Comments on: What This Country Needs Is A Down Home Revival (Of Debate)

By: john andrews

john andrews — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:56:24 +0000

Hi Lonnie,

You make two good points:

1. Too much time and importance is attached to loud and aggressive people.

2. There are a lot of well-meaning people out there who waste too much energy abusing those who are basically on the same side as them.

Whilst I am a huge fan of Mr Chomsky’s work, it has to be said that the man has a problem with simple sentances. I strongly disagree with the view that only conventional thoughts can be expressed concisely. Unconventional thoughts can also be simply expressed; watch:

The ordinary citizen, properly informed, should be able, if she chooses, to make any of the political decisions of her government.

Substantiating it, takes a little longer; and the unexplored corridors down which it leads takes a long time to examine, but the thought can be simply expressed.

However, you are absolutely right: people should start debating. We all know our system is broken – no point in continuing to prove it. Now the debate needs to move on to consider how to fix it.

By: cg

cg — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 02:09:52 +0000

A society of cheaters and the cheated.

By: Brian Koontz

Brian Koontz — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:34:40 +0000

Good luck with that. Since the mid 1990s I’ve asked 15 separate people on 15 different occasions for a debate, and received 15 nos. I see two major reasons for this:

1) A disbelief in objective reality

Americans are subjectivists, believers in “you have your reality and I have mine”. A debate is pointless because there is no truth for debate to reach.

2) Cynicism and despair

This is both cynicism about debate itself (related to the above point) and cynicism in general. A debate is a kind of modern activity – it builds knowledge, builds reality. Americans are postmodernists for whom destruction is the only relationship to reality.

Americans see reality as a kind of battleground of subjectivities, where your reality battles against my reality. Thus debate is incredibly personal in the sense that reality is always personal. Facts are *internal*, according to this logic.

American culture is changing, and both objectivity and debate is making a comeback. But whether it’s far enough back yet is, well, debatable.

By: rosemarie jackowski

rosemarie jackowski — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:22:59 +0000

Thanks, Donald. The tragedy is that it only takes one Attorney General to bring forth an indictment of Bush – just one. No Dem/repub will do it because members of the Congress are complicit. It will take an outsider, like me.
http://tinyurl.com/6rdzop

By: Donald Hawkins

Donald Hawkins — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:40:13 +0000

Instead of serving its potential function as a vehicle for democracy, the public airwaves have been used to turn our national and local dialogue into something more resembling the Jerry Springer Show.

How about used to turn our national and local dialogue into something more resembling the illusion of competence. Those words I got from a very good fiction writer. Illusion of competence, Oh yes it works in so many way’s.

Good luck Rosemarie who’s knows maybe Vermont instead of Canada.

By: rosemarie jackowski

rosemarie jackowski — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:56:38 +0000

There is no democracy. In Vermont the non dem/repub candidate for governor was present at the scheduled candidates debate. He sat on the stage. The police came – roughed him up – then arrested him. He is an elderly man with medical problems. His crime was being present at a debate and not being a member of the ‘Party’. True story – happened a couple of weeks ago in Vermont – one of the States most tightly under the control of the Party machine.

I just won the Primary for Vermont Attorney General. It was never reported in any newspaper because I am not a dem/repub. As long as the Press can censor out a whole class of candidates – the corruption will continue.

Democracy is a myth.