scaryfairy
trying to tread lightly and not get too cranky is enough exercise for any one day
The Fear Vote/Fear Voice
My own point of view is so comfortable, I forget over and over again that Fear is a real issue, a deceptively heavy straw being tossed on the election camel's back (oh, i can hardly believe I wrote that and am leaving it in!)
The Lehrer news hour (PBS) was devoted to the topic last night and I'm glad for the reminder. (Oh, yeah - friends laughed, but I used to watch one of the cable shopping shows JUST to get out of my Hollywood hip,ivory tower. It seemed pretty valuable to be reminded of what others cared about, what they thought was beautiful and worth spending cash on.) And now, it's valuable to be reminded of how words and positions aren't soothing, reducing or comforting Fear but agitating it. (Yah, I know, Michael Moore's film made the point, but ... this is MY take, my personal experience with the Fear factor.) I can hardly fault Newt Gingrich for echoing the republican party line post-9/11. If I were advising, I'd tell them the same thing: every one agree and support a position.
It's the position that's unacceptable. And NOT because it IS Republican. We are charged with vigilance as Americans. Presumably, our forefathers expected that vigilance to extend to our thinking and our language.
The language in reply to 9-11 is loaded and misleading. It is reckless and it is a most subversive use of power.
Of course, there are real threats, as there have always been (which isn't to be cavalier, but to say more spectacular effects don't make a worse terrorist act. They make another terrorist act in a long history of 'em.
There's no accounting for terrorists and what drives them, but when it comes to the rest of the world that has the ability to side with us or against us ... They're are waiting to hear the public American voice that's NOT self-serving, one-dimensional and without delicacy or sophistication or sensitivity. Currently, the Bush administration acts as the American Voice: it's uncultivated and inarticulate. It is not a Voice of Dignity. It's a Voice of Gossip. Gossip.
We are NOT hated by people casually. They do NOT hate our way of life and our freedoms. That is not true.
What people hate is ... well, frankly, I don't think they know what they hate. They rely on their OWN GOSSIP and when we don't have an administration (and, by extension, a state department presence including ambassadors and their deputies) that can correct the record, that is too often incapable of it ... well, yes, we all slide down that slippery slope into more gossip. Fear seems to grow very well in a gossip-driven environment.
The Lehrer news hour (PBS) was devoted to the topic last night and I'm glad for the reminder. (Oh, yeah - friends laughed, but I used to watch one of the cable shopping shows JUST to get out of my Hollywood hip,ivory tower. It seemed pretty valuable to be reminded of what others cared about, what they thought was beautiful and worth spending cash on.) And now, it's valuable to be reminded of how words and positions aren't soothing, reducing or comforting Fear but agitating it. (Yah, I know, Michael Moore's film made the point, but ... this is MY take, my personal experience with the Fear factor.) I can hardly fault Newt Gingrich for echoing the republican party line post-9/11. If I were advising, I'd tell them the same thing: every one agree and support a position.
The language in reply to 9-11 is loaded and misleading. It is reckless and it is a most subversive use of power.
Of course, there are real threats, as there have always been (which isn't to be cavalier, but to say more spectacular effects don't make a worse terrorist act. They make another terrorist act in a long history of 'em.
There's no accounting for terrorists and what drives them, but when it comes to the rest of the world that has the ability to side with us or against us ... They're are waiting to hear the public American voice that's NOT self-serving, one-dimensional and without delicacy or sophistication or sensitivity. Currently, the Bush administration acts as the American Voice: it's uncultivated and inarticulate. It is not a Voice of Dignity. It's a Voice of Gossip. Gossip.
We are NOT hated by people casually. They do NOT hate our way of life and our freedoms. That is not true.
What people hate is ... well, frankly, I don't think they know what they hate. They rely on their OWN GOSSIP and when we don't have an administration (and, by extension, a state department presence including ambassadors and their deputies) that can correct the record, that is too often incapable of it ... well, yes, we all slide down that slippery slope into more gossip. Fear seems to grow very well in a gossip-driven environment.
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