On a hot, humid Sunday afternoon, when yard work is complicated by passing monsoonal thunderstorms, there's something to be said for more cerebral pursuits, as in pondering the whichness of what, the subtle difference between Nothing and Zero, or which sucks more: the vacuum of deep space between the stars, or the typical content of Sunday morning talking head shows?
The rather crudely phrased title on this diary is a reaction to the plethora of stock answers trotted out by reflex by the so-called political elites on display. The brain need not be engaged - just spew the accepted sound bites on command, and all will be hunky dory. Or, if sound bites won't do, fabricate a narrative and stay with it. Just remember, only the view through the Overton Window will be visible via the corporate media, delivering eyeballs to their advertisers.
It's not as though important matters won't be brought up from time to time. Minor issues (trifling wars, economic unpleasantness, planetary environmental malaise, etc. etc.) occasionally intrude, but the bigger items such as who has better hair, who looks more presidential, who looks tougher, who is in trouble with their base, and so on rightly take precedence. Balance must be preserved at all costs. Any moment rooted in unpleasant or inconvenient truth must be canceled out by proper use of boilerplate ideology and empty rhetoric.
All of the above is only possible however if the interlocutors are careful to phrase questions that will only prompt responses within the accepted range of narrative. Wrong questions may make people think, will make people upset, and could potentially ruin the 'good thing' the elites have all agreed upon.
Here's a few wrong questions to ponder, over the jump.
At a time and place in American politics where a revered leader can say "facts are stupid things" and still be considered a sage decades later, it's pretty clear facts by themselves are insufficient to win arguments or change minds. People who have internalized up is downism are not going to let facts get in the way of their belief system. That's where questions come in.
See, people who think they have all the answers don't like it when they get handed a question that their answers don't fit. That's why so much energy goes into framing issues and limiting debate, to avoid those questions. That's why they spend so much time and effort engaging in deliberate cognitive dissonance to preserve their delusions. The 'wrong' question asked in the right way can threaten that whole internalized structure and eventually undermine it. At that point, it may be possible to - dare I say it - bring them a little nearer to the reality based community.
For What It's Worth, here's a short list of questions with a twist that may irritate people enough to look past the answers they've internalized. Answers alone aren't enough - unless they've been tested by questioning and the real world. Feel free to develop you own and add them. If you can improve these do so. And then let's see what they can do if turned loose.
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• How many more people have to lose their jobs to make the economy pick up?
• How much do we have to cut the pay of people to make them start spending again?
• How small do we have to make government before we can expect safe roads and good schools again?
• How expensive do we have to make health care before people will stop getting sick?
• How hard do we have to make it to retire so that people will keep working?
• How low do we have to set taxes on corporations and the rich before they'll start creating jobs?
• How many boatloads of cheap consumer crap from overseas do we have to import before people with no money, credit, or job will be able to buy it?
• How many trillions of dollars have to disappear from the financial sector with no criminal indictments before people really appreciate the magic of unregulated markets?
• How much unregulated money will it take to make make speech really free?
• How can we protect the rights of corporations as people when they are a tiny minority among 312 million flesh and blood Americans?
• How much bigger do we have to 'grow the pie' before ordinary people will be happy with a smaller slice?
Like I said, this is a short list - think of it as a starting point. Got some of your own? Put' em in comments. Feel free to use these in conversation with 'friends' and 'family' where they'll do the most good. Tweet them if they'll fit, email them to those people who send you annoying emails. Call up conservative talk radio drones and see if they can answer them without disconnecting you and swearing. Have fun. It's got to be better than yelling at the TeeVee after all.
UPDATE: There's some good questions in the comments already - thanks! I've added a couple of links to the questions as well. Enjoy!