Monthly Archives: March 2016

Some Thoughts on our Political Process

I received so many calls and emails about caucuses on Super Tuesday that it drove me loopy. I know why I got them and I was still pissed off. I really think the idea of carpet bombing likely attendees with GOTV/ persuasion calls and emails is an outdated strategy that has a reverse effect from what it was designed for. These calls are unsolicited and thus perceived as cold sales calls. People don’t like their lives interrupted.

The problem is the bean counters determined you could reach more voters more cheaply by phone than through the mail. Which is true. And you can’t guarantee people will read the mail whereas you can when you reach them by phone. But psychologically speaking, because of the very fact that the person receiving the mail has the choice to read it, it is a less threatening and irritating means of communicating. Because of this I feel, although the number of folks receiving mail is lower, the numbers that get the message are higher. I also feel that if government is the sender of a caucus notification mailer more people would read it upon reception than if it were sent by the candidates. Along with the information about date, time and place of caucuses, candidates could present introductions and persuasive arguments for government to include in the mailer, so that the voter has additional choice in educating themselves.

We must start treating the voter as an owner of government instead of a customer, a real person of value to society, instead of a number on a tally sheet. Enough of his rant and on to another.

Attending your caucus or voting in your primary is the first step in fulfilling your constitutional DUTY to elect those who represent YOU in determining how YOUR taxes are spent and what YOU can and cannot do as YOU interact with society. There is a direct correlation between your vote and your budget and your liberty.

It seems some of the very same people that insist our government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, don’t quite understand what that really means. So many people, including the mainstream media, use the term “our democracy” as short hand for “our government”. This is only partially true. Our government is a Democratic Republic.

Sometimes people forget that we are a republic. I think it’s assumed we know that, since we elect representatives. Thats what a republic is, government by representation. This is the “of the people” part. Our government its made up OF the people we elect.

And yes, we are a democracy, in the sense that our government is elected “by the people”. That’s what democracy means, a government chosen BY the people, usually through free elections.

And the part that is most under attack is the FOR the people part. Our government is supposed to and was designed to work “for the people” and not for corporations or banks or defense contractors. Their interests don’t always line up with the people’s interests. But it sure seems that government works for them instead of us.

So how have these entities taken over. Even though there aren’t a lot of people that run them they have used the thing they have an abundance of that most of the people don’t have. They have an abundance of money. Their money gives them a huge advantage over us. They corrupt the “of the people” by “buying” their hand picked candidates. Largely through the media they have made it very expensive to run for office. The average citizen, without large amounts of donated money, can’t afford to run for anything but small local offices. The people with the money find someone who is attractive and well known and connected and gives them the money they need to run a winning campaign. We all know that nothing is free. For their money those donors get special favors from their “bought and sold” representative.

Having stolen our “of the people” they next work on the “by the people”. First they get their bought and sold representatives to pass laws making it hard for certain people to vote at all. Of course these voters are on to the moneybags and their plan to take over our government. This is why the would be overlords attempt to get their paid off legislators to take way those smart voter’s vote.

Less obvious but maybe more effective is how they discourage people from voting. First they use their money and the elected officials in their pocket to create fear among the people and encourage greed. Then they use the fear and greed to get folks to accept them as their saviors, as the only ones who can protect them and their money. These people will then walk through walls to vote for them.

Next they use a function of the American way of life to discourage people from voting at all. They know that they have their core group of frightened followers who will do anything they say. The fewer people that vote the more electoral power their core has and the fewer people they need to persuade and the more money per vote they can devote to that persuasion. And getting people to eschew voting is relatively easy.

Americans have a finely tuned, well oiled, throroughly developed propensity to assign both responsibility and blame to others. When the corporations and banks, the army of the plutocracy, can convince people that government is to blame for their miserable lives, that all politicians are lazy and crooked and that there is no difference between the parties, plenty of people will just throw up their hands and say their vote doesn’t count. They feel justified in not voting. Their feelings that they have no say in what happens to them are substantiated.

Our government is, by design, participatory. Only by participating do we TRULY respect, honor, and act in accordance with the constitution. If we don’t attend our party caucuses, or vote in primary elections we are giving away our chance to have a say in what government we have.  Do you really think that under 15% of the people, and often much less than that, should determine who will even vie for public office. It just makes it easier for the dominators to dominate. We aren’t going to ever get out from under the yoke of oppression by rolling up and giving up because we think our constitutional duty is meaningless.

That is a bald faced lie.

 

Open Letter to Democrats

I usually don’t get overly partisan when it comes to politics. But I’ve been upset for a long time about the inability of the left and center left to effectively articulate their message. Pundits, the press and plenty of people accost them for not having a clear message. They actually do have one but always seem to get in the way of making it understandable.

I think Democrats get off track when we start talking about policy. The political  right occupys the high ground, when it comes to how they have used framing to get people to support their policies. Taking back the high ground isn’t easy. Many of the values and concepts they use to make people think their policies are better are contested concepts. The other side has done a better job of selling their definitions of concepts such as liberty and freedom, opportunity and fairness, equality and prosperity. Selling our understanding of these concepts, based on our values, communicates underneath the surface noise of their definitions of words and their policies, where persuasion is possible, nigh probable. But we’ve done a piss poor job of communicating.

By closing the sale we could get voters to accept our definitions, which they already believe in, but have been suppressed. Showing people that they, too, share our values makes it easier for them to want to be in our group. This begs the question, what makes our group worth joining? What are our base values and how do we communicate them in a way that resonates with a person’s intuitive response, which is immediate, and not their measured response, which takes time and thought. In other words we need to make sure in the political Occam’s Razor the simplest answer is our answer.

Voters want to belong. They choose the group they think is best to belong to, who they think are the winners. We have more diversity in our group than in theirs. Our coalition, our group, will be, in time, the true winners, but that is not now readily apparent to the average they. Unfortunately we concentrate more on trying to convince them that our diversity is good. Instead we should show them how and where they can fit in to our diverse universe with their self respect and individuality intact. We need to tell them WHY a rising tide lifts all boats instead of only saying it and assuming people will accept it, just because it makes sense to us.

Progressives have a tendency to look down on people who don’t support their policies, considering them stupid. In our minds anyone who doesn’t accept our policies has to be stupid, because we know our policies are so superior that anyone with half a brain should be able to see that they are superior. The vast majority of these people are not stupid. It is extremely important that we stop this kind of arrogance. These people have been manipulated and are not worthy of scorn. They are sure smart enough to be aware that we ridicule and belittle them. This attitude is obviously is not helpful if we have any hope of persuading people that their vision is really our vision.

Rather, we need to welcome the people we disagree with on some several things. First we need to identify those folks whose views we will never change, about 30 to 35% of all people. Then we need to identify those we can persuade, listen to them, and assure them that we CARE about their families and their concerns. We can’t simply tell them what’s good for them and then assume they will accept our truth and vote for us. We assume that truth is absolute when it is in fact relative. We don’t understand their truth. For one they hate that we tell them what is good for them. It validates their feelings that we don’t care about them. The other side is better at convincing people that they care for them more than we do. That they are able to do this without any concrete evidence is as much about our failure as their competence.

For example the right has made such inroads with white male union members because they have been better at convincing them that they CARE more about them and their families than we do. They have put lots of energy into destroying unions because unions showed workers that Democrats truly cared about their jobs and their lives. We did this by supporting their united solidarity in meeting management from a position of power. But the right has been able to erode this solidarity with appeals to individual greed and fear. I don’t think we have helped much. We have created messaging specifically for unions that contradicts much of what we say to other demographics, which only legitimizes the doubt that is sown among them from being constantly told we lie to them.

This sort of thing makes me think we spend too much time, energy, and resources crafting messaging for each individual demographic. We complain that it’s so hard to keep our coalition united when we ourselves have divided them. Targeting a particular demographic can easily cause us to lose focus and alienate other specific demographics. Instead we should marshall our resources, develop and disseminate a strong, cogent, cohesive and persuasive message that appeals to all Americans. We need to touch a common nerve of the public.

Pretty much everybody know what the common theme is that motivates the modern voter. We virtually all think government is impotent and needs major change. Both Trump and Sanders have tapped in to this angst. Why do they both resonate with people, even though they are very much different? Because they have both said, vociferously, that they will bring about that change. The problem with each is that Sanders immediately goes into policy, which excites the faithful and worries the skeptics. The skeptics know Sanders can’t come through on his promises. And I think there are more skeptics among persuadable voters than there are socialist faithful. Trump on the other hand also makes promises he can’t keep. He is better able to sell his charisma without a shred of policy, but I feel a majority of persuadable voters fear him. And he is terribly dangerous, as is Cruz and the other two remaining Republican contenders. They are good at hiding the danger in their policies. They can make the scary seem logical, even desirable.

We are currently faced with a two pronged challenge. Get out a message that will give a Democratic President a congressional majority, and also put into motion a long term, visionary plan to change the political dialogue, perhaps for a long time. The clash between the authoritarian, fascist leaning right and the progressive, socialist leaning left is reaching an apex. One group will emerge. But the real battle is in preventing the plutocrats from controlling the leaders of either of those eventualities.

This is why it’s important that we activate the only people who can successfully oppose the plutocrats, a united citizenry. To do this the validity of our language must match the validity of our values, and thus our policy, assuming we advocate policy that speaks to the real needs of the people. A government of, by and for the people is better than a de facto dictatorship. That is our goal. This could be risky. It could lead to the plutocrats responding violently, in order to maintain power. That’s a frightening thought.

Now this is where I rub shoulders with the paranoid conspiracy buffs. Now I don’t think I cast irrational blame, or advocate extreme solutions, but I do think a violent result is not out of the question. The United States has been fortunate that we have only experienced one major internal violent clash. We have had peaceful transfer of power since our inception. But we are seeing public behavior previously unheard of. I have been bullish on America for a long time. I have believed in the future. But can the millennials I see as powerful agents of positive change move America into an evolutionary renaissance? I pray they can and will.

Why do I do what I do? I need to tell my story so that even one soul can see the world from a stance next to mine. I have finally discovered what I do well. I can see some things clearly and can communicate that vision. And you are reading what I see. It’s meant to resonate with you.

Please let me know if it doesn’t. It’s that important.