[kenberg]

In my youth when I was the sole advocate for a dissenting viewpoint eventually someone would say "Yes, Ken, you have a point but if you comb your hair just right no one will notice it". That's when I knew it was time to stop with that particular argument. I didn't usually change my mind, I just moved on. So it is here.
If we put politics aside, surely there is something to be said for a person looking for their own mistakes when things go wrong, but I have pushed on that as much as I intend to. I'm not going anywhere, I'm just dropping that line of thought in this discussion.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2022-October-09, 06:05, said:

In my youth when I was the sole advocate for a dissenting viewpoint eventually someone would say "Yes, Ken, you have a point but if you comb your hair just right no one will notice it". That's when I knew it was time to stop with that particular argument. I didn't usually change my mind, I just moved on. So it is here.
If we put politics aside, surely there is something to be said for a person looking for their own mistakes when things go wrong, but I have pushed on that as much as I intend to. I'm not going anywhere, I'm just dropping that line of thought in this discussion.

When you write this, I feel discouraged.

Certainly, we should look to ourselves to see if we can improve as should Democrats. I think there is much more to this though. There are certainly large swaths of voters who found their own reason to vote as they did. They are not in lock-step with each other. So what was the common denominator that brought the fractions (sic) together?

I doubt it was Democratic error as much as positive results from negation by opposing forces.
It takes work to understand what was meant by Defund the Police. Was it stupid to say it - Yes. Was it's message wrong; No.
But the reality is that the messaging is all that gets through to most. The issue is how to counteract propaganda, and a media too lazy to look past its own headlines.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2022-October-09, 11:03, said:

When you write this, I feel discouraged.

Certainly, we should look to ourselves to see if we can improve as should Democrats. I think there is much more to this though. There are certainly large swaths of voters who found their own reason to vote as they did. They are not in lock-step with each other. So what was the common denominator that brought the fractions (sic) together?

I doubt it was Democratic error as much as positive results from negation by opposing forces.
It takes work to understand what was meant by Defund the Police. Was it stupid to say it - Yes. Was it's message wrong; No.
But the reality is that the messaging is all that gets through to most. The issue is how to counteract propaganda, and a media too lazy to look past its own headlines.

Alrighty, I said I would back off on this topic but I didn't sign that in blood. Try this:

Suppose there is an important matter that is put to the vote of 100 people and the vote comes out "wrong" by a vote of 52-48. Suppose the supporters of the wrong side used a bunch of phony arguments. Suppose 40 of the people on the wrong side are so wrong-headed that no rational argument would ever sway them. So it was hopeless? No. Let the 40 idiots stay in their shells. We needed three more votes. If 3 of the 52 are willing to listen and capable of thinking then the good guys could have won, or at least they had a shot. So the focus should not be on the 40 unreachables, rather the focus should be on how during the campaign the needed 3 could have been held. The next time we go before these 100 people there will still be unreachables, there will still be phony claims, there will still be the same media outlets. Coyote news is not going out of business anytime soon. But what can be done to raise the vote from 48 to 51? Answer: Start by assuming that maybe 40 are unreachable, maybe even 45 are unreachable, but that leaves 7 who are reachable and we need 3. Maybe some modest improvements in messaging, and perhaps some modest changes in actual policies, would do it. Maybe not, but maybe yes.

[pilowsky]

Sometimes experiments fail.
Sometimes the result you expected to get doesn't appear.

There can be lots of reasons.

But after hundreds of years surely the rational approach is to try to change the experiment, to try something new.
Otherwise, if you keep banging your head against a brick wall your ears will start to bleed.

[Chas_P]

Winstonm, on 2022-October-09, 11:03, said:

It takes work to understand what was meant by Defund the Police.

Obviously it does. Because if "Defund the Police" doesn't mean, "Take Money Away From Police Departments" I don't get it. Please explain exactly what it DOES mean. Semantics matter.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2022-October-09, 13:43, said:

Alrighty, I said I would back off on this topic but I didn't sign that in blood. Try this:

Suppose there is an important matter that is put to the vote of 100 people and the vote comes out "wrong" by a vote of 52-48. Suppose the supporters of the wrong side used a bunch of phony arguments. Suppose 40 of the people on the wrong side are so wrong-headed that no rational argument would ever sway them. So it was hopeless? No. Let the 40 idiots stay in their shells. We needed three more votes. If 3 of the 52 are willing to listen and capable of thinking then the good guys could have won, or at least they had a shot. So the focus should not be on the 40 unreachables, rather the focus should be on how during the campaign the needed 3 could have been held. The next time we go before these 100 people there will still be unreachables, there will still be phony claims, there will still be the same media outlets. Coyote news is not going out of business anytime soon. But what can be done to raise the vote from 48 to 51? Answer: Start by assuming that maybe 40 are unreachable, maybe even 45 are unreachable, but that leaves 7 who are reachable and we need 3. Maybe some modest improvements in messaging, and perhaps some modest changes in actual policies, would do it. Maybe not, but maybe yes.

I get what you are saying. But are you hearing me?

I am saying that those 7 who are reachable are presently unreachable in essence due to our flawed media and laws regarding media.

Propaganda is not a word that necessarily means evil or wrong-it is advertising. When every television in every store or bar or health club or home is tuned for news to either Fox or CNN or ABC or CBS or NBC they are given a dose of both sides with no push back whatsoever.

I learned that a significant part of a reporter's duty is to differentiate fact from fiction and report the facts and renounce the fiction. Modern media does not do that.

This problem is not one of the Democrats need to be better (they do. I agree) But to win in the longer run the country needs fixed, especially the media.

[Winstonm]

pilowsky, on 2022-October-09, 15:51, said:

Sometimes experiments fail.
Sometimes the result you expected to get doesn't appear.

There can be lots of reasons.

But after hundreds of years surely the rational approach is to try to change the experiment, to try something new.
Otherwise, if you keep banging your head against a brick wall your ears will start to bleed.

You are right but I do not see that possible in this environment. It will require someone with the popularity of Ronald Reagan to win massively and then have both parties too afraid of his popularity to do anything but acquiesce to his wishes, and hopefully he wants the good of the country ahead of his own self interests. I don't see him anywhere.

[PeterAlan]

kenberg, on 2022-October-09, 13:43, said:

Suppose there is an important matter that is put to the vote of 100 people and the vote comes out "wrong" by a vote of 52-48. Suppose the supporters of the wrong side used a bunch of phony arguments.

Suppose? That's just what happened here (UK) 6 years ago. Unfortunately, we didn't get another go 4 years later.

[kenberg]

PeterAlan, on 2022-October-09, 18:00, said:

Suppose? That's just what happened here (UK) 6 years ago. Unfortunately, we didn't get another go 4 years later.

Hard to know what to say. I have never found comfort in the troubles of others.
If there is agreement to be found among all our posts I guess it would be in "Good grief, what a mess".

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2022-October-09, 17:54, said:

I get what you are saying. But are you hearing me?

I am saying that those 7 who are reachable are presently unreachable in essence due to flawed our flawed media and laws regarding media.

Propaganda is not a word that necessarily means evil or wrong-it is advertising. When every television in every store or bar or health club or home is tuned for news to either Fox or CNN or ABC or CBS or NBC they are given a dose of both sides with no push back whatsoever.

I learned that a significant part of a reporter's duty is to differentiate fact from fiction and report the facts and renounce the fiction. Modern media does not do that.

This problem is not one of the Democrats need to be better (they do. I agree) But to win in the longer run the country needs fixed, especially the media.

Yep, I hear you. And others. We have reached a stalemate, hence my decision to not comment much further on it all. I'll keep looking for those 7.

[Gilithin]

kenberg, on 2022-October-09, 13:43, said:

Suppose there is an important matter that is put to the vote of 100 people and the vote comes out "wrong" by a vote of 52-48. Suppose the supporters of the wrong side used a bunch of phony arguments.

Suppose there is an important matter that is put to the vote of 100 people and the vote comes out "right" by a vote of 52-48. Suppose the supporters of the wrong side use a bunch of phony arguments to say that the vote should not be done this way but instead the 100 need to be split into 10 groups of 10. Each group of 10 has 1 vote in the final tally. They now separate out the 52 into 2 groups of 10 and 8 groups of 4 and complete the groups of 10 with the 48. When the vote is now tallied the result is "wrong" by a score of 2 to 8. Now let us suppose that there is a panel of 9 seniors who decide that this is a perfectly acceptable approach, where 6 of them were previously assigned to the panel by the "wrong" side. This is the United States.

[pilowsky]

What Mary Trump thinks about pardoning Donald.

[johnu]

pilowsky, on 2022-October-10, 03:54, said:

What Mary Trump thinks about pardoning Donald.

I'm a compassionate liberal. So, after Trump has served a nominal sentence of say 30 or 40 years, why not commute his sentence and let him spend the rest of his days in Russia or Saudi Arabia if they will let him in their countries.

[hrothgar]

Chas_P, on 2022-October-09, 17:46, said:

Obviously it does. Because if "Defund the Police" doesn't mean, "Take Money Away From Police Departments" I don't get it. Please explain exactly what it DOES mean. Semantics matter.

Defund the Police is an argument about the set of responsibilities that should be assigned to police departments.

Surprisingly enough there is a wikipedia page that gos into this all in detail
https://en.wikipedia...fund_the_police

[kenberg]

hrothgar, on 2022-October-10, 04:03, said:

Defund the Police is an argument about the set of responsibilities that should be assigned to police departments.

Surprisingly enough there is a wikipedia page that gos into this all in detail
https://en.wikipedia...fund_the_police

The Wik article is very interesting, I had not seen it. I grew up in St. Paul, then lived in Minneapolis in 1959, and in 1960 I lived a few blocks from where George Floyd was killed. Wikipedia says the phrase Defund the Police became common during the George Floyd protests, although it doesn't say it originated there. At any rate, since I once lived near where the phrase "became common" I was particularly interested in what the Wik article said about Minneapolis. Here it is:

Quote

In Minneapolis, activist groups Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective requested for the police budget to be cut by $45 million.^[80] Members of the Minneapolis City Council signed a pledge to dismantle the police and create new public safety systems.^[90][91] City council member Lisa Bender explained, "Our commitment is to end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe."^[92] In September, the pledge was set aside. Pledge signer Andrew Johnson clarified that he had supported the pledge only in spirit, not literally. Lisa Bender, the council president, said that different interpretations of the pledge by different council members had created confusion.^[93] The New York Times reported that the pledge "has been rejected by the city's mayor, a plurality of residents in recent public opinion polls, and an increasing number of community groups. Taking its place have been the types of incremental reforms that the city's progressive politicians had denounced."^[93]

By the end of 2020, as the city was dealing with a spike in violent crime, Minneapolis officials agreed to a 4.5 percent shift of the city's $179 million annual police budget to violence prevention programs and non-emergency services, which was far short of the sweeping changes demanded by activists and pledged by local lawmakers in the wake of Floyd's murder.^[94] In the 2021 Minneapolis municipal election, voters rejected a ballot measure to amend the city's charter to eliminate a required minimum number of police officers based on the city's population and that would have replaced the police department with a department of public safety.^[95] By the end of 2021, city officials had restored police funding in Minneapolis to $191 million—the funding level prior the resource diversion following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.^[96]

If nothing else, this could illustrate what happens when a complex issue is reduced to a three word slogan. Almost everyone would agree that police encounter a wide variety of situations, some of which they are not remotely well-prepared to handle. Thus we have hostage negotiators. We have specialists to talk with those who are at the top of a building threatening to jump. And so on. Whatever we might say is at the root of racial problems, expecting the police to solve those problems is expecting them to do something that the rest of us have not been able to do. So yes, change is desperately needed for the good of everyone. For the good of the communities but also for the good of the police and also for the good of the perps. There were a couple of instances in my youth when cops helped me straighten out my thinking and I don't doubt this worked well at least in part because I and they were white.

One of my earliest memories of the politics of distortion is from 1952, I came home from a Boy Sout meeting to find the TV on and Joe McCarthy talking about the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson . I forget all the details but the idea was to portray Stevenson as a Communist. Really? Stevenson a Communist? But the conclusion I draw from this is that any person who is surprised that the slogan Defund the Police gets used to negatively portray Democrats needs to get a grip on reality. Of course it will be so used. So some thought needs to go into how this is presented. A great many people could accept the idea that the situation between cops and the Black community is in serious need of improvement. Many of them would think that Defund the Police does not sound like something they had in mind. That should not be difficult to anticipate.

I am not claiming it is simple .I am claiming that thinking about how to present an idea would be time well spent.

Added: About slogans, let's go back to 1952. "I will go to Korea". Ike's slogan was an excellent match between what people wanted done and what they took the slogan to mean. Technically it is vague. But no one thought he would go there to visit the seashore.

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on 2022-October-10, 07:42, said:

But the conclusion I draw from this is that any person who is surprised that the slogan Defund the Police gets used to negatively portray Democrats needs to get a grip on reality.

The Conservative media will always find something to complain about.

There will always be a new caravan approaching the board or a bunch of transgender activists out grooming our children or a busload of ANTIFA terrorists storming the capital.

ACORN is always right around the corner and Critical Race Theory will always be a threat.
(until this all gets forgotten)

It doesn't matter what we do or what we say.
There will always be some new crisis.

And *****wits like Chas will be right there lapping it all up.

The rest of us can and should do better.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2022-October-10, 07:42, said:

The Wik article is very interesting, I had not seen it. I grew up in St. Paul, then lived in Minneapolis in 1959, and in 1960 I lived a few blocks from where George Floyd was killed. Wikipedia says the phrase Defund the Police became common during the George Floyd protests, although it doesn't say it originated there. At any rate, since I once lived near where the phrase "became common" I was particularly interested in what the Wik article said about Minneapolis. Here it is:



If nothing else, this could illustrate what happens when a complex issue is reduced to a three word slogan. Almost everyone would agree that police encounter a wide variety of situations, some of which they are not remotely well-prepared to handle. Thus we have hostage negotiators. We have specialists to talk with those who are at the top of a building threatening to jump. And so on. Whatever we might say is at the root of racial problems, expecting the police to solve those problems is expecting them to do something that the rest of us have not been able to do. So yes, change is desperately needed for the good of everyone. For the good of the communities but also for the good of the police and also for the good of the perps. There were a couple of instances in my youth when cops helped me straighten out my thinking and I don't doubt this worked well at least in part because I and they were white.

One of my earliest memories of the politics of distortion is from 1952, I came home from a Boy Sout meeting to find the TV on and Joe McCarthy talking about the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson . I forget all the details but the idea was to portray Stevenson as a Communist. Really? Stevenson a Communist? But the conclusion I draw from this is that any person who is surprised that the slogan Defund the Police gets used to negatively portray Democrats needs to get a grip on reality. Of course it will be so used. So some thought needs to go into how this is presented. A great many people could accept the idea that the situation between cops and the Black community is in serious need of improvement. Many of them would think that Defund the Police does not sound like something they had in mind. That should not be difficult to anticipate.

I am not claiming it is simple .I am claiming that thinking about how to present an idea would be time well spent.

Added: About slogans, let's go back to 1952. "I will go to Korea". Ike's slogan was an excellent match between what people wanted done and what they took the slogan to mean. Technically it is vague. But no one thought he would go there to visit the seashore.

On my phone so I will be short: 1) had society done a decent job of protecting everyone equally there would have been no need of the defund the police movement 2) DTP movement began as a race-based complaint-right wing media made it a Democrat slogan and here you are echoing that claim.

The issue is propaganda so successful it has turned you into its echo chamber.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2022-October-10, 11:37, said:

On my phone so I will be short: 1) had society done a decent job of protecting everyone equally there would have been no need of the defund the police movement 2) DTP movement began as a race-based complaint-right wing media made it a Democrat slogan and here you are echoing that claim.

The issue is propaganda so successful it has turned you into its echo chamber.

Obviously I don't think of myself as an echo chamber, and probably also obviously I can't see myself arguing about whether I am an echo chamber. Not much more to say about it.

[diana_eva]

I removed some back and forth between Richard and Chas. I know this is the WC but please stop the personal attacks. You can attack ideas all you want, however please avoid explaining how you wish to see other people dead and diagnosing each other's mental health.

We're all mad here

[kenberg]

diana_eva, on 2022-October-12, 04:55, said:

I removed some back and forth between Richard and Chas. I know this is the WC but please stop the personal attacks. You can attack ideas all you want, however please avoid explaining how you wish to see other people dead and diagnosing each other's mental health.

We're all mad here

Well done and nicely phrased, thanks. Not everyone agrees of course, but thanks.

For some time now I have been thinking, and sometimes posting, about how internet postings of various sorts can go so far wrong. WC is better than most but not immune. Part of the problem is very simple. Saturday mornings a group of us often goes for a walk and then to lunch. We chat about the weather, about grandkids, about recent pleasures, then maybe for five minutes, or maybe not, we might talk of something with a political side to it. If we disagree, so what. We enjoy each other's company. It's tough
to bring that sort of basic friendship into internet posts with folks we have never met in person.

And, of course, there can be people we just avoid.

Anyway, you drew the line in what I think of as about the right spot. Best for all of us.