October
2004
Editorial:
Thinking Differently
By Rachel Cernansky
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I just returned from a month traveling England and
Ireland, a fabulous month filled with friends, beautiful countryside,
and of course, great
beer. But what I was perhaps most excited about was the opportunity
to gain a little international perspective, maybe even insight, on
politics in our country right now.
I had a chat with the editor of The Ecologist magazine, talked politics
with a number of people here and there, and tried to gauge how the
non-U.S. press
covered politics. I’d been starting to think—or maybe hope—that
the weight we’re all placing on November’s outcome is an arrogant
overestimate, another symptom of an American-centric worldview. But, while I
didn’t come back with any real profound awakenings, I did come back reinvigorated
that yes, people overseas do care who is in the White House. It matters because—well
how can it not? Never before, not in modern history anyway, has any leader procured
and abused such power, with environmental and social costs that people the world
over are being forced, but can’t afford, to pay. I then developed a curiosity
for deeper answers to the question of how we are letting such chaos take over
our nation. Certainly there are many people asking this crucial question, yet
somehow it stops there. We are not demanding answers, of our politicians as well
as ourselves. How are we letting this happen?
Observing so many people with political and social issues on their minds was
kind of refreshing; how nice to know that people are aware of and concerned with
what’s going on in the world around them. Rumblings I heard at a bar even
in Dingle, the most remote Irish town I visited, focused on the politics of my
country: “Bush…he’s just a toilet.” Right on. And a global
study published in early September by the reputed Program on International Policy
Attitudes and polling company GlobeScan Incorporated, showed that Kerry would
win by a landslide if it were up to those questioned. Yes, world opinion picks
Kerry as the favored candidate: out of 34,330 people older than 15, from 32 countries,
a striking majority—approximately four out of five, and including traditional
U.S. allies—prefer Kerry to Bush. So, what’s wrong with us?
Now of course I don’t know the answer—or I’d be running for
president—but it seems that our priorities are all wrong, and that the
decreasing intellectual capacity, and stimulation, of the general U.S. population
has something to do with it. Which news makes the front page plays probably the
largest role in how issues are prioritized in people’s minds, and our image-
and celebrity-obsessed media promotes concern for the lives of rich people, the
majority of whom are out of touch with the world, rather than for what human
rights atrocities are taking place, and what our role is in perpetuating them.
(But at least that gives purpose to the growing abundance of reality TV shows;
I mean, if you’re going to ignore the world in which you’re living,
you’ve got to replace it with some kind of reality.)
People here seem to be content to hear what they want to hear, about a world
they’d like to think they’re living in, rather than face up to reality
and its consequences. Most activists have long known this to be true, a lesson
learned from hours spent trying to engage people in urgent issues that they’d
simply rather remain ignorant of. What I find particularly astonishing about
current U.S. politics is that the messages people are swallowing wholeheartedly
are in fact lies that serve to conceal truths detrimental to their own lives.
In a dumbing-down of our country, dialogue is reduced to catch-phrases and flag-waving.
Think about (if you still can, that is) how public attitude is generally characterized
by an increasing complacency and passive acceptance of just about any issue we
as a nation are facing. The cost of the war seems the most obvious example, as
we watch it detract from almost every other much-needed social program at home—including
veterans’ assistance, for Pete’s sake.
Conversations between Bush and Kerry supporters—or between Bush supporters
and anyone else, for that matter—are complete dead ends. It’s a rare
treat when people actually listen to each other; to risk a change in opinion
is a real threat at such a heated time, when who you stand behind for president
almost defines who you are as a person. It’s a dangerous thing to be so
stuck in our mindset and understanding of the world. Instead of informed opinions,
we have opinions based on how we believe the world to be. Is this the best way
for a participatory democracy to flourish? Probably not.
Now, I hate polls, I really do. But sometimes they do prove interesting, and
pollsters have shown that Bush supporters are generally less educated than those
of Kerry (even if it’s just for the sake of not supporting Bush). So of
course it makes sense to weaken the public education system; what an easy way
to boost your support! And speed it all up by calling the process “No Child
Left Behind,” fooling the victims into thinking it’s for their benefit.
Politics has always been, well, politics, meaning lots of rhetoric; but it’s
become all rhetoric, without people questioning what substance lies behind the
words and slogans they hear. And it’s only getting worse, as a growing
percentage of our news is presented via television to a trusting public, by people
who are interested less in journalism than in communicating messages they need
viewers to absorb to ultimately boost ratings. It works well; the more TV we
watch, the less we (have to) use our brains. We get easier to entertain, easier
to fool into supporting a president who isn’t fighting on our behalf. As
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez put it in a speech last March—no wonder
the U.S. Government doesn’t like him!—“Never is domination
more perfect than when the dominated people think like the dominators do.”
This morning I heard part of a presidential speech on Social Security and for
the first time, I heard Bush utter a sentence I actually agreed with. Context
is another matter, of course, but he said, “We need to think differently.” Think
differently indeed. Thinking, period, would be a great start.
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