are far more pressing issues.

How about foreign wars, affordable education, feeding the hungry, rebuilding infrastructure, etc

5/21

Most important " Senior Citizens," we are 50 Million
Strong, we are a force to be reckon with ...

Cheers..Joe............ cheers

Subject: Yes,da, ja wist Wed May 20, 2015 9:51 pm

alice wrote:: How did we as a country survive without all of this this gender business? Now it sees to be the only thing. I really think there are far more pressing issues.

How about foreign wars, affordable education, feeding the hungry, rebuilding infrastructure, etc

Ug. You are speaking with wise words my white sister - so the world lie. there rely are much more important things to be 'kavari'.

Admin Number of posts : 12662 Registration date : 2008-01-11 Location : UK

alice wrote:: How did we as a country survive without all of this this gender business?

Much better.

YOu got it, Shelagh. We also did much better without the electronic survellance.

If we concentrated on poverty, hunger, health, employment, relationships, loving environments to raise children - then a difference would be possible. But we waste energy worrying about gender issues, controlling women's health choices, who marries who - I guess because the real issues seem impossible to fix so concentration is wasted on emotional issues instead.

Admin Number of posts : 12662 Registration date : 2008-01-11 Location : UK

A referendum on same sex marriages in Ireland is about to be announced within the next few hours. The vote is likely to be yes. From the point of view of preserving a four thousand year old tradition, the marriage ceremony should perhaps remain as is: for the uniting of one woman and one man.

To give equal legal rights to any other form of partnership, without impinging on the traditional marriage, a marriage certificate by some other name might be more appropriate. However, I think that marriage as written into Ireland's constitution will change to include same sex couples.

As far as children are concerned, they have rights too. Two same sex parents might provide a more loving environment than a conventional, dysfunctional family, but the children still have a right to know the names of their birth parents. This is true of all adopted/surrogate children.

This is a serious issue, DK. We cannot change laws willy nilly to make people happy, if by so doing there is a negative effect on society. Hindsight may give us twenty-twenty vision, but it does not correct our mistakes.

Shelagh, You have stated the truth. People try to cloud the issues here in the US with religious virtues. But, love is love when it come to people, children or old. Love, Betty

Marriage is marriage. It should not require definition, i.e., man, woman or same sex.
In today's society, a certificate of marriage is for legal purposes in defining property - who gets what in case of death or other separation. Many opt for living together without marriage. That may be a good arrangement provided there are no children. Personally, I can't imagine such a life without some form of committment.

Admin Number of posts : 12662 Registration date : 2008-01-11 Location : UK

Democracy was not well served in the lead up to the Irish referendum. In fact, it had very little to do with democracy, as you can read here in the Irish Independent:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/referendum/land-scarred-by-mental-civil-war-31228708.html

Five Star Member Number of posts : 2557 Registration date : 2009-04-27

History is a lie: We did not win the war of 1776. In all truth we were fighting to stay a part of the Crown.
England was trying to brake away from us. We were working hard to let England win the war, and the stupid French jumped in, and broke us off from England. We never wanted to brake away, all we wanted was the tea tax lowered?
Maybe Shelagh can talk to the Queen for us?

Admin Number of posts : 12662 Registration date : 2008-01-11 Location : UK

I've asked for an audience; the Queen said she can fit me in next Tuesday, 2pm. Anything you would like me to ask, let me know. queen

Five Star Member Number of posts : 2557 Registration date : 2009-04-27

Shelagh wrote:: I've asked for an audience; the Queen said she can fit me in next Tuesday, 2pm. Anything you would like me to ask, let me know.

Hmmm, I guess you're in pretty good with the old gal? Ah, do you think she would give me a title? Just a simple one like, "Sir Domenic, a sword, and one of those helmets with a feather?"

Dom, you're not asking much. If it will help, I will refer to you as Sir Domenic. With that title and about $2.00 you can get a cup of coffee.

Five Star Member Number of posts : 2557 Registration date : 2009-04-27

Abe F. March wrote:: Dom, you're not asking much. If it will help, I will refer to you as Sir Domenic. With that title and about $2.00 you can get a cup of coffee.

Thanks Abe, but if I can get the title from the Queen, I can live like a playboy with money from the common people as the
Royals do. My own Estate, a big yacht, Jewels, ride through London with my own little army in red coats. Stand at the palace with the Queen, and throw cake to the cheering crowd. My own band as I go to the restroom with a good book. What would be a good band song for that...hmmmmm?

Sir Domenic, with all that wealth, you can hire someone to create a unique song.

Five Star Member Number of posts : 2557 Registration date : 2009-04-27

I received a note from the Queen. She is still upset with the yanks from WW2. She said, "The problem with you yanks, you were over here, over paid, and over sexed. We are still dealing with the results. Your request is herby denied."
Abe, do you think I can get a title in Germany? I could be a Von Domenic, or something?

Sir Domenic, you can get a tiltle anywhere you want. All you need to do is piss off somebody and you got it. Don't know if it would be a title you would want to flaunt, but it will certainly get you attention.

Five Star Member Number of posts : 2557 Registration date : 2009-04-27

Abe,
I don't want attention, I want the GOLD.

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