Uniting Our "Divided" Nation

Dark sarcasm in the classroom? No spank you!

I would like to continue the theme discussed in two of the last posts (by CapeTown and Virginia) and their comments about America as a "divided nation."

The topic has been familiar discussion on this blog and also among politicians, the media, and undoubtedly many of our everyday conversations. Some interesting questions are the following: How divided are we, really, as a nation, among conservatives and liberals? To the extent that we are divided, how did this come about? Are these divisions the inevitable result of human nature? Or are divisions in opinion artificially created? Is the division healthy or harmful? If it is harmful is there anything we can do about it?

The issue begins with human nature (of course who am I to say what human nature is but here is my take on it). Many philosophers, perhaps most notably Hegel, have written about our innate desires to be "recognized" by our fellow humans. This "recognition" can take the form of something like mutual respect, agreement, understanding, friendship, or love. To achieve happiness we need this recognition and we actively seek its fulfillment in various ways. When we fulfill this desire by making connections and achieve mutual recognition, this makes us happier and more secure, whereas if this desire goes unfulfilled we will be more insecure. One way we fulfill this desire is through one-on-one relationships with people, and of course, another is through belonging to some group.

One example of this is sports teams. If you think about it, it's pretty arbitrary how people develop passionate allegiances to their teams, but I think that taking on a sports allegiance is one way where humans satisfy some innate desire to be recognized by other humans, in this case by belonging to a group. Listen to people talk about their team and often they call the team "we" like they are actually on the roster! Allegiances can also be pretty irrational, for example we think the players are on our favorite teams are great people in their personal lives, and we think the players on other teams are jerks (I bet more Lakers fans thought Kobe was innocent than fans of rival teams). Although I don't think it's necessary, one thing that makes the "belonging to a group" feeling stronger, is when the group defines part of its identity as simply being not some rival, other group. So for example part of what makes a Yankees fan a Yankees fan is the fact that they're not a Red Sox fan. So a way to assert your identity as part of a group, and your group solidarity is through being different from some other, rival group. So if you are a Sox fan and you see a random person on the street in a Sox jersey, you automatically fell a connection, and someone in a Yankees jersey you automatically feel some kind of animosity, whether stong of very slight. There is the issue that this might be more of a male thing (being a sports fan) but I don't want to get too off track. The point is I think that this is an innate human desire since so many people all over the world do this, and since I don't see it explained through any "rational" explanation.

Now just like you can be Red Sox fan or a Yankees fan you can be a a Democrat or a Republican. Sports are not exactly like politics, some would say politics are much more important, although in our day to day lives many of us are much more affected (at least emotionally) by sports. But there are competitions (elections) and people rally behind either side much like with sports.

Of course, when you think about it, it just doesn't seem to make sense, or feel "right" that we should treat politics like sports. As opposed to sports, where adopting an allegiance to a team is a pretty arbitrary act that makes something entertaining much much more entertaining, adopting a political party is supposed to be something different. We aren't supposed to just like whatever a candidate says or does the way we convince ourselves that our sports heroes are cool and good people, but it seems like that shouldn't work for politics - we are supposed to listen to what these people say, agree with some of it, and maybe disagree or not be sure about some of it, not just agree with a candidate or a whole party of hundreds of politicians on all of their views.

So then why, if it doesn't seem to make sense, do so many people line up behind a party on everything, agreeing with nearly everything their party says and disagreeing with nearly everything the other party says? Wel as I said I think it is part human nature, and part our conditioning from society. Part of it is that Americans (maybe humans in general because of the above reasons) in general live in a competitive and contentious culture. Our court system and our economy could both be looked at as more cutthroat than in other countries.

Looking specifically in the realm of politics, though, it is pretty easy to see how politicians and the media alike feed the "sports-like" culture of democrats versus republicans, thus exagerating perceived and actual divisions at the same time. Not only are most pundits on television and on the radio partisan ideologues who agree with everything in the party platform like robots, but they have actually created shows that pit one side against the other, like Crossfire and Hannity & Colmes that explicitly pit one side against the other, in addition to the shows that are just one partisan doing the show solo (ex: O'Reilly). Politicians? Some are more guilty than others of playing up party divisions, but I'm sure we can all think of numerous examples.

So why all of this divisive, partisan rhetoric from the media and politicians? Well it's simply a tactic used to maximize their audience and their attention. The media is just a bunch of corporations competing for viewers, while politicians just want attention and votes. Of course, one way to get attention is through civilized discourse where you respectfully consider all sides of a debate and maybe don't arrive at a conclusion since there is no clear answer to some of these complex issues. But not everyone wants to waste their time listening to a newscaster or a politician admitting that these are complex issues and there is no right answer, or at least we are not used to that, so many of us are not so drawn to that type of thing.

Instead, the way it works is that media and politicians have become very good at exploiting this inner human desire to derive happiness and security from being part of a group, a feeling that is strengthened when the identity of the group consists largely of simple the fact that they are not the "other" group. It is just like with sports - surely there are many Yankees and Red Sox fans who have billions of things in common and one of their comparatively much fewer differences in personality is the fact that they happened to one day decide that they like different baseball teams. But rivalries and the feeling of "belonging" to the team we like is one of the reasons people love sports so much, why they are so entertained and impassiond by it all, and the media and politicians have harnessed the same psychological effect and attached it to politics, which is good for them, because it means many more viewers of their programs and listeners to their speeches and contributors to their campaigns. So the media and the politicians really benefit from this, and thus they have a lot of incentive to fan the fire and perpetuate the divisive culture. Whether the image is real or meaningful, an explanation of how Americans are divided along party lines will sell you a lot of books.

But do Americans benefit from it? Does our country as a whole? I would say definitely not, for many, many obvious reasons. One big reason is that these divisive debates don't ever get anywhere. The conversations on the big news shows are pointless, they don't accomplish anything except getting people who disagreed before the discussion to disagree more passionately afterwards because the discussion was done in an aggressive, contentious, and often very disrespectful way. Everyone has witnessed the phenomena where if you try to convince someone of something disrespectfully, you will just cement their original position - the person will not even want to listen to you or consider your opinion if you address them aggressively and disrespectfully. But this is how a great many media pundits and politicians talk, and I think that when they do this they waste all of our time and accomplish nothing useful, and do much harm.

I think it was Socrates that said that there are two kinds of debate. Truth-seeking debate, and victory-seeking debate. Truth-seeking is where people admit that they don't know the answers, and they might not even know what they think about certain issues, and the point of the discussion is to learn more about what you and the other people think, to consider different views on something, and arrive at the best possible conclusion. Victory-seeking on the other hand is an attempt to convince someone of your pre-decided opinion, to "win" the argument. Often there is no way to prove the argument, so "winning" is often thought of as shooting down someone or making a point they can't respond to or shoot down themselves. This of course makes for much better entertainment, which means more people paying attention, and this has become the object of the media and politicians, as opposed to figuring out what is best for this country.

Well maybe that is a bleak picture, it is definitely a generalization and is not true for all journalists and politicians, but I think we can agree that there is too much of this sort of thing going on. The good news is that with blogs, anyone can be a pundit and join in the debate, but with blogs we face the same danger of falling victim to the great temptation of making our blogs entertaining and boost viewers (say something anti-one party and watch the members of your party pour in to comment and check back to read future posts). Thus the phenomena of people self-selecting and only reading blogs of their party.

Despite this danger, blogs have the potential to be a really positive and productive force for our country. If we can overcome the temptation and the emotional satisfaction of responding to a republican statement with a disrespectful jab at how wrong they are and visa versa, if we can instead respectfully consider each other's opinions, admit that there are perhaps no issues more complicated than the ones we undertake to discuss and thus there is probably no clear and obvious right or wrong answer (Iraq?), if we can overcome our impulses and our adrenaline and our emotions and resist arrogantly assuming that we know all of the answers, blogs can really be something amazingly helpful for the country. By having respectful, truth-seeking debate, we can not only get closer to understanding each other and understanding these complex issues and all of the people in the US and the world that they affect, but we can also change the divisive, victory-seeking debate culture that dominates our news and our politics. I believe we can change it becuase I believe that people are tired of it, and we want a change. Our impulses and our emotions may sometimes cause us to take the bait when media and politicians dangle the partisan hook (sorry I got carried away hook line and sinker with that metaphor), but deep down inside I think we all know that the divisive culture is not helping at all and in fact doing real damage, and we also know deep down inside that no one agrees with everything every politician from one party believes. So we are ready for this change, and I think that this change can only come from the blogs, since the media and the politicians all benefit from the increase in attention they get from keeping the divisive atmosphere alive. Of course maybe single journalists and candidates can do something to reverse the trend, but it will be tough because their competitors, of which there will be more, will continue the same old divisive tactics, so I think that this is up to us. I think, potentially, we can change things and we can help this country enormously, and I don't think it will even be that hard, although it could take a long time. All we have to do is control our impulses and emotions, be calm and patient and respectful, and seek the truth as opposed to victory (or the appearance of victory). I don't see why anyone would want to do it otherwise given how much these issues affect our country and our world, and how important it is for us to reach those answers that we can most strongly agree on.

So let's see what we can do. Now I am off to the Red Sox game.

What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us

In 1933, H.G. Wells published his prophetic novel and coined the title phrase, The Shape of Things to Come. In it, with uncanny accuracy, Wells predicted that Germany would begin the next great war by invading Poland in 1940. So, fine, the guy was a year off, but this remains only one of a multitude of his nearly exact predictions. Wells understood the mechanisms that drove mankind, that motivated leaders and that spawned technological innovations. And yet at the close of a lifetime of sagacious predictions and commentary, Wells was overwhelmed by the futility of his predictions, for WWII and nuclear weaponry and devastating air assaults (all of which he predicted) came to be; the future was and is inevitable and prosaic and damn demoralizing.

Today, with a bill passed by Congress headed towards a certain Bush veto, the debate on our current war continues, and it's beginning to feel as though despite the veil that has been lifted since the early years of our occupation nothing much has changed -- the administration still mired in the dialectic of prowar/American/support troops vs. stopwar/un-America/get the troops out. It feels as though we the people are ready for change, yet those other institutions, our government and press, remain in a slo-mo stupor.

For those of you who haven't watched Bill Moyers' "Buying the War", then please just take the time. It is a fascinating retrospective on the role the media played in beating the drums to war. If the invasion of Iraq were prosecuted as a war crime then the media would be willing accomplices. My viewing of this documentary happen to coincide with my too-late discovery of Noam Chomsky, who, in this context, could easily be equated with H. G. Wells as a prophetic sage. Like Wells, Chomsky understands with staggering clarity the mechanisms that influence the unfurling of world events and those that are used to cover some of them up. One of his main theses is that in a democratic society, one that cannot openly be controled with force (such as with a dictotorship), the powers that be must, instead, control the minds and opinions of the public. And their greatest tool is the media. The word itself, "media", denotes their role as intermediaries between power and the people. The press provides a lens, however warped or opaque, and only through it can we see turn the gears of power. The effect of this mediated information, for us, appears in the form of general inattention or complancency. As Chomsky said in 1969:

"A terrifying aspect of our society and other societies is the equanimity oand the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe such events, as in Veitnam. I think that's more terrifying than the occasional Hitler, LeMay, or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity."

In this regard, we, too, are compliant in this war, but we are relieved of some guilt for it remains the media's duty to provide us with the fruits of their investigative labor. When they cease to offer such insight, we are, in effect, the unwitting dupes of governmental propoganda. The Moyers' study, like Farenheit 9/11 did more subjectively, candidly investigates the perverse relationship that our government and our media share. (side note: What, for me, was the most revelatory aspect of our media's compliance with the government was how wide-spread this phenomenon was -- not just Fox News, but CBS, NBC, and in arguably the most chilling moment, Oprah helped to convince us into war.) The Moyers' documentary is a seminal piece of our current journalistic lamentation for their own shortcomings. Along with this comes the passing of an icon of honest and admirable journalism, David Halberstam, whose legacy has been invoked in many recent Op-Ed piece in further confession by the media for a job not well done.

If there's anything more than the press love than "making news out of nothing at all", it's turning their cobwebbed critical gaze back on themselves. If you look around you'll notice that newspapers are inundated with either self-flaggelation or self-defense for the press's handling of the past 6 years. Personally, I'm thankful for journalists like Bill Moyers, David Halberstam, and if you'll forgive the loose definition of "journalist" Jon Stewart (watch his recent interview with Bill Moyers). Their honesty and watchful eye, however, should not be the pinnacle of skeptical inquiry and reporting, but the standard. The fourth estate is for many our only means to discover who is pulling what levers.

This is not the time, however, for such self-assessment. We need you, media -- reporters, journalists, talking heads -- to cease with the lamentation and intra-office nonsense and get out there and let us know what's going on. Stop licking your wounds and start to poke holes in the talking points from both sides. Do it for Halberstam; do it for the memory of H.G. Wells whose predictions were never heeded; and do it for the legacy of Noam Chomsky whose deserves more than a little attention during his lifetime.

Making News Out of Nothing At All

The media never ceases to amaze me, and it also never ceases to manufacture news items out of thin air.

Now I am glad that the focus is off Rosie O'Donnell and on the Democratic Presidential Primary debates, but honestly, the media has totally missed the big story, and since it had no story, it invented the one that, to my flabbergastery, everyone is now talking about.

Anyone who watched the Presidential debates knows that the only noteworthy thing that happened was that former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel became the only politician in recent memory to say what he actually thought, and to tell it like it is, bringing to light political realities that have been swept under the rug by all of our politicians for fear of saying anything too negative about the country and losing voters. The media either didn't want to lose viewers/readers, or is either too brainwashed or too complicit in the conspiracy of peddling the same-old same-old, that they didn't talk about Gravel (except for some, that ignorantly dismissed him as "comic relief"), and thus they had no story.

In the absence of a story they somehow manufactured policy differences among the Democratic frontrunners from their 60 second cookie cutter responses to questions. If they didn't manufacture policy differences, they read in character differences, which is equally arbitrary and disingenuous.

If you don't know what I'm referring to then I am sorry to be telling you about it for the first time because it is sad that our media, capable of so much, is wasting their time with this silliness.

So during the debates last friday, Brian Williams asked what each candidate would do if there was a terrorist attack. According to the media, the correct answer, which pretty much everyone but Obama gave, was to immediately say retaliate, and the incorrect answer, was to say anything aside from immediately saying retaliate.

Not to mention the fact that all of these candidates would probably do the exact same thing in the situation (IE figure out what happened and then consider their options based on that), why are we judging the candidates based on their impulse to have missiles in the air as soon as possible?

What's worse is that in a way Obama gave the best answer of all, since he lead off with mentioning emergency response. According to the media, though, any thought given to minimizing casualties from the theoretical attacks would be time wasted in firing up some rockets aimed at...well, it's not important where they're aimed it, just get 'em in the sky.

I mean, let's think about things for just a second. Operation Enduring Freedom, where the US and NATO went into Afghanistan, began on October 7, 2001. So if the Bush Administration, you know, the same people who will pull the trigger and shoot at a bird before checking to realize that their gun is aimed squarely at their friend's face, get to wait a month, I think Obama can spend some of his presidency getting an emergency response plan ready, and he can spend the first five seconds into any attacks saying "send in the emergency response," instead of continuing with the book about the goat.

But because Obama didn't immediately say retaliate, now he is being critisized. Well, I guess, politically, maybe the fact that all of the other, more experienced, candidates knew to lead off with retaliate suggests that that was the best political move -- IE, what the public wants to hear. In other words, the American public is more concerned with firing back a return missle then it's concerned with minimizing the casualties from the attacks that already took place. Maybe all of the candidates believed that emergency response was obviously the first option but you can't say that on TV because the people want vengance. This makes me think of a kind of a chicken-egg problem because maybe "the voters" think that because that is the attitude of the Bush Administration and many in the media, or maybe it is their attitude because it is "the voters'" attitude. Now I have no problem with art imitating life or life imitating art but regardless of why killing foreigners became a higher priority than saving imperiled Americans from death and injury became the prevailing political viewpoint, I award no points for other politicians' echoing it in an attempt to gain votes, and may God have mercy on their souls.

Whether or not the other candidates secretly agree with Obama, Obama should not be critisized by the media for his politically risky answer. In fact, maybe the only reason why his answer was politically risky is because the media are critisizing it.

For a newspaper article by some reporter whose web page is pretty much an anti-Obama blog, see Lynn Sweet's coverage for the Chicago Sun-Times. Her piece is a perfect example of the judging and media exaggeration over nothing - and, by the way, can be found expediently on imaginary controversey stirrer Matt Drudge's website as well. Leave it to the Drudge Report to play into the mainstream media's fun and games at the expense of an American public that deserves better. For a more thoughtful and balanced coverage, although still unnecessarily slanted toward critisizing Obama, see the Washington Post's coverage. For a blog post that, I guess more or less, agrees with what I have just written, see the Daily Kos' response.

All in all, this whole episode sums up (1) what I hate about the media and (2) what I like about Obama. Rather than providing original insight and thoughtful, intelligent opinions about the substantive issues, the media once again looks to blow up some insignificant happening into a sensational controversey, all the while judging things from the same-old, mainstream viewpoint of what it thinks the people want to hear. Thanks for nothing, media.

Obama on the other hand was not afraid -- at least initially -- to give a somewhat unconventional, or unexpected, or un-scripted (from the vote pandering script) response. He gave the most thoughtful answer, and it has already hurt him politically, because it might not be what everyone immediately wants to hear. But politics must be more than regurgitating what everyone immediately wants to hear. It must be more than sticking to a script of the safest, most widely-accepted responses to all questions. It must be about people who lead rather than follow. It must be about leaders who inspire us to think of the best ideas, not just the most widely-shouted ones. And it must be about leaders who have the courage to bring those ideas to the public forum for debate even if such ideas happen to be less common or newer than other ideas, and are therefore politically risky, because, as the (old common) saying goes: no risk, no reward. Thus far Obama seems like he has the courage to take the national dialogue to its full potential, I don't know yet if I can say the same about the other frontrunners.

So let's not be too quick to congratulate the more seasoned candidates for taking the easier, safer path of what people want to hear, and let's not be too critical of a candidate who offers something (very very very slightly) different to the debate. And let's also not allow ourselves to get taken in, manipulated, and fooled by the media into believeing thta there is a big story where there isn't one, for, as the we all know, the greatest trick a media news story ever pulled was convincing the world that it existed.

Time for Rudy to Pick up a Hobbit Sack and Start Walking

Recently, Republican presidential candidates that I would consider voting for are disappearing like Capetown would have us believe that bees are disappearing. I remember saying a few weeks ago that I hadn't ruled some of them out, but let's be honest, I can't vote for any of these guys! Now I'm sure they have good policies and share a lot of ideas with a lot of the Democrats but I just don't like these guys' attitudes. I need a president who stands behind the Presidential seal, addresses the nation, and doesn't offend me with his rhetoric. This is why I pretty much crossed McCain off the list for myself with two posts I wrote last week, and this is why it's time to do the same for Rudy Giuliani.

I have to admit, when I first heard he was running I was pretty psyched. No longer would would the President of the United States come on stage to the tired old "Hail to the Chief," but rather, Rudy could take to the stage to the tune of "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time," of course with the words changed to "It's Rudy Giuliani Time." For those of you unfamiliar with the song, it was originally brought to my attention by Brian Griffin from Family Guy:



By the way someone also found where the Manatees who write for Family Guy originally got this reference:



So there I was looking forward to this and Rudy basically had to go and ruin it the other night by bringing back the politics of fear that have been part of oratory and mobilization of the angry mob for their support ever since ancient times. Basically Giuliani said to America: hey, America, are you scared of terrorists? I know what'll cheer you up...It's Rudy Giuliani time! If you haven't seen the story about what Giuliani actually said, he basically said there would be more casualties from terrorist attacks if a Democrat was elected than if it was a Republican. Well, it's a good thing I recently learned how to spell ridiculous.

Giuliani's reasoning for this outlandish claim was that the Republicans would go on offense and the Democrats would go on defense. Clearly Rudy still things he is sitting on the bench for Notre Dame. Of course he doesn't say what he means by offense and defense because these words really have no meaning. When you leave the realm of sports, pretty much any strategy is part defense and part offense, and can be described as either or both. Having a military, nuclear weapons, surveillance, etc, all of these play both defensive and offensive roles. He mentioned the Patriot Act, but much of that seems more like defense - the USA PATRIOT ACT literally means "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act," so all this talk about Protecting seems defensive, which I have nothing wrong with, defense wins championships, it's just interesting that instead of saying something like preemptive war which is clearly offensive, he brings up the Patriot Act, which just doens't seem so offensive (except to civil rights and to the Constitution, maybe that was what he meant!).

As as far as I'm concerned these comments make no sense at all except to use the oldest most base tactic of political mobilization which is to say something like "these people, the terrorists, they are going to get us if we don't get them, and by the way if you vote for the Democrats, we're not going to get them, and they're going to get us." This is basically the same speech that got Slobodan Milosevic elected to office, and has also brought political power to countless others.

Fortunately, seeing through, exposing, and condemning Giuliani's scare tactics proved all too easy as we saw yesterday. Barack Obama responded with comments that I think America had been waiting to hear for a long time.

Lastly Kieth Olbermann responded with a long and detailed critique of his own. If you have time to watch this video it is extremely thoughtful and passionate, although most of his remarks should be obvious to everyone at this point, but still it is great that, although I'm not sure how many people watch MSNBC, it is still great that the mainstream media have taken a time out from their 24-hour covereage of Rosie O'Donnell to talk about this more important issue. Here's the video:

Repeal the Second Amendment from the Debate on Guns

First off, I know we already had a gun debate on this blog, and I am not necessarily looking for another one. Instead, I want to comment on the way we go about the gun debate, particularly the way it is discussed by, you guessed it, our politicians and our media. I will also say that I hope that if another debate arises, that it can be as clean and respectful as our previous one, as we acknowledge that in the end we all want what's best for our country.

Once again I will emphasize that I am not really interested in talking about guns, but rather I am interested in the way that politicians and the media talk about them, and whether it can be done in a more productive way. And now to dissentate.

I think the gun debate is too focused on the Second Amendment - literally, on the fact that it exists - as opposed to being focused on guns. While there are valid arguments for gun rights, most people who believe in them would rather just remind us that we have the Second Amendment. I would even say that people who continuously mention the Second Amendment are hiding behind it, and for no reason, since there are, I think, valid substantive arguments about gun rights.

Take John McCain for example. Now I think McCain is a smart guy and I can only hope to eventually provide a fraction of the service to my country that he has provided. But what about this quote about the VA Tech shooting:

"We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn’t change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don’t fall into the hands of bad people."

These are the words of a guy who is so focused on mentioning the Second Amendment that he doesn't even care what the rest of the sentence is as long as it includes the words "Second Amendment." I mean, look at the sentence, it makes no sense! Taken literally, it means that the shooting changed his views on the Second Amendment, unless I misunderstand the word except. What changed? Now he thinks that weapons shouldn't fall into the hands of bad people. This is a new belief for him. Now he couldn't have possibly meant that, but I think the quote does seem to illustrate my argument that all of this talk about the Second Amendment is taking the focus off of the substance and actually looking at the facts about guns in our society.

McCain continues:

"I do believe in the constitutional right that everyone has, in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to carry a weapon."

This is just a kind of fancy way of saying "I believe that the Constitution exists, and a part of that Constitution is something called the Second Amendment, which I also believe, exists." I believe that too, but I don't think it says anything helpful to the debate.

We need to get the focus off of the Second Amendment and start talking about the facts about our country's current state of affairs. This is the only way to determine a sensible middle ground between outlawing all guns and making guns as easy to buy as cigarettes. The Second Amendment prohibits the former solution (at least for the Federal Government), and common sense prohibits the latter. But the Second Amendment doesn't really provide us with any further answers or guidance. Thus it is up to us to look at our experiences, and to respectfully debate based on what we have seen happen in our country over the last decade or so, and what are the best policies to keep us as free and safe (two goals that are often at odds with each other) as possible.

Although I am not optimistic for reasons to do with the current style of political and journalistic discourse, I hope we can leave the Second Amendment in its rightful place, and start talking about the substantive issues.

I-Bituary: Thoughts on Imus, the Media, and American Society & Culture

The Imus Story, 04/04/07 - 04/16-07

Like everyone else I am deeply saddened by last Monday's tragic events, and my heart goes out to those affected. That said, I would like to continue with my somewhat but not completely relevant theme of thinking about the American media and its interplay with our discourse, our politics, and our culture. I mean no disrespect towards Monday's events and I hope not to portray any in what I am about to write.

Maybe, the proper media response to a national (or, maybe even international, becuase this was top news in lots of international newspapers) tragedy, is to drop everything that was being focused on immediately before, and to focus on the crisis. Undoubtedly, things like this make us reflect on the relative insignificance of other things in our lives, as well as various national issues. Allowing ourselves to get upset or stressed out by something, whether a routine part of our daily lives or even a national political issue, we are, the next day, humbled by events such as these. Whether personally or socially, events such as these shake us from our prior state of routine and complacency and force us to reconsider certain things. Personally, or socially, they can make us think of the important things that we have that we take for granted, they can make us consider the important things we don't have that we lose sight of, or they can make us think about the unimportant things that we were stressing about and realize that we were blowing them out of proportion.

Because the dust has perhaps not yet settled regarding Monday's events, and because it perhaps has regarding Imus, I would now like to consider the Imus story, perhaps from a fresh perspective.

The story began on April 4, 2007, when Imus made his comments. Incidentally, many people probably began that day reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated on that day in 1968. The media began that day like it begins most days: trying to figure out what sort of coverage would attract the most viewers. Granted, there are amazing breakthroughs of intellect, egregious acts of violence, oppression and injustice, corageous and altruistic acts of people helping one another, and other awe-inspiring signs of hope and despair at all times and at all corners of our world. But, of course, it helps if they involve a celebrity.

It was a day with no completely new injustices or breakthroughs, just the same stuff that's been happening and has been happening. Now this may be the stuff that our life and culture is all about, but it doesn't spell ratings. Viewers want to see something they've never seen before, and they want it to be exicting and unthinkable, like in movies. These things don't happen too much, so when they don't happen, we go to movies. In the meantime the media informs us that Mel Gibson is racist, Brangelina adopted a child from a developing country, Dick Cheney accidentally shot his friend in the face while hunting, and Bill Gates and Bono are trying to eradicate diseases and poverty.

As I said in a previous post, it is interesting how the media discusses social issues through celebrities who, by behaving just like zillions of other people, serve as an example for aspects and developments in our society as a whole. I am not sure exactly what I think about it, because I think it is good to raise awareness of certain issues, and this seems to be one possible way to do it. But I often wonder whether it is a good way or a very bad way to do it.

We are a product of our culture, or experiences within our culture, and our reflections on those experiences. I don't know if it's part of human nature to want to know what's up with Paris Hilton and Brangelina and Imus, and cling to "sexy" news stories, or whether it's part of our capitalistic, consumer drivern culture, and is thus a self-perpetuating cycle. The cycle would go: the media know we want sexy, they give us sexy, we watch sexy, we are seduced by sexy, we want sexy, the media know we want sexy. I don't know at what point the cycle starts, but it's clear to me by observing our culture that once it starts, it spins right round baby right round.

A story about the personal life of a celebrity? Splendid!! This calls for a sexy party!

Many of us have heard Governor Schwarzenegger's comments on how to get more people behind the cause of protecting our environment and how to raise awareness and concern about climate change:

"We have to make it mainstream, we have to make it sexy, we have to make it attractive so that everyone wants to participate."

So even in politics, the fabric of our society, the strategy being touted is "sex sells." Personally I completely agree that we need to get serious about addressing the issue of climate change or global warming or whatever, but I hope that I can honestly say to myself, about that issue, and about every single other issues that I have an opinion about, I hope I can honeslty say to myself that I am not espousing certain opinions because they are sexy.

Maybe it's elitist to say that I want to feel passionate about certain things but for the right reasons, and not because they're sexy. Maybe it's elitist to say I don't want other people to agree with me on certain issues because the issues, or the positions on the issues are sexy.

Or, maybe it's elitist to say "I want everyone to agree with me on this issue, so I am going to "make" the issue sexy, because this is how I will get everyone to agree with me."

To me, this is either elitist or it is expressing a pretty low opinion about people's intelligence, and of course a high opinion of your intelligence that you can control their thoughts or actions by sexifying things. Are people not smart enough to become concerned with issues like the envirnment based on the facts and substance alone? Will they fall for your sexification?

If advertising is any indication, people apparrently respond a lot to sex, and not so much to substance. Advertisers believe this, otherwise we wouldn't see so many commercials for cars, beer, etc that just show attractive women and don't really give us any substantial information about the product.

Once again we can ask: have advertisers tapped into the foundation of human nature and found the most salient and most effective way to get us interested in what they have to sell us? Or do we respond because we grow up and operate within the context of a culture, wherein we are basically from birth inundated with people selling "sex" to us and everyone we know? Have we allowed aspects of our capitalistic and consumer-driven culture to go too far, by adopting the strategy of "whatever it takes" to sell?

In any case, we might say that "sex sells" should be a perfectly acceptable strategy for advertisers, since they should really be free to run their business and advertise their products however they want. Companies have no responsibility to us, unless we are shareholders, in which case their obligation to us is to make as much money as possible. Whether that is, or ought to be true, is of course debatable, but what really needs to be debated is whether we want more powerful and responsible aspects of our culture, our politicians and our journalists, also embracing the strategy that "sex sells," and further engraining it into our national psyche by integrating it into our news and our politics. In my opinion, it makes a profound statement about our culture when our politicians are following the example of Coors Light in doing their job.

Politics aside, there is no question that this strategy has been embraced wholeheartedly by the media. Everyone has heard the cynical saying "if it bleeds it leads" to describe how the media choses what they tell us about and when and how much.

So given these reflections, we have at least one explination of why Imus was all that the news talked about for the last two weeks, which has almost nothing to do with what Imus actually did. To make matters worse, the discussion that the media gave to the issue, and the commentary that pundits offered while weighing in on the issue, was similarly devoid of the substance of discussing the issue of what Imus actually did. By that, I mean, we basically just got people's knee-jerk political reactions to an issue that the media had decided it was going to focus on. Conservatives spoke about the good things Imus has done in his life, and the fact that he had apologized, and said that his treatment in the media was too harsh, and that his firing was excessive. Liberals emphasized his hurtful words and those words' affects on those they referred to and others who had heard them, and said that his firing was appropriate. While Democrats and Republicans alike talked past each other, refusing to even acknowledge that this was a complicated issue where both sides had valid points, everyone seemed to forget that whether he gets fired or not is none of anyone's business except his boss/bosses, who, like all other bosses, are free to fire any employee for whatever reason whatsoever, and under the law they don't even have to give a reason (this is subject to some exceptions that are irrelevant to the Imus situation). Hearing pundits and politicians talking about whether Imus should have been fired makes about as much sense as hearing Hollywood actors talking about presidential candidates - they are no more qualified or knowledgeable than the next guy, yet there they are, on the TV, giving us their opinions, day in and day out.

Now people with ordinary opinions just like ours, getting widespread media coverage of their opinions is merely another example of "sex sells." I can do all of the research and polling I want, CNN ain't gonna have me on the TV to discuss the presidential nominees or Iraq or the Second Amendment or whatever (the same goes for Matt Drudge, etc). Of course if I had starred in Good Will Hunting, Forces of Nature, Reindeer Games, Bounce, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears, Daredevil, Paycheck, and Gigli, it would be a different story.

So the point is, while Imus didn't do anything that out of the ordinary (not condoning it, just saying, racism unfortunately exists all over this country), the media -- because he is a celebrity -- seized it and didn't let it go. Now that there is a more pressing issue facing the country, we can likely expect the Imus story to get swept under the rug, and go the way of Mel Gibson, Nick Nolte, Kramer, Gary Conditt, Trent Lott, Tom DeLay and plenty of other people that were scrutinized for doing relatively ordinary things, and then the media acted like it was the end of the world for them, and now they are doing great. I mean look at Clinton, after what happened to him, the guy has been a god over the last few years.

I personally find the "sex sells" strategy in the media very concerning, especially when we look at how these stories are so efficiently utilized by the media, and then discarded as soon as either, it is still going sexy but something sexier has come along (is it better to burn out?), or, it has simply outlived its sexiness (or to fade away?). The willingness, eagerness, and ability of the media to do this again and again should at least give us pause. During that pause, we should think about where, if anywhere the conversation should go from here, and we should reflect on what we think about all this, whether we think it is good or bad for our culture, and what, if anything we can or should do about it.

"I'd Like to Have a Racist, but Newsworthy, Word with You"

the title is these guys talking, not me of course

First off, wow. I think we should change our name from the Dissentators to the (Mothman) Prohpets, because this blog never ceases to write different things that synch up in a significant way. First, no sooner do I include Imus in one of my posts (which builds upon previous Dissentary about the use of language and offensive language / political correctness, than he becomes the talk of the town for offending the entire nation with his choice of words! Upon realizing this, I decide to write this post, about Imus and his language and the topic in general, continuing the language discussion, and no sooner do I think of that then I see Brooklyn's post about the top five uses of the word "jive" in movies. Brilliant. Now Brooklyn is en route so just incase he missed it, and for others of you who also have lives and haven't seen the footage of Imus apologizing to Al Sharpton, I will recount basically what I remember of part of the conversation. I don't remember the exact transcript but it went something like this:

Imus (trying to explain himself and apparently not getting anywhere): "I can't get anywhere with you people." (I know!!! Classic!!!!)
Al Sharpton: "What do you mean 'you people'?"
Imus: "You, and the other woman we're talking to."
Woman: "No, that's not what you meant."
Imus: "Oh no, don't try to say that, that's jive."

Jive!!!! How rediculous is it that Imus said that!!! Just refer to Trading Places, Aeroplane, or Tenenbaums (the other two movies use jive a verb so it doesn't really apply) and it looks like this comment is right up there with his other racist comments.

This brings us back to the subject of language, a subject that I don't want this post to be about, but it is worth a mention. I mean Imus I guess probably is racist but he is a professionally trained voice man and smart enough to know that he's not supposed to appear racist on his radio show. Even Kramer at the Laugh Factory, at least according to him, was trying to make a joke (by the way isn't it ironic that the place that produced one of the most horrifying things captured on film and then shown to the entire nation was called the "Laugh Factory"?). Okay well Kramer trying to make a joke is a bit of a stretch, but we can agree that before Imus and Kramer took to the stage/airwaves they probably weren't planning on saying anything racist, but the fact may be that society is changing (I would say, on the whole, for the better, although of course there are pros and cons to political correctness) faster than these old guys can keep up with. I mean these are pretty old guys and the majority of our society (or maybe just the intellectuals?) has left them in the dust, whether in terms of actual racism or comments that (even if the person speaking doesn't initially realize it) can be interpreted as racism. I mean we've all heard and many of us have told stories about how our adorable european-descendent grandparents made racist comments, but we don't get that mad at them, because they came from differnet times. Imus might be as old as some of our grandparents but he gets out more than most of them, plus there's that whole "he's talking to hundreds of millions of people and not just to our family at Thanks giving (btw - Thanksgiving: racist or hijacked by the PC police?) dinner" part, so we're going to bear down on Imus, and softsoap our grandparents. Howard Stern said that Imus should have just said "fuck you, it's a joke."

Anyway though, putting the PC language discussion aside for a moment, I also want to get everyone's opinions on what the hell exactly is going on in our country and in our society, and what exactly is the deal with our morality. One could sum up the last couple of months with the following: White southern boys at a renowned institution of higher learning accused of raping a black stripper, the biggest thing to hit the entertainment world is a comedy about a racist and dim-witted Kazakhstani (played by a Jewish Englishman) going to America and filming his conversations with other (some of which are also, apparently, racist and dim-witted) Americans played by themsleves, then one of the stars of maybe the best comedy series ever (although he was the Ringo Starr of Seinfeld) goes on a racist explosion at an LA Comedy club, and then one of the most famous morning radio hosts (is famous morning radio host an oxy moron?) comes under scrutiny for making racist comments. Now three of these things were pretty unanimously disgusting while one of them, not as much, so right there is another interesting topic of discussion, especially since, aside from the Duke story, everyone involved was an entertainer (well I guess you could say that the stripper was too and maybe even the star athletes), so right there is an example of the fact that there is a line which Sasha Baron Cohen I guess stepped right up to but didn't go over, while those other guys, well, they crossed the fuck out of it.

But I said I wanted to talk about our society and our culture and our morals, which is why I have the philosophers up there. I can't really decide what I think about the fact that the news is teeming with these isolated incidents concerning Kramer and Imus and the Duke Lacrosse players. If you go to Drudge Report (btw another topic for bloggery is whether Drudge is part of the problem or the solution to the (in my opinion extremely depressing and infuriating) problem of the conflation of news with entertainment) right now it is a bit rediculous: Imus, the Duke case, Imus talking about the Duke case, and then the 2008 presidential candidates talking about Imus (this is too far, no? I really don't know if the Imus thing is useful information to keep the public informed and aid in the discourse that shapes our culture and our society, but surely the 2008 candidates talking about Imus - two degrees of Imus if you will - is just three darts (by three darts I mean: too much (see Ace Ventura 2)).

So what I want to discuss is whether this a good thing or a bad thing, that this is our news. I mean we have injustice and racism every day and everywhere, that goes unnoticed and unremarked upon by the media, but when it involves celbrities / rich people the media can't stop talking about it.

Starbucks has started writing me messages when I buy coffee from them, and one of said messages presently comes to mind (don't worry it's not racist):

The Way I See It: #192
Many people lack a spiritual believe system and fill that void with obcessions about celebrities. The celebrities are raised to the rank of gods, and these earthly gods will always fail the expectations the masses set for them. The cycle runs thusly: adoration turns to obcession, obcession turns to disappointment, and from disappointment is just a short emotional jump to contempt.

Now when I first read that I thought to myself: why are you talking about celebrities? All of this can be said about religion, and about God (also a topic for another day on the blog). But now I finally see that it can also be said about celebrities! Of course we don't expect anything fancy from celebrities, we just expect them to be as cool in real life as they are when they're on stage or screen. This is where the disappointment sets in. For example: Michael Richards - definitely not as cool as Kramer. For our celebrities and also for talk show people like Imus I guess we just expect them not to be evil. Maybe part of the reason we are so angry and hurt when it turns out that our celebrities are evil or screwed up, is because we learn that we are better than them, and how the fuck did they get to be celebrities and us not? This can break down into two parts, one of which is our failure, and the other part is the failure of our society: wherein horrible people are able to achieve immense fame and fortune. Well, this and the whole "they are saying these things to hundreds of millions of people as opposed to just your family at Thanksgiving dinner" thing.

So does this explain our reaction? Does this explain, and does it justify, these isolated incidents, exactly the same as so many that happen constantly except that they're celebrities, getting media coverage ad nauseum?

Maybe the explanation is that we are making an example of these people. Oh sorry, let me rephrase that. Maybe we are making an example of Imus and Kramer and of the Duke parties (the parties to the lawsuit, not the keg parties, although, sure, them too). We aren't going to solve all of the millions of isolated incidents, but there are some that we will make known to all (lots of people are going to find out anyway but we will make sure everyone finds out) and then we are going to tell and retell the events and hear what everyone (political leaders and other celebrities and entertainers alike) has to say about it, and then we are going to watch what happens to the perpetrators, in order to demonstrate how we as a society feel about this behavior, and what we as a society deem fit as a response, and if necessary, a punishment.

Is this desirable? One one hand we are bringing social problems to everyone's attention, maybe the only way we could get everyone to pay attention and consider these issues is using celebrities? On the other hand, it glamorizes legitimate concerns of our normal everyday lives, and maybe even takes the focus off of them. Are there better ways to deal with social problems like racism than constant coverage of Imus-gate? If you answered yes to that last question, then couldn't all of the time and energy spent talking about the Duke case and Kramer and Imus be better spent on other endeavors, both in terms of what stories the media is covering and Matt Drudge is posting on his site, and in terms of what we are discussing in conversation and on our blogs?

Is this what we want? Are we happy with how these scandals come up, command national focus, play out, and then die out when another weird incident comes up (anyone heard anything about Kramer lately?)?

If something seems wrong, or strange, who do we blame? Do we blame ourselves for engaging in these discussions about Imus and Kramer that we complain about, and not doing anything to change things? Do we blame the media for rolling around in toxic goo with entertainment and fusing together to form the radioactive seven headed beast that it has become? Is it just us, the blogging intellectuals, who are disgusted with this phenomena, and do most news-watchers think that the news is just fine? If not, why does the news keep doing this? Have they to live up to their responsibilities to society? Or am I being too pessimistic, and do stories like the Kramer and Imus cases serve society in some beneficial way?

Dissentators, mount up.

Please Read to the End

The one truism that I have learned in my 24 years is that I will look back at my opinions in 5 years and think that I am a complete idiot. It's happened every 5 years, give or take, and it's one of the few things on which I will look back and think, "Hey, you were right about that." In the past, I've been known to throw out ideas -- some hairbrained, some off-color, short-sighted, nit-witted, etc. Some theories I posit with brazen passion and some just to fill the air during an awkward convo. Just so you get the idea, here are a few of my current gems: the existence of UFO's makes more sense to me than that of the people who witness them; I appreciate animals as much as any vegetarian, because I also love the way they taste; if Henry David Thoreau were alive today, Walden would be a blog; we'd be better off with fewer books out there and more readers; and, come to think of it, I may even appreciate animals more than vegetarians.

These thoughts, admittedly, are not deeply instilled and are most likely transient visitors -- trying to keep warm for a night or two in the soup kitchen of my head -- they do not make up, define or speak for all the rest. I have almost as many or as many good, honed, well-reasoned thoughts, as I do wild-eyed inanities. These 5 year retrospections of mine are moments of whimsy, not embarrassment. What I am trying to say is that I cannot dismiss all of my present-day ideas and beliefs because of a few wild turkeys clucking around my head. I don't think it unreasonable to assume that most of us are the same way, and yet in our current political climate, we engage, bolster, and promote this type of dismissal each day.

Senator Biden called Senator Obama "articulate" and that has been the defining moment in Biden's two-month-long presidential campaign; John Kerry voted for a spending bill before he voted against it and it cost him an election; so-and-so is pro-choice, soft on crime, French. In each of these examples an iota of a slice of minutia has defined the whole individual and a better part of their campaign.

Okay, if you haven't given up on the point that I'm trying to make because of my remarks about vegetarians, then let's do a little thought exercise. Try to picture former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic Nominee for President, Michael Dukakis. Got a picture of him yet? Do you even know who I'm talking about? If you don't know who I'm talking about, then you don't have to play and you know what, you can just do your blog reading somewhere else (see what I did there? An example of general dismissal in real time). If you were able to picture him in your head, I'll put some money down on the fact that you pictured him with his smiling head sticking out of a tank, donning an ill-fitted helmet. That's because that stupid picture defined him campaign and Dukakis himself. Who knows? He may have been able to put together a great Health Care package or bring peace to the Middle East, but he stuck his head out of a tank, someone snapped a picture, and we'll never know.

This type of societal brush off is carried out with such ease that we almost come to expect and anticipate the split second that will define a career. You can see this anticipation in the current coverage of the 2008 Presidential Election, how pundits and columnists try to find weaknesses in Obama's oratorical acumen, or when Katie Couric interviews Edwards and his wife, or the recent attention given to McCain's trip to Iraq (he went without a helmut but ended up looking as dumb as Dukakis).

What may be even more disturbing than the ease with which we the people dismiss someone but the even greater ease with which we are duped into it. This is why President Bush thinks he can get away with whatever he wants when he recently:

"attacked Congress for taking 57 days to “pass emergency funds for our troops” even though the previous, Republican-led Congress took 119 days on the same bill in 2006. He ridiculed the House bill for “pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war,” though last year’s war-spending bill was also larded with unrelated pork, from Congressional efforts to add agricultural subsidies to the president’s own request for money for bird-flu preparation."

We complain about our current leaders and the choices we have for the new ones; we complain about the Republicans when they're in charge and the Democrats when they hold power -- "It's the politicians' fault", "It's the media's fault", "It's the system's fault"-- we piss and gripe and moan and it's our own damn fault. If we approached each election with openness and engaged skepticism -- not the easily manipulated sort, but the kind that drives one to double-check accusations -- then candidates would not be so timid to speak from their heart to extrapolate on their proposals and voice their true voices. Each election, we hear how the candidates are all the same. No kidding, because they are all too frightened of the idiot brush that we paint them with if they were to step out of line.

So, next time you hear about a candidate's off-the-record remarks that magically got on record, or see a photo of a candidate with or without a helmut, don't dismiss them. Find out more about them. Just think of the lesson from 1960, back when a lot of people were ready to dismiss the blue-eyed man from Massachusetts for fear that a Catholic President would take his orders from the Pope. That same year we elected Kennedy and it turned out that he could mess up a bunch on his own thank you. He didn't the Pope at all. But why take my word for it? I told you at the beginning I may not even believe this stuff in 5 years.

Obama for President, but not until 2016

He gets my vote on coolest logo, though

Every four years there comes a time in our country when 50 or 60% of Americans of voting age vote for a president based on their perceptions on the candidates. These perceptions come from lots of places and are formed a number of different ways. According to the last two elections people just vote on geographical party lines: if you live near an ocean or a freshwater ocean you are a red state to distinguish yourself from the water, and if you don't live near water you are a blue state to demonstrate that obviously this blue part is the land. It will be interesting to see if this changes in 2008 and who can win the most swing states in '08 (according to Wikipedia's article, there are 14 current swing states. In 2004, of those states, Bush won 8 - Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia and Florida - while Kerry won 6 - Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves because we have primaries to worry about, although always keeping in mind the primaries are very much influenced by who we think can win the general election, where the potential to win swing states should be a huge factor.

So, apart from electibility in the general election, which I think is determined by who wins the New Hampshire primary (which is determined by who wins the Iowa Caucus), what is influencing people's votes in the primaries? This is a complicated issue but I don't think too many people will argue with me when I claim that the primaries are heavily influenced by money, which is heavily influenced by name recognition and, of course, money. This is a big problem, and I blame the media. Unless you make the effort that I am not comfortable assuming that all voters are making, you get all of your info from the media and all you are going to have learned form themknow about the candidates right now is two things. First, that Hillary, Obama, McCain, and Giuliani are on TV a lot, either getting mentioned or actually being shown interviewed or speaking. So there you have your name recognition, which is a self fulfilling (mothman) prohpesy because people will assume that they are the best candidates and vote for them just because they are familiar with them. Unfortunately the these four are only getting so much more attention because they have been in the spotlight in the past and the other candidates haven't, and this of course says nothing about what kind of president they would be. The second thing most people know now thanks to the media is that Hillary and Romney raised the most money in the most recent money count. Are you freaking kidding me with this? Sure, it can be seen as a proxy for how many supporters they have right now, but this is really dangerous because fundraising is so dependent on name recognition and how much money you have to put together a good fundraising campaign, which, again says nothing about what kind of a president you would be. Despite this, fundraising is used as a proxy not only for how many supporters the candidates have, but also for how good they are as candidates, because everyone likes a winner, perhaps regardless of what kind of competition that they've won (this is also why winning the party nomination is so dependent on Iowa (Yeearrrrgh) and New Hampshire).

The other reason why the media is determining so much is that they pick up the slack for the candidates. Putting aside the fact that the media do a horrible and actually could do a much better job at this, let's not let the candidates off the hook so easily. For several reasons (for starters take the fact that America is such a large country with diverse opinions and the fact that it has more potential than any other country to carry out various potential projects and ideas, of which there are approximately eleventy billion), political campaigns have become an exercise in talking a lot and saying little or nothing of substance. This is partly because if you say anything that gives away an actual opinion the media will replay it over and over again (partly because you would be the first to do so (IE to give them news!) and also becuase yearrghhh), but also because this is just how the system has come to function: because of the diversity of opinions among the huge number of voters, politicians beleive they can maximize support by being vague and not committing themselves too much on particular policy ideas for difficult (is there any other kind) isses.

The result is that we are informed that all of the candidates want to win in Iraq and bring the troops back ASAP, and all of the candidates want a strong economy with more jobs, and all of the candidates want to improve education and health care, etc. They all agree on most of the ends (or, at least, the ones that they think that are most important to the voters), however this turns into all that they talk about, and they tend no to go into much detail on the means, to a point where they will often all agree on the means as well because they are not being very specific. So how are we supposed to choose? I'm not going to lie, I'm not really sure. One way is, even if the candidates are giving the same answers, to pay attention to how they give them. A wise man once said "it's not what you say, it's how you say it." For instance, compare "she had a crack baby" to "she had a crack, baby." In other words one would have to read or listen to the candidates discussing the various issues and then compare and contrast, and decide who you felt sounded the most sincere and knowledgeable and capable when discussing what they want to do and why/how they can do it. This, again is what I am not comfortable in assuming that most of the voters are going to do. This should not be too shocking since we all lead busy lives nowadays, but it should be troubling because these are big decisions to be made. Unfortunately, many people are probably just tuning into the news every now and then, and then watching the debates, where, again, the candidates don't give us much info (to combine the horrors of the media with those of the vague candidates, the media then gives us statistics on who won the debates -- PEOPLE SHOULD DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

So I think it's clear that we all need to admit that we have a responsibility to be better informed. Call it a responsibility as an American, a responsibility as a human in society, an ethical responsibility, a moral responsibility, William Jennings Bryan, William Tell, whoever. Of course, this isn't easy either, and requires a lot of effort. One place I'd like to start is the candidates web sites on the issues. As I said, they all come to similar conclusions on the issues (except for the traditional democratic-republican splits on certain things), but maybe you can make a judgment just based on what issues these guys (and girl!) put up on their web sites, and also how they phrase them. So here are the issues that each candidate chose to give you their opinion on via their web site.

Giuliani:
Fiscal Discipline
Cutting Taxes
Winning the War on Terror
Iraq
Public Safety
Judges
Education
Abortion
Second Amendment
Marriage

McCain:
Government Spending, Lower Taxes and Economic Prosperity
Human Dignity & the Sanctity of Life
Lobbying & Ethics Reform
The Consequences of Failure in Iraq
National Security
Stewards of our Nation's Rich National Heritage
Protecting Second Amendment Rights

Romney:
Defeating the Jihadists
Competing with Asia
Taxes
Spending
Immigration
Energy
America's Culture and Values
Technology
Health Care
Education

Biden:
Iraq: A Way Forward
Afghanistan and Darfur
Energy
Jobs
Health Care
Access to Higher Education
Preparing for College
Homeland Security
Crime
Climate Change

Dodd:
American Security
Education
Energy and the Environment
Health Care
Leadership on Iraq
Jobs and the Economy

Hillary:
Honestly I cannot find Clinton's "Issues" part of her web site and I'm not sure whether there is one!

Obama:
Strengthening America Overseas
Plan to End the Iraq War
Cleaning up Washington's Culture of Corruption
Meeting America's Energy Needs
Honoring our Veterans
Improving our Schools
Creating a Healthcare System that Works
Protecting our Homeland
Strengthening Families and Communities
Protecting the Right to Vote
Reconciling Faith and Politics

Richardson:
Iraq
National Security/Foreign Policy
Partisanship
Environment/Energy
Jobs/Economy
Healthcare
Immigration

So there is a starting point. And finally a word about my personal opinions and in reference to the title of this article. I think I will probably vote for one of the Democrats although I haven't ruled out some of the Republicans, so, since this is a blog, and blogs are for non-experts to air their personal opinions on issues they don't fully understand, I will do so. As I mentioned, the media is already shaping the primaries and thus the general election, and they are simplifying the Democratic primary down to Hillary-Obama, which is unfortunate. Personally I am thoroughly unimpressed with Hillary, and I am very impressed with Obama, although I am equally if not more impressed with Dodd, Edwards, Richardson and Biden. These three are incredibly smart guys and the pundits and the media as well as us when we discuss politics in our personal time ignore these three at our own and our nation's peril. For reasons including but not limited to experience, I think it makes much more sense to have one of those guys as the Presidential nominee, and they will then do well to choose Obama as their running mate. Maybe Barack can be VP for 8 years - he can still speak for our country and have an influence in shaping policy, and then he will be ready to be President in 2016.