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I reread the beginning of this book in which Mr. Bloom decries "relativism" and what we call "diversity" in American Life, in favor of teaching tradition and moral standards, dare I call them "absolutes", in academic education. My reaction was pretty much the same as when I first encountered the book around 1980, this guy is a conservative basically, and with all the faults of same.
What he decries is a shift in the way people get and process information, and the problem would be addressed by people making time to think about what they get on the new electronic media a bit more. Bloom would like to see books and academic discussions shape what students think, as it did in the past, that is not goiing to happen. Today's population is even more removed from the thoughtful, deliberative style than it was in 1980. With that comes peril, but with every such change comes opportunity. Maybe some new thinker will digest the issues for virtuous decision making in a way more appropriate to the new forms of communication.
This is especially obvious with what the dialogue of ideas in this country has become, which is to say no conversation, as people with absolute ideas are trying to take over. Bloom might agree that the pendulum has swung too far, or maybe not, but he might agree that the quality of the discussion is poor. Just having strong convictions does not mean virtue or can it lead to compromise as the core of democracy. He might realize that the people with the strongest convictions, those on the Right, are simply selfish.
TopThe new Congress takes over today with its Republican majority in the House and its slim Democratic majority in the Senate. The Tea Partiers have vowed to dismantle ObamaCare, the President's Health Care Plan with the last Congress made law 8 months ago. Since the House holds the purse strings and the Government has huge deficits, largely due to Republican tax and spending policy, will it simply grind to a halt under gridlock? I'm sure there are Libertarians who want just that, and their domination of the GOP may be paid off, literally, by a plutocratic minority who now funds the election process. As noted by Paul Klugman in a recent Op Ed, what a majority say they want is not reflected in the power balance. He doesn't say it, but I say that the income distribution inbalance is at the root of this, and it could destroy the Union, something the Libertarians might also want.
The saving grace in this is that the newcomers are just that, and will make mistakes in exercising their power which might cause most of them to be one term wonders. The economy is just beginning to recover and maybe some of these people will seem too extreme to their constituants in a couple of years and they will be turned out. Also, even though wealth is a threat to the political process, the billionaires who tried to buy their way into office here in California failed, and thanks to the scrutany given them. I still think Plutocarcy is a threat to the Union.
Even though I disagreed with Obama's compromising with the Republicans and with the idea that they don't moderate their rhetoric in response, I can see that maybe the ability to create a concensus is more important than the agenda just to keep the country together. Maybe Obama thinks that the acrimony is as bad as during the 1850's and could lead to another division of the Union. I still think that rather than being a battle over slavery the battle is now a class war caused by an emerging plutocracy which wanted to get power since before Reagan. Politicians don't cause things as much as express things that are already there. Time to reread Karl Marx!
TopThe recent shootings in Tuscon in which a well-liked congresswoman was injured, and a Federal Judge and 8 others killed, and many more injured, by a 22 year old man with an extended bullet magazine for a Glock 9 automatic pistol, turns out to be not directly inspired by the heated political rhetoric of the regional contest the congresswoman endured, but by the evidant mental illness of the shooter. Still, it seems that Sarah Pailin use of what looked like sniper's cross hairs to "target" Democratic congresspeople whose seats were up for grabs in 2010, which included the district of the person shot. has done almost as much damage to her as to the brain of the woman penetrated through and through by a bullet. Miracously, the congresswoman has not only survived but is regaining consciousness, although she has a long recovery ahead.
What this shows, in light of recent incidents, and of attacks on public figures in the past, is that attacks from mentally ill perpetrators is an important factor in politics, and now an important thing to consider as the rhetoric gets heated, as it did last year. I should say that the event shocked many politicians and especially those who delt with their injured collauge directly. Of course some Democrats and Gun Control Advocates were quick to blame Right Wing rehtoric for all this, but the evidence from the shooter's Internet history shows a tenuous connection with ideoogical positions of groups such as the Tea Parties, at best, and more to do with his own confusion and fantasy in a state of mental sickness. It is doubtful that he will stand trial or be executed for the murders, more likely he will be committed to a Mental Institution for life.
This also shows how poorly we treat the mentally ill, many of whom never comitt such a crime as this, but are notheless neglected, either poorly treated or end up being homeless. If it were our desire to pervent those few who develop fantasies of mayhem, most of which we discover after the fact, we would have little hope of intervening to stop them and protect ourselves, Now, at least for a while, our public figures will be more careful about how they say things so as to not incite those few who would develop plans of violence, whom we allow to run free and do not treat.
TopFirst, let me state right out that I find Oil Companies are run by ruthless and cynical people, the worst of liers in business, where in general ethics is in short supply, the bigger the firm. So, there is this ad in which lip service is paid to alternative energy, but it has an unconvincing tone. The subiminal message contradicts the words bing spoken message. I just heard the ad again and it dawned on me how the ad does this, and how sneaky and cynical it is. The words about the alternative energy, which I have as little doubt based on facts, as I do about PG&E's recent ad in the same vein. Both companies want the public to believe that they are truely interested in alternative energy, when they really aren't.
So, the technique in the Cheveron Ad is to have the words spoken by an earnest young lady with an imposibly baby voice. Her voice may have in fact been altered to give it a higher pitch. The subliminal message is that the person speaking is not to be believed, being both a child and inexperienced. Were the same copy spoken by a resonant male voice, it would be received with more authority. I think that the intent is to denigrate the message.
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