Trump's contrived "disgust" with Hillary's trip to the toilet

Anyone who has ever majored in college psychology knows that the big pay-off in the field is in advertising. The 2016 presidential campaign is about to unleash the full force of psychological manipulation on the vulnerable voters in Iowa and New Hampshire…and South Carolina etc.

Opponents will be portrayed in grainy black-and-white, nightmare footage. We’ll hear creepy voices. We’ll see candid, hand-held photos of opposition candidates exposed in unguarded moments. Sound bites will flash by utterly out of context.

It all taps into our psychological vulnerabilities, needs and fears.

It is also a dangerous charade. Without a “media literate” electorate, a functioning, rational democracy is impossible.

But wait, there’s more!

This year’s campaign has introduced and entirely new psychological element beyond advertising manipulations. It arrives courtesy of the one, the only, Donald Trump. Although he would deny it, I’m guessing it is the product of invisible, high-paid geniuses — those psychology majors—hired by his campaign.

I’m thinking this is no less than the work of the candidate’s psyops (psychological operations) team. It is also a hand-and-glove fit with the candidate's own weird psychological profile and acting skills.

It works on several fronts. I’ve mentioned before Trump’s use of the non-verbal. Without “saying” anything in words (allowing deniability) he speaks volumes in gestures. The smirk, the pause, the nod, mimicking (of the disabled no less), the flailing of arms, flagrant ignoring of “boundaries.”

Others include overt bulling and outright lying. (We are seeing increasing references to Hitler and “The Big Lie” in expressed concerns about Trump as The Leader.)

I’m particularly intrigued with Trump’s technique of producing off-the-wall and crudely vivid mini-images. Their being indelible attaches them permanently and subconsciously to Trump’s victim. Because the images are disgusting, to use Trump’s own word, they have a particular deep psychological resonance with conservative voters.

See research reference: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/10/30/your-brains-response-to-a-gross-photo-can-reveal-your-political-leanings/

You can bet that the Trump psyops team is well aware of the research.

And so we have Trump citing and critiquing Hillary Clinton’s trip to the toilet in the recent Democratic debate. Without going into the scatological details of the non-event, Trump simply labeled her break as “disgusting.”

He leaves his audience to fill-in-the-blanks.

As noted above, disgusting images set off conservative subconscious alarms.
The image, of course, provides a graphic association to Trump and his backers’ views of Clinton and her campaign.

Clever, huh? And oh so funny.

Would any other Republican candidate invoke Trump’s own biological need to defecate, let alone label it “disgusting”?

In the odd world of Republican politics, they would seem to be missing a psychological opening to right-wingers.

Beyond drum-beat citations of  “American Exceptionalism” and the nation’s seemingly divine mission (God bless America!) and the dangers of terrorism, they should be invoking Donald in the toilet.

This, fellow citizens, it what we call democracy in action.

Lessons from the 2014 election

Random and opposing thoughts regarding the mid-term election:

Our political system will continue to be corrupted by and in the grip of those obsessed with money and power.

We will rely on the leadings of the spirit and the spiritual.

Gross inequality will continue.

We will distill our lives, or our lives will be distilled for us.

The militarism will continue.

We will learn by the riveting experience of suffering…and forgiveness.

Secrecy in government will increase. Our privacy will continue to be invaded and diminished.

We will be clearly shown that we are one, that we depend on each other, not as "The other" but as "The one.” We ARE the enemy and the enemy is us. (Pogo was right, sort of....)

Purveyors of fear (still the great motivator) will continue to shape our culture and attitudes toward our neighbors, be they on our street or in the rest of the world.

The Great Unraveling will teach us compassion and humility.

Global warming will continue. “Natural disasters” (Nature shaking off our toxic species) will grow more and more severe.

The manifestations of environmental disintegration and the power of nature will force themselves upon us. They will require us to change.

Ignorance will spread…thanks to fundamentalism, corporate media, distorted values, amplified media demagoguery and impoverished schools and families.

We will discover truth through experience.

The homeless, many of them veterans, the mentally ill or both, will continue to find homes only in the streets. They will continue to be neglected, even scorned. Children will suffer in growing numbers. Homeless, hungry and abandoned.

We will learn that change begins with us acting as individuals and as communities (including ‘communities of interest’). Change begins in “small places” within the "oneness."

Technology will grow with little or no consideration given to unintended consequences. Escapist sports, games, consumerist values and other fantasies will define our culture. We live in a drop-out, fabricated, media-manipulated world of distorted and corrupted values.

We will withdraw from corporate media, consumerism and their contrived values. There will be a growing suspicion of technological change masquerading as “progress."

Crime will increase, including that committed by our “system of justice.”

We will be forced to examine and re-examine deeply, and then reshape, our values and our actions. Restorative justice, compassionate listening and non-violent communication are manifestations.

The good (love) in religions will be muted; the bad (prejudice, anti-intellectualism, self-righteousness and judging) amplified. Religions will grow as a problem, not a solution.

We will turn to spiritual “leadings” and reject religious dogma and dictates.

Government and politics will grow as a source of our fear and despair.

We will focus on and do what is possible. We will live and act more closely to our communities and homes. We can not afford to be distracted by events (news?) we can do nothing about. We will govern ourselves.

Our infrastructure will continue to crumble. Private profit will reshape and then destroy “The Commons.”

We will be called upon to act together and independently in new, sustainable, cooperative, humane and creative ways.

We may not have “fallen far enough.”

We will evolve to new awareness and, then, a new consciousness.

Clara's world

The birth of our first grandchild, Clara, early Sunday morning here in Portland has left me elated and somber.

The joy is pictured in the photo, taken when she was a mere 10 hours old.

Clara arrives as I am well into the first year of my eighth decade.  I've done a lot of soul-searching about aging, death and their mysterious meaning of late, but little Clara's arrival snapped me out of it.

Now I'm riveted on the equally mysterious beginning of life. Clara, like infants everywhere, inspires wonder. My wonder is two-fold: deeply spiritual and, alas, political and environmental.

These tender beings, clearly vessels of the Spirit, speak to the urgent need to heal the planet and drastically, radically, reform our political and economic systems. Innocent new life poses the question of the very meaning of life. It comes down to a question of values.

Some might even ask whether the planet can absorb yet another life like Clara's. It's a fair question, but I find it impossible even to consider as Clara and I stare into each others eyes — in wonder.

Here is the hope and challenge posed by small ones everywhere: Can we old — but not-so-wise — souls still make Earth habitable and hospitable, peaceful and spirit-nurturing for new lives like Clara's?

Four more years....

I’m looking into the future, to August 2016 to be exact.

It is not a pretty picture.

Sure the unexpected can happen (and likely will) but assuming the “normal” course of events given what we know, the government will either be hamstrung or following ruinous right-wing policies.

The hamstrung scenario has Barack Obama as president and the Republicans in control of both houses of Congress. Yes, governing will be even more difficult than it has been for the last four years. At best, the nation and the government will be on hold. The question in August 2016 is, who will the Democrats choose to run for the presidency and will they be able to take back Congress? The answer to the first part is most likely Hillary Clinton. And, no, the Democrats will not be able to take back Congress, whose major function will have become to blame everyone, including fellow members of Congress.

The economy will be even worst than it is today and the Republicans will still be in their Grover Norquist, drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub mode. The Republicans will no doubt choose, yes, Paul Ryan to head their ticket. He’s such a nice, “refreshingly thoughtful” man. At some point the GOP might change its name to the “Tea Party.” Perhaps a real Republican “party of Lincoln (and, Oregonians please note, Hatfield and McCall)” might re-emerge.

On to scenario #2. The country is run by the Romney/Ryan administration with the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress (Okay, they might lose one or both in the 2014 mid-term elections, but you get the idea.) The rich get even richer (anyone want a sixth Caddy and a seventh home?) and everybody else tanks. Under this scenario, Bernie Sanders decides to run for president (as a Republican Socialist?) and the Democratic nominee is...hmmmm. Your choice. Could it be that no one wants the job?

Pulling the levers on all the above will be the very, very rich and the very, very secretive. Casino owners, TV wrestling magnates, defense contractors and corporate carbon-belching global warmers. (Did I mention that the drought and weather extremes will worsen over the next four years?)

Meanwhile, in the streets, expect food riots, Romney-ville or Obama-ville homeless camps. The Occupy movement of 2011 will look like a picnic in the park compared to what’s coming.

If reviving the economy means declaring yet another war, we may finally see veterans take to the street to demand an end to the madness. It is a madness that is literally leading them to take their lives in appalling numbers. This too will not abate.

Back in the world of electoral politics (if it can be called that), the options are grave. Of course someone will chime in to say that at least scenario #1 is likely to produce a more moderate Supreme Court. When the choice boils down to the future of the Supreme Court, you know we are in trouble.

The best way to spend the next four years is to do some serious blank-slate rethinking about the state of the nation, its constitution, its values and its role in the world. What say devolve into very small, autonomous manageable states? Switzerlands come to mind. Split Oregon down the middle, East and West.

Ecotopia anyone?

At the very least, the thinking might provide political talking points as the election campaign gets serious in late summer of 2016.

A Mormon candidate welcomes gambling money

There's no end to examples of hypocrisy when it comes to religion and politics. You could start with the biblical injunction "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and apply it to Christian and Jewish elected officials who routinely preside over killing in the name of "defense."

Exhibit A is the current occupant of the White House and his predecessor.

Here's another. Mitt Romney is a devout Mormon, and Mormons vehemently oppose gambling in all forms.

Yet in today's New York Times, we find that the largest single contributor to Romney's drive to become the next president is none other than billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson and his wife. The couple is into Romney's effort to the tune of $10 million.  (Note in passing to multi-millionaire Romney: Christian Scripture has a few things to say about the sins of of mammon. At the very least one's spouse ought not drive two Cadillacs when one will do.)

When it comes to Mormonism and gambling,  how does the devout Romney justify being supported by money gleaned at Las Vegas gambling casinos?

Seems like a fair enough question to ask in this presidential campaign.

Sadly, it is just one on a long list that underscores how politicians sell out principle for the money needed to attain power.

The practice obviously corrupts both political parties and our government. The Supreme Court has only made matters worse through its notorious Citizens United decision.

The problem is endemic in a political system ripe for demolition and massive reconstruction.

Photographing Truth

“Afghan photos worry military” reads the front page headline in today’s Oregonian.

The headline reflects the story that follows — up to a point.

The story says that the “revelations...caught on camera” have “intensified questions within the military community about where fundamental discipline is breaking down given the nature and length of the war.”

Questions: Are the photos intensifying the questioning? Does the military require photographs before it knows what is happening within its units? Before it gets serious? Do those photographs have to be made public in order for action to be taken? What if they had never been published?

As is all too common with stories that put the heat on government institutions, the very publication of the news (in this case photographs) becomes the story. Should the Los Angeles Times have printed them? What will the publication do to the morale of our troops? Will their lives be in danger?

(THIS STORY in today's New York Times reveals that the Pentagon made an issue of the publication and tried to stop it.)

In short, the publication itself, not what it reveals, becomes the headline grabber.

Lest we forget, the outrages depicted, like those of Abu Ghraib and others (the list long), are bought and paid for by us, the taxpayer. To extend the consumer analogy, we need to know what we are buying. If it isn’t what we had in mind, we need to stop buying it.

The problem is that we are forced to buy it. We have no options. The two major political parties are identical with regard to the brazen barbarity they have allowed in the military, the intelligence agencies and contract mercenaries.

As we get farther and farther into the 2012 campaign, the candidates will lay out sharp, allegedly “defining” differences between their parties. But who will point to their troubling similarities: reliance on massive contributions from the super-rich, the need to pander to and serve the military-industrial-media complex, the defense of “justice” that is anything but, the support of covert operations at home and abroad that shred human rights and human dignity, the denial of the need for immediate, urgent action to stop global warming, the acceptance of grotesque inequality?

“Afghan photos worry military.”

What kind of photos will it take to “worry” us, the People, into changing our current unresponsive political/governmental/military/industrial system?

HERE is an example of what's possible. The short clip is called "Things Happen."

The costs of media's concocted political 'wars'

When historians write about the incivility of American politics in the early 21st Century, they need look no farther than this nation’s media.

Indeed they need look no farther the relatively staid Oregonian. Today’s front page will do. Here's the headline on a major story there:

Political
ad wars
target
your TV

Cornilles and Bonamici
fire a fusillade of 1st
District commercials for
the holiday season

Here’s the story's lead, “The ad wars have started in Oregonian’s special congressional election, with plenty of hard-hitting political commercials in store for Portland-area voters over the holiday season.”

Sure, things may get nasty on your living room screen, but war? Targets? Fusillades?

Once again, the mainstream media roll out their tired old “war” metaphor to describe politics in this country.

Shame!

On the front page, the story to the immediate right of this one tells of real war.

More Oregon soldiers home for Christmas
The Guard’s Mideast presence nears a 10-year low as Iraq War ends

Welcome home, the paper seems to be saying. Welcome home to another war. The one we at The Oregonian have created to tell the story of American politics. Perhaps you, soldier, would like to end this one too.

My advice is this: It’s easy. Just stop reading the newspaper...and watching TV.

Stay away from the message that democracy American style is as bad as war.

Perhaps we all should declare peace and have nothing to do with the "democratic" fighting. Funny thing is that most of the voting age population does just that.

Surprised?

Could it have to do with the desire for peace and civic sanity?

The problem is that if those who value peace and sanity turn their backs on democracy, who ends up running the country?

Answer: those who are infatuated by or profit from war. Those who control the media. Those whose being is defined by conflict, inflated egos and a distorted sense of patriotic superiority.

Meanwhile, the Occupy Movement, dedicated to non-violence, gets trashed by the politicians, the ones whom the media tell us are waging “war” with each other to get elected.

Mixed in with the Occupy crowds are the cast-off veterans of real wars, those life-destroying conflicts declared by the ruling class with its insatiable need for oil, power and third homes in the Bahamas.

Do I roam too widely here? Perhaps; perhaps not. I hope these thoughts and my anger take you beyond the headlines of this morning’s newspaper.

If only we could change the story line and the metaphors of tomorrow’s reporting and headlines.

Would someone in management at The Oregonian at least send around a memo to the headline writers. “Lighten up! We are talking about an election, not a bloody war.”

Why the media miss the story

Jeff Cohen’s Common Dreams column, “Mainstream Reporters: Too Close to the Field and Teams to get the Debt Story,” uses sports' play-by-play coverage as an analogy for why the Press is missing (and the Public isn’t getting) the real story about the country’s economic and fiscal crisis.

He blames the Press’s “cult of balance” and “impartiality” for its woeful short comings.

The analogy to game coverage, while helpful, misses the point.

The real failing of the media is that underlying causes aren’t “news” to a Press corps working the 24-hour news cycle. A cause doesn’t “develop” or change each and every day. Causes are “old news” and hence unreported.

And so we, the public, forget or ignore the causes of our problems.

It is hardly breaking news that this country has a shameful disparity of income between the wealthy and the poor, that the rich own the political system, and that the tax code is shot through with loopholes benefiting the wealthy and corporations.

It isn’t news that the military accounts for nearly half our budget and shovels money (and retired generals) at corporate America.

Meanwhile our infrastructure, our health system and our schools crumble. No “news” there, either.

Instead, the “news” of the day, and hence the public’s focus, is play-by-play coverage between the 10-yard markers on the field, as Cohen notes. Such coverage results in headlines like, “Boehner gets debt plan through House.” Big deal.

Imagine a front-page story with this headline: “The richest 10 percent account for 80 percent of Republican campaign coffers” or “Tea Party: bought by, beholden to Billionaires” or “The Richest Americans scapegoat the Poorest.”

The problem is that each of these stories did not "break" in the “news cycle.” In short, it doesn’t fit the definition of "the news." No, to find out about these mega-causal issues, you have to read books.

Who in this knee-jerk, instant analysis, Twitter world has time for that?

Finally, Cohen knows, but doesn’t mention, that the Press is beholden to its advertisers, stockholders, interlocking corporate boards and financial chiefs. And just who might they be? (think Rupert Murdoch...) And to what extent do they define the news and determine the information the public receives?

"Information wars" in Washington DC

Our political culture has a “combat mentality.” It doesn’t exactly fit with our naive civics-class indoctrination from the 8th grade.

How bad are things in the world of politics?

Sometimes the “war” seeps out around the edges, as it did on Tuesday in a seemingly innocuous article about young Washington, D.C. aides hired to digest the news and present it to their bosses.

While news readers in technocratic departments seem to approach their jobs relatively dispassionately, Bobby Maldonado, 26, brings a different mentality to his job working for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He's up at 4 a.m. to get a jump on events so that he can strategically analyze, arrange and present them to his big-business bosses at the Chamber.

You get a flavor for his, and the Chamber’s, perspective when you read how young Maldonado describes his job.

“The information wars are won before work....Our executives walk into meetings and they’re doing battles, whether it’s on health care or cap and trade, and information is power, and my job is to make sure they’re armed with the most powerful information.”

“Wars,” “battles,” “armed.”

Reading the story, you don’t get the feeling that Maldonado is some Glock-toting kook. But he's just another soldier — and aide to battlefield generals. His words fit the political culture of victors and vanquished. These folks are out for blood.

And the media amplify it. Of all the headlines that the Times could have put on a tepid story, the one they chose came from Maldonado’s quote. “Where News is Power, A Fight to be Well-armed.”

Greed: The word they dare not speak

As the House takes up the debate about extending tax cuts for the very rich, our elected representatives shouldn’t shy away from the word “greed.” It is central to the debate.

And yet as they stand to speak, they are unlikely to ever use the word. To do so, they may conclude, may be seen as unseemly moralizing. Moreover, talk of greed intrudes on individual rights, the holy of holies.

Further, for elected politicians to raise the question of greed might seem hypocritical. The greedy are the very people who elected them to public office. Massive political donations come from the very wealthy and their political arms. Secret political contributions ensure that political discourse never addresses the question of greed.

Greed is off the table.

It shouldn’t be.

We must free the word “greed” of its moral connotations and look it square in the face as a pathology. Only then can we examine what it is and does. Try treating the word as you would “cancer” or, better yet, “drug addiction.”

Greed, shorn of questions about its morality, is clearly the driver of the vast inequities in our society. It is what compels the susceptible to accumulate vast sums of money they clearly desperately want but, just as clearly, don’t need. And all this is happening at a time when the wealthy live in a society of dire, real needs that their hoarded money could address.

I won’t review the statistics on inequality here. They are well known and documented. Just search “inequality” on your computer. You will not come up wanting.

This is not about numbers. It is about resources wasted on a all-consuming, destructive addiction.

Sure, this can be seen as a moral issue, but arguing about morality narrows the debate to individual moral choices. “Look, if that guy wants to pay himself $15 million a year, that’s his right.” “She deserves that kind of reward.” “It’s a question of what the market will bear.” “Greed is in the eye of the beholder.”

You aren’t going to shame the greedy to change their behavior any more than you are going to shame an addict out of his or her addiction.

To couch the debate in appeals to individual rights misses the point: Greed is a disease that infects and destroys the entire society.

The debate the House of Representatives should have over extending or ending the tax cuts for the wealthy must expose greed as bad for America. It’s a drug. It’s like tobacco or alcohol. It destroys not just the person afflicted with the addiction (in this case some obvious symptoms are obsession, denial, secrecy, need for more, and elitist isolation). Greed damages through “second-hand smoke” those who are nearby. The children of the wealthy become addicted to greed too. With rare exceptions, they display the same symptoms.

The damage caused by greed spreads to the society as a whole. We pay the costs of someone else’s greed, just as our health insurance rates go up to pay for the disproportionate health costs associated with smoking or other addictions.

How so? We live in a society whose health is dependent on rational, open civil discourse. Without it, democracy dies. If we elect our leaders (who set our priorities and create our laws) based on expensive, evocative, emotional, irrational appeals, the foundations of democracy wanes and we are left with a government ruled by those who control and manipulate mass communication.

That control belongs to the very rich, and their goal is to support and protect their habit of greed.

Moreover, the money spent to support their habits and hoarding, is money not spent on the very real problems of our society. Greed’s damage spreads to the larger society. For millions in true need, it slams shut the doors to health, education and opportunity. For a growing number, it denies them food and shelter.

Of course in a democracy we turn to our elected representatives to address those problems, but, as we’ve seen, those representatives aren’t answering to us.

Most elected representatives have been put in office by the greedy, for the greedy.

(A reminder: When I use the word “greedy,” I’m not making a moral judgment. I’m describing a pathology.)

And so our mounting social problems go unaddressed, and society enters a kind of death spiral as the rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer. The failure to see greed as the source of our problem is part of the same self-destructive, avoidance behavior that began with those individuals originally addicted to greed.

This is the state of our nation as the House debate begins. Greed should be front and center in the debate. The issue is ultimately about the social and political health of America.

Morning Choices

I'm in the habit of reading the newspaper the first thing each morning.

I'm convinced it's a bad habit. So today I turned first to a random page from "The Essence of Tao," an anthology brilliantly and inspiringly compiled by Maggie Pinkney.

Above is the page, a single Marcus Aurelius quote. I pondered it over coffee and Wheaties topped with banana and apple slices.

Beneath the book is the "news" from the New York Times. I left the Times for later. Much later.

When I finally turned to the paper, I saw its wrenching, haphazard chronicle as an infinitesimal part of a universe — one that is "a single life, comprising one substance and one soul."

My Mom offers advice on negative political ads

With local TV following every nanosecond of the President's visit to Portland, and the Giants and the Phillies locked in a tight playoff game on the screen, tonight I found myself logging an inordinate amount of tube time.

It's pretty scary because in between the president and the boys of October, the screen space was papered with wall-to-wall political ads, nearly all of them mean-spirited and toxic.

The impression these negative ads leave is that no matter whom you vote for, you are playing a fool's game. The result is certain disaster. Congress will be inhabited by miserable, thieving degenerate louts — be they Republicans or Democrats.

The message: the situation is utterly hopeless.

I wonder whether anyone has ever stood back and looked at the media mud slinging and realized that the effect is to tear down our system of governance.

No wonder folks are angry. From the looks of things, they should be. The ads are almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Perhaps we deserve this. Something is seriously wrong when political mud-wrestling passes as civic discourse. And of course the media, which sell ad space at grossly inflated prices (thereby creating political dependency on big-money interests), are laughing all the way to the bank.

Ask yourself, who are the winners here?

Certainly not the public.

My Mother, bless her soul, used to say, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." If only the politicians and their media advisers would listen to Mom's quaint advice.

As for those of us on the receiving end of this sludge, we might follow the corollary: "If you can't hear or see anything nice in the media, turn it off."

Beyond one-dimensional politics

Politics in this country consists of well-fingered beads strung along a thin, frayed thread.

It is a short thread indeed. It stretches mere inches from liberal-centrist to conservative. We aren’t even sure what those terms mean beyond slogans. Most slogans in this political season come from the Right. “Big” government, "tax cuts," and “nanny state” dominate a campaign notable for its lack of serious, civil and thoughtful debate.

There’s plenty of reason for voters to be frustrated and angry. I’m one of them, but my frustration and anger are over this campaign season's lack of substance and solutions.

I’m also frustrated that the extreme political Right has managed to capture the support of my fellow frustrated and angry Americans by using bogus bromides that will only make matters worse. How do you lower the deficit by cutting taxes and fighting costly wars?

And I’m frustrated with the liberal centrists for their failure to stand for anything beyond tinkering with "fiscal mechanisms" and throwing gobs of our money at banks and insurance companies.

Our narrow, one-dimensional way of viewing politics doesn’t allow us to even frame the problems, let alone find solutions.

Where, for instance, does global warming and destruction of the planet fit along the spectrum? The oil interests would like to tar climate change as a “liberal” issue, and so, with large infusions of oil money, it has become politicized — to the peril of us all.

What about inequity in everything from schools to health care to income. Why isn’t the Tea Party taking on inequity? Instead of attacking reforms, it should be calling for more of them. Could the answer be that the Tea Party is paid for by the self-serving rich with their private schools, their platinum health care plans, their gated third homes, and their grotesque compensation packages?

The Tea Party folks need to ask who the real beneficiaries will be if the Tea Party wins in November?

(Full disclosure: I'm hardly rich but I've benefited from a private school education. I've used that education and my experience to teach at community colleges and state universities.)

With a former community organizer in the White House you might expect some discussion about community. This country was once seen as a nation of vibrant barn-raising communities. But what does it mean to be a community in today's Wal-Mart world? If communities really exist, how can they solve their own problems?

What about corporate control of communication? Is the control of media by corporations destructive of our society and its values? Have media brainwashed us into our narrow, dumbed-down thinking — political and otherwise? And I'm not just talking about FOX News.

The answers are clearly yes. but what can be done about it?

We need to get down to non-partisan basics.

Let's ask what would it take to make people in this country truly free. Free of poverty, free of ignorance, free from prejudice, free of war, free of debt, free of homelessness? What would it take to make this truly a land of equal opportunity?

Does government have a role in achieving these ends? If so, what should it be? And at what cost — to freedom and to our pocket books?

In this frenzied election season of frustration and anger, I haven’t heard a single political voice that is fresh and independent, that addresses my own frustration and anger. I haven't heard a single voice that poses basic questions offers innovative answers to the colossal problems we face.

"Reform" and "taxes": Words of Warning

Quick now, does the word “reform” have positive or negative connotations?

My guess is that you’d say positive. After all, if we try to reform ourselves, we are trying to make ourselves better, not worse.

And now we have “Health Care Reform.” The built-in assumption is that "the reform" will be good. So who could be against health care reform?

I might be — if I strip the legislation's provisions from its name and look at what it actually does.

It may or may not make things better. It could even make health care worse in this country — although that’s hard to imagine.

For those who oppose the current legislation as it moves forward, the very name “Health Care Reform” is a problem.

The name merges with the thing itself, and the connotations rub off. It’s a classic case of what semanticists call “reification.” The name becomes the thing. The Latin word for “thing” is “res.” (An aside: a "republic" is "a public thing." You'd think that "Republicans" would support "public things" over private ones. Something strange happened as republicans became Republicans.)

Here’s another one. What is your gut feeling about “taxes”? Not so good, right?

In January, Oregon voters will be called upon to vote on two “tax” measures that have been put on the ballot by tax opponents. Voting against the measures is a vote against the new taxes passed in the last state legislative session. The “anti-tax” campaign by a business coalition calling itself “Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes” will avoid detailing how the proposed taxes will be levied, who will pay them and what the money will be used for.

The key word in the anti's campaign is “taxes,” and opponents are counting on the public's aversion to them, no matter who is paying. Lazy headline writers are already using short forms like “Anti-Tax campaign" and “Tax Reversal Effort.” In doing so, they are unwittingly framing and distorting the issue.

Those who support the new taxes, which are to be levied on the wealthy and large businesses, need to seize the debate by rebranding the issue to show what’s at stake. They need to talk about “tax fairness” and “paying for public services” such as decent schools for kids.

Campaign causes can be won or lost by the names used to describe them.

The political playing field tilts to the dominant name — and frame.

To see how the competing coalitions are playing the "tax/fairness/jobs etc." issue, see Empower Oregon and Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes.”

Haven't we read this somewhere before?

Political reporting and its clichés get skewered here. Enjoy.

Wake me up in November

The malaise of this election year is setting in and it is only August.

“War room strategists,” “Attack ads,” “Taking the gloves off,” “Hitting below the belt/shooting from the hip/dealing from the bottom of the deck/playing race cards” etc.

Would someone please remind the “strategists” that the economy has tanked, millions are without health coverage and living-wage jobs, the schools are a wreck (or, worse, irrelevant), bridges are collapsing, people are losing their homes, the planet is coming to a boil, greed rules the ruling class and we are still fighting two wars.

End of rant.

Listen, I know this is terrible to say, but just wake me up when it’s time to vote.

Meanwhile, in my dreams I may luck on to a better world.

Even without dreaming, I know it would be governed by better instincts (compassion, civility and forgiveness, for starters) and by innate intelligence.

End the "bloody" political "warfare"

Of course it is the season of the political cliché. The best known and weariest is the “horse race.” Because it so dominates press coverage, it deprives the public of what it needs to know — namely candidates' stands on issues.

But give me the “horse race” anytime over the metaphor of the political “battle.” It’s everywhere and editors seem to thrive on the “jousts,” “attacks,” “taking hits” and “batterings” that their reporters and headline writers so thoughtlessly serve up too the public.

On the front page of today’s New York Times two stories shared a headline: “Two Political Warriors, Back on a Favorite Battleground.”

Bill Clinton and John McCain are “warriors,” but at one time or another all the candidates have been described as "battlers" or "victims" or "casualties" of political warfare. New Hampshire is the “battleground,” but it is only one of several s0-called “battleground states.”

The Press isn’t the only party to blame for the bloody, belligerent and brutal hyperbole. Politicians themselves have “attack ads” and “war rooms” etc.

Of the many harmful consequences of infusing politics with militaristic language, two stand out. First, the public wants to seek refuge from the political process. We become refugees from media coverage and many of us, statistics show, no longer vote at all. Small wonder.

Instead, we should, at the very least, become vocal conscientious objectors to such objectionable, demeaning language.

Second, the drumbeat of violent language drains meaning and significance from real war and institutionalizes and normalizes militaristic behavior. We come to expect some kind of war or military intervention every four years or so. Like the bare-knuckled election cycle, we have a war cycle. The arms industry thrives on it.

We, the public should demand that every editor and candidate in this country direct their charges to mothball the sad and destructive metaphor of war and fighting.

Instead, let's have a peaceful politics of sweet reason in which debate is, as it should be, constructive.

My Mitt Romney moment

I was invited to a comparative religion class at a Beaverton high school last week to talk about the Quakers, their history and beliefs. In the previous weeks, a parade of religious speakers, as well as an agnostic and a humanist, had presented to the class.

After my planned remarks, I invited questions. Hands flew up.

To my surprise, many questions were blatantly political. Like it or not, this became my Mitt Romney moment. The students asked my views about abortion and evolution. Someone actually asked my political affiliation. And one young man, clearly testing my limits, asked whether I thought Hillary was no more than Bill's puppet. I declined to respond.

My visit to the high school was grassroots evidence that religion and politics are inseparable in this run-up to the primaries. These bright high school students have bought into the blending of the two. They are so accustomed to politicians talking about religion that they couldn't imagine my talking about religion without commenting on politics — and, when I didn’t, they tried to smoke me out.

I suggested that religion could transcend politics. Quakers believe that there is “that of God” in everyone. Democrats and Republicans need to take that to heart, I said, but even that sounded like a political statement.

My visit to the high school classroom left me with a firmer belief in the need for a separation of church and state. But that conviction too is suspect, eyed suspiciously through a religious lens in these frighteningly divisive times. Hordes of voters, including many of these students, have rejected any such separation, with little thought of the horrendous consequences.

Politics, press shun language of peace

In the last post I mused over why we never put political power in the hands of those following the path of non-violence and over-arching love.

Here's one reason: The bellicose language so widely used in political discourse.

"War rooms," "air wars" (broadcast ads), "political strongholds," "attack ads," "knock-out blows."

You've heard them all, particularly in the run-up to elections.

The media eat this stuff up. Nothing sells like conflict—so play it BIG.

Even so minor a political story as the one on the front page of today's Oregonian makes the news sound like a dispatch from Iraq. The story is about former Mayor Bud Clark's opposition to current Mayor Tom Potter's charter revision proposal.

Here, in the sub-head of the story about the wonkish measure: "The fight over a proposal to change Portland's form of government pits two old friends: Tom Potter and the man who used to hold the job."

"Fight"?

"Pits"?

On to the caption next to the photo showing Clark comfortably recuperating from an appendectomy: "Former Mayor Bud Clark...is battling again to preserve the city's unusual form of government. His foe this time? Mayor Tom Potter, who served as police chief under Clark."

"Battling"?

"Foe"?

Gimme a break.

These two old friends disagree. It's been know to happen. I disagree with a lot of my friends.

Headlines to the contrary, Clark and Potter are not clawing at each other in the trenches.

In fact, if you scan past the big print hype and read into the story itself, you find it is subdued, although "battling" is repeated and a "wound" analogy is wheeled out (remember that appendectomy?). The two men openly compliment each other. Says Potter of Clark: "He's one of the sweetest people I know." Clark, while opposing the charter revision, proclaims his personal trust of Potter.

But like most political stories, this one is packaged in martial terms. Politicians and the press are saying, in effect, the language of peace and reconciliation are not spoken here. "Don't even think about it. We don't."

Well, its time the public, politicians and the press all thought about it and started changing the language—which is the beginning of changing the way we think...and act.

What hope for unity and understanding and peace can their be if we don't?

Politics worthy of TV profiteering, but not TV reporting

In yesterday's Oregonian, readers got a glimpse of the local TV industry's cynicism and disdain for the public and politics.

The paper reported on the meager amount of time local stations devoted to Oregon political races in the month before the 2004 election.

Defending the one percent of TV news time given to state and local political coverage, Bill Johnstone, president of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, was reported as saying the journalistic pittance gave TV viewers "more than their fill....Very few politicians can tell the truth."

A Portland coalition called the "Money in Politics Research Action Project" (MIPRAP) is asking the Federal Communications Commission not to renew the licenses of the stations because of their failure to "serve the public interest" as required by law.

But Johnstone told The Oregonian that asking TV stations to air more campaign stories would simply provide politicians more time for mudslinging.

Wait just a minute, Bill. Don't the broadcasters collect millions in revenues from these very slime-ball ads? If they are so disgusting, why do the stations run them? Moreover, if broadcast managers are so concerned about the mudslinging, why don't they devote journalistic air time to expose the sliming for what it is?

Or are the media managers simply giving the advertising greater "value" by ignoring the issue? Commercial TV broadcasters have hardly been out front in criticizing other kinds of polluters and hucksters who advertise.

It's this sort of hypocritical, lucrative collusion that has led critics to compare FCC-granted broadcast licenses to "licenses to print money"...the public be damned.

Sadly, the Oregonian story omits the irony of Johnstone's attacking the political class whose money his industry is all too happy to take.

And important sidebar is that The Oregonian itself is part of the vast Newhouse media empire that includes 12 television stations. In fairness, none of them are located here or are part of the complaint. But how well do they serve the public in their markets?

I hope MIPRAP is monitoring how, and if, the local TV stations cover the story of its FCC challenge. Or do local TV managers believe the challenge is just more lying and mudslinging and hence unworthy of coverage?

In my view, we haven't begun to get our fill of this story.