About Us

Name:hwalker
Biography
Name:AuntieD
Location: Hood River, OR
Loading...

Create Your Own Blog Find Other Townhall Blogs

Comments

Archives

Blog Search

Search

A Grain of Truth or a Grain of Salt?

Posted by AuntieD on Thursday, March 27, 2008 2:47:00 PM

How are voters suppose to obtain factual information regarding the candidates?  Hwalker would have us believe that “in every statement of fluff and manipulation there is bound to be a grain of truth.”  Therein lies the rub.  Lies and rumors are passed on as truth and believed as truth because of the grain of truth.  There’s just enough truth to give the statement credibility.  Social psychologists tell us that the more times we hear something, the more we are inclined to believe it, even when statements are retracted or denied, and repeating the claim no matter the context increases it’s apparent truthfulness. 

 

So what’s a voter to do?  Questioning things we read or see in the media, hear on talk shows, receive in emails and read on blogs is essential.  Recognizing that every author and media outlet has an agenda no matter how unbiased they proport to be.  Checking facts on websites such as snopes.com and politifact.com is positive, especially before passing them on to our friends and family as truth.   Instead of looking for the grain of truth in statements, take them all with a grain of salt.  Critical thinking is essential.

 

Gathering information and listening to opposing viewpoints is healthy as long as we realize we also have our own filters.  We are predisposed to believe those things that validate our own beliefs.  Are most voters open to questioning their own values with differing points of view?

 

Every candidate has an official website that publishes their positions and a thorough reading of each is essential, recognizing that each one is understandably biased.  They would like to get elected so words are carefully chosen and statements massaged.  Listen to what the candidates say in context. Know for yourself what you heard, the tone of voice and inflection, and the audience the candidate is addressing.

 

I’m not sure how many voters are willing to put so much time into figuring out what is truth, partial truth, propaganda or outright lies.  I’m not sure I believe that most voters are informed voters but, rather, emotional voters who get just enough information to validate their own feelings before bubbling in their ballots.

 

And since the average Joe and Jane don’t actually vote for the President and Vice President, maybe they should put that energy into finding out more about their Congressional representatives and the issues. (Issues, now there’s another Pandora’s box.) My name is AuntieD and I approve of this message.

 

“In politics, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours.”  Willie Brown, California politician and former San Francisco Mayor

 

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”  Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propagada Officer

 

“It is still a dangerous world.  It’s a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses.”  Governor President George W. Bush, 2000
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (9) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Having Spent Some Time in Preparation, a Splendid Time is Guaranteed for All

Posted by hwalker on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 5:05:18 PM
We have gone through, and are still in the middle of, the primary season in which We the People winnow out the unfit candidates for the presidency in favor of who we deem worthy to enter the ultimate race. We have seen individuals come and go, offering up their bright and unique ideas about how to address the issues that face the country today. There was Huckabee with his plans to reform the tax system through a strict sales-tax policy. There was Paul with his libertarian leanings and his unrelenting message of isolation. Edwards reminded us that class is an issue no matter how distasteful we find it. The electorate spoke and gave us John McCain, while letting Hillary and Obama fight on, though I postulate that Obama will remain the darling of the people. Democracy is a beautiful thing in that it lives and breathes by the oxygen of participation. But what if that participation were compromised? 

It is apparent that within a system that theoretically facilitates and depends on participation, participation leads to representation. Likewise, if a system that is designed to facilitate participation fails to do so then representation suffers. I would contend that our system has developed in such a way that it fails to facilitate participation. Laura Ingraham said it best in her book Power to the People when she said “While our states once had complete control over education policies, criminal codes, and most other areas of domestic policy-just as the Founders intended- now their policies are dictated by Washington.” In other words, power to participate in a significant way in politics has been further removed from the people and centralized in the hands of a relative few.
 
One could argue that our system retains its dependency on the electorate by nature of its design because we still elect all government officials, aside from Supreme Court justices and members of the Electoral College. We even have indirect influence on those two groups because we elect the president who appoints Supreme Court justices, and the Electoral College is made up of people elected by the official party apparatus of which we have an opportunity to take part. In fact, as members of the electorate, we are a part of the party. The party make-up can be viewed as a “tripartite social structure” including three equal elements: 1) the electorate, 2) the official party organization and 3) party candidates who hold political office (Bibby and Schaffner 5). According to this model, the majority of participants in the party lay in the electorate. Participation is relatively strong within that faction when quantified, and so it could be concluded that the system does a good job of facilitating participation. 
 
The weight of that participation would be reduced if the information being presented to the electorate regarding various candidates were in any way manipulated by one of the other factions that make up the party. In 1976 the League of Women Voters sponsored their first presidential debate and demonstrated how powerful these debates were in swaying the electorate. With a commitment to democracy and the education of the people, the League approached the organization of these events as true, non-partisan moderators. They focused on not allowing candidates and their campaigns to have sway on what the content, format or frequency of the debates would be in an effort to maintain the integrity of the event and thus serve the people better (Farah 23-24). In 1984 the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was formed as a joint effort by the two major parties and effectively replaced the League in sponsorship of presidential debates (Farah 28). With a board loaded with activists from both parties, the goal of the CPD from the very beginning was to exert control over who could be involved in the debates, what questions would be asked and by whom (Farah 30). This was done as a protective measure to ensure the continuation of the two parties, and their strength through candidate selection and campaign finance. Unlike that of the League, the approach of the CPD creates a chokehold on the information that reaches the electorate and effectively undermines the value of their participation in the democratic process. 

I find it depressing to conclude that “our vote doesn’t matter” or that “it makes no difference who I vote for” so therefore “I will not vote.” When we as the voting public choose not to exercise our right to vote, are we not laying down our responsibility to Democracy, futile as it may seem? Let us proceed into the coming season of the General Election, not with a disgruntled mind towards the ever-illusive “They” but with a grain of salt in our back pockets and a healthy dose of cynicism that keeps those closest to us from taking us too seriously.
 
"'Isn't it funny how our inhabitions creep up on us as we age?' 'Yes, I find that I don't want to be doing much of anything naked these days...'" -anonymous
 
Ingraham, Laura. Power to the People. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, inc., 2007.
 
Farah, George. No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presiential Debates. New York, London, Toronto, Melbourne: Seven Stories Press, 2004.
 
Bibby, John F., and Brian F. Schaffner. Politics, Parties and Election in America. 6th ed. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (8) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

A Discussion of the Two Major Parties

Posted by hwalker on Thursday, March 13, 2008 12:27:08 AM
When looking at the two major parties with an interest in discovering just what exactly divides them one from the other, we discover that there are two major categories their platforms address: Social issues and fiscal issues. Everything else is some microcosm of the two. Do you say you are "against abortion" or do you say you are "pro-choice"? Do taxes hurt the economy, or do social programs invest in the economy by creating jobs? Two parties, two camps within the parties that distinguish the members of the electorate as either moderate or radical. Realizing this helps to clarify for us how to examine the reality of what the differences in the two parties look like.
 
Historically, things were pretty straight forward. Democrats utilized Populist lingo while Republicans cried "cut taxes" on the way into battle. Democrats claimed progressiveness when pushing civil rights and then again when pushing same-sex marriage, and Republicans clung to either "state's rights" or "morality" depending on the fashion of the moment. But lately things seem to have gotten somewhat muddled up. The nineties hit and the threat of Y2K/Terrorism sent us into a tailspin. All of a sudden Bill the-Golden-boy Clinton (now  replaced by my man Barrack Obama) decided to up and reform welfare and George I'll-Return-Dignity-to-the-White-House Bush got struck by the lightening of progressiveness and enacted "No Child Left Behind (NCLB)." Well, most Republicans are deeply disturbed by Bush's "compassionate conservatism" and are in agreement that not only was NCLB a dismal failure, but welfare reform was a damn good idea and how in the world did it get credited to the Dems anyway? Meanwhile the Democrats are disgusted by the trophy of 1996, resulting in skepticism of old Hillary despite her commitment to socialized health care through coercion AND are taking the opportunity to use NCLB as ammo to further sully the Bush presidency (not that the current administration needs any help with sullying itself).
 
Suffice it to say that the welfare reform legislation of 1996 did do one thing for the discussion on the differences between the parties. It served to close the gap between the two, making them virtually indistinguishable from one another in terms of the fiscal agenda. This leaves us with only one platform on which to make our decisions as the electorate: The social platform. Pretty weak platform, when one considers that Roe vs. Wade (1973) has yet to be overturned and the banning of Partial Birth Abortion served as a bone for the constituency. The only other social issue that seems to get anyone's attention these days is the issue of same-sex marriage, which was left in the hands of the States in the name of federalism. Who really won there? The Democrats, in that they kept one man, one woman from becoming constitutionalized, or the Republicans who kept the power in the hands of the State, and therefore the people? From a social standpoint, the Democrats. From a libertarian/federalist standpoint, the Republicans. Which brings us to another conundrum regarding the two parties: They both claim to be the party that represents the people, Republicans through Federalism and Democrats through Social programs, and in previous years through advocacy of Unions.
 
The idea of a Union seems to be the culmination of the statement "Power to The People." Unions were created with the intention of protecting the people from the abuse of Big Business and the God of Profit. However, it is generally agreed upon that Unions are bad for profit, and therefore bad for the market and the economy, which public policies are designed to support. In the United States today Unions have been all but crushed, particularly in the private sector. This conundrum surrounding the question of the Union is one that is vital both to discussions of the differences and relevance of parties and to the discussion of what really empowers the electorate. Why have the differences between the two parties become so miniscule and what does that look like in terms of intended and unintended consequences of policy making? Why has Populist rhetoric fallen out of fashion in the last twenty five years? Where have all the Unions gone, and does it really behoove the United States to focus so singularly on profit, served by the Market?
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (12) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Profile of an Obamacan

Posted by hwalker on Thursday, March 06, 2008 2:23:14 PM

A recent phenomenon has developed since the original Super Tuesday in February when it became apparent John McCain had a lock on the republican nomination. It is a phenomenon born of the “wasted vote” syndrome in which voters in states post-Super Tuesday whose lousy state parties decided to graciously wait their turn rather than scramble towards the front of the line (an event known as “front loading”) ask themselves “do I vote my conscience, or do I vote strategically?” In the case of this year’s candidates, this is a question only republicans ask themselves as they wonder if voting Ron Paul will really send a message to the party, or if registering democrat will accomplish a bigger purpose.

Republicans have only two ways to fall, left or lefter, and how they choose which way to vote appears to be somewhat of an unknown. As we observe the aftermath of the second Super Tuesday in which Hillary secured the ever-illusive Texas and the previously thought lost, Ohio we begin to solve our mystery little by little. It is pretty clear that old Hills owes her wins to a vast right-wing conspiracy, spear headed by non other than Rush Limbaugh. He encouraged his listeners to vote for Clinton with the thought that McCain had a better shot against her. As previously stated a few columns ago, I tend to agree. A risky move, but logical strategery non-the less. So the question remains: Who are these so-called republicans who are supporting Obama? And who came up with the cheesy contraction Obamacans? Well, it just so happens that I have secured an interview with one alleged Obamacan, from whom I will attempt to extract an answer.

*Interviewee wishes to remain anonymous for political reasons.

Q: Thank you for joining us on the blog today. Are you perfectly comfortable?

A: I’m somewhat comfortable, however perfectly is really too precise of a term for me to be entirely at ease…

 Q: Uhh…Ok. Moving on. Do you prefer the term Obama-can or Obama-con? Not to be so specific or anything…

A. Oh, Obama-can for sure. It’s much more inclusive, and you know, unifying. Obama-con implies only one faction of the party, where as Obama-can implies a greater segment of the population. Yes, unifying and inclusive, I much, much prefer Obama-can.

 Q: Alright, alright, that makes sense. So you asked to remain anonymous for this interview for political reasons. Have you encountered hostility since you converted?

A: Oh well, you know, you can’t please everybody man. But I don’t let it harsh my vibes, I just turn the other cheek. Doubters make themselves look like fools without any help from me.

 Q: That may have worked well for you so far, but critics of Obama have some very valid points. For example, just how does he plan to handle foreign relations? Or boost the economy for that matter?

A: Well, the way I see it is if he can inspire a nation to voting him as the Chief Enchilada, he ought to be able inspire the economy to boom. With him in office, I have hope for the world. Like he said it: "We can have great plans, but if we don't change how the politics is working in Washington, then neither of our plans are going to happen!"

 Q: Hmm… Well, we seem to be running out of time, so I’ll wrap with this up with one last question: Why Obama and not Hillary?

A: Well, Hillary, she’s pretty scary. She wants to socialize health care and everything, and she plans on ending the war and pulling the troops out of Iraq and I just can’t get on that nut-wagon. But Obama, now he wants to change things for the better. He wants to bring hope over the horizon and make it high noon. You can’t disagree with that! And neither can I. That’s why I proudly call myself an Obamacan.

 Q: Well, this has been very enlightening! I feel light-headed already! Once again thank you for joining us on “From the Mouths of Babes.”

A: Hey, your welcome. I am very glad to have been given the opportunity to shed the light of understanding on the Obamacan conundrum. It has been a pleasure furthering the message of hope, unity and above all, Change! 
 
If you have a question for our resident Obamacan, please comment on this blog, and they will be submitted for review and possibly posted in a followup blog.

Disclaimer: Not to be taken seriously under any circumstances and definitely not to be quoted with confidant authority when under the influence of alcohol.

Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive
« Previous1Next »