A call for empathy and reason

Please take time to read Matt Taibbi's article before continuing to read this post

Here’s how I see our choice in the next Presidential election. Obama will bring us roses, use a water based lube, and he’ll leave $20 on the bed stand, whereas Romney will bring us plastic pansies, use petroleum jelly with sand in it, and he’ll leave the address of a church run food bank. Either way we’re going to be screwed, it’s just a question of the amenities used. I’m voting for Obama, and I wholeheartedly encourage you to do the same. Then let’s get working on the real event, “the real event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political establishment…” (Taibbi)

Why is it that “the candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time”? The money serves in two important ways. First, only individuals willing to be servile to the 1% can get elected; you won’t get the money if you don’t smile bend over when you’re told to bend over. This ensures that the 1% get their way on key issues because elected individuals and the staff that serve work for the big money, not the voter. Second, the money funds the campaign machine which churns out spin, and spin influences voters.

Why does spin work? Because we, the voters, too often fail to think critically, and we are fall victim to the use of deception through fallacies. The spin machines keep the voters ill-informed and highlight and exploit our differences, and we fail to unite around our common interests. That ideologically bankrupt political establishment that Taibbi refers to includes you and me dear reader. Big money can only control the elections if we the voters let it.

We read media reports about wording in the National Defense Authorization Act and invoke fear of the holocaust, and assail the President and vow not to support him, which in turn makes him further dependent on the 1%. We don’t have the money to buy candidates, but what we do have is the votes. Yes we should be concerned about the wording in this Act, and any other threat to our progress towards a better world. But we will not serve ourselves well by running around like Chicken Little with our heads cut off. There are two necessary tools we must train ourselves to use if we are to limit the political power of the 1%: empathy and reason.

Ask yourself this: who put that worrisome language in the NDAA and why? I suspect it was done by people who actually love this country, who read intelligence briefings, and are deeply afraid of more acts of death and destruction. The 9/11 attacks are only one example. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed. Timothy McVeigh et al killed 168 people in Oklahoma City. The biggest fear generator of all: what if the next successful act is a nuclear detonation? There actually are individuals in the world, some of whom are US citizens, who will commit heinous acts. Our government, with its military and intelligence agencies actually is trying to protect us. Governmental power can be and is abused, and when we suspect that is happening, or potentially happening as with this troublesome wording in this latest NDAA, we should raise the hue and cry, perhaps even donate some time and/or money to organizations whose mission is protect our civil rights.

But let us raise that hue and cry with an empathy and understanding that most people truly mean well, and when making bad choices are quite likely misguided and acting from fear rather than malice. Let us also respond with reason, and specifically informed reason. Always, always, and I repeat for emphasis, always question the source of your opinion. Beware most of the confirmation bias. Do you believe what you’re being told because it supports what you already believe, or because you’re being presented with an honest assessment of available information that you have made an honest effort to verify and have thought it through with critical reason? If you are reacting from fear, be highly suspicious of your own thoughts, and redouble your efforts to investigate the information with reason. Please, I beg of you, take some time to understand fallacies, how they are used to manipulate public opinion, learn to recognize when it’s happening, and help defend against this pervasive manipulation. When engaging in discussion, always do your utmost to honestly assess the conversation and participate with civility, empathy and reason. Please don’t be intellectually lazy, and chastising somebody else for being intellectually lazy is also being intellectually lazy. Rather than try to win the argument, make it your goal to have the discussion be an honest attempt to express what you understand and believe, and to truly understand what others are expressing and believing, even if they do so imperfectly. Let us find common ground, build a coalition of voters and elect representatives that are dedicated to us and our values rather than the 1%. We can’t outspend them, but we can out vote them. First, we have to learn how to effectively talk to each other and build upon our common ground.