A little article that peaked my attention...

[SwissMercenary]

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16243

It's an interesting analyses... I haven't listened to more then about, oh, 2 of Bush's speeches, but what I read there seems to hit home...

[Vandiablo]

The problem with that is that it seems to assume that Bush writes his own speeches-- rather than written by someone who can write stuff that W can remember. (Maybe I have a better theory why the speeches are "empty"...)

I got the first inkling about the "domination" thing when I heard about his tendency to nickname. That tendency in most people is a form of condescension, either blatant or duplicious. Yep, I think I got ol' "Shrubby" pegged. :P

[Rhydderch Hael]

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16243

It's an interesting analyses... I haven't listened to more then about, oh, 2 of Bush's speeches, but what I read there seems to hit home...

You know, when someone brings up an issue about how the President intimidates the American people to follow his lead due to an air of ignorance imparted upon the people, I don't think that argument gets helped along by yourself professing ignorance ("...I haven't listened to more then about, oh, 2 of Bush's speeches...") in order to agree with the article.

That's a dangerous fallacy.

[Chaerophon]

However, as has been said, Bush isn't writing his own speeches.

I have noticed a few of the characteristics described in that article, particularly "empty language" and his prolific use of the word "I". I'm not sure that I would go so far as to suggest that he has in some way attained psychological domination over the American people solely through his use of language; however, it seems to me that many of the methods listed are certainly present in his method of speech and may aid him as techniques of persuasion.

[SwissMercenary]

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16243

It's an interesting analyses... I haven't listened to more then about, oh, 2 of Bush's speeches, but what I read there seems to hit home...

You know, when someone brings up an issue about how the President intimidates the American people to follow his lead due to an air of ignorance imparted upon the people, I don't think that argument gets helped along by yourself professing ignorance ("...I haven't listened to more then about, oh, 2 of Bush's speeches...") in order to agree with the article.

That's a dangerous fallacy.

Notice that I asked for your opinion. I did not make comments such as: "OMG, IMPEACH HIM FOR THIS OUTRAGE". I accept my ignorance.

[Rhydderch Hael]

You said, "...it seems to hit home."

In other words, it rang true to your ears. But your ears, as we learn, haven't heard enough of Dubya's words to form a truly objective or learned perspective on this issue— one you deemed important enough to bring to the forum as the thread.

[goldfish]

I'm not sure why you're getting on Swiss's case about lack of personal knowledge / expertise.

He's (1) citing an article by someone else, and (2) saying that it intuitively sounds right to him.

Neither of those statements really need any expertise on his part to confirm.

It's the equivalent of me saying "I just read this great article on Robert Moses that I thought was really cool." I'm not expected to be an expert on everything I have an opinion about. Deciding that an article by a more informed person coincides with one's own intuition on a subject ("I had always kinda thought that Robert Moses's highway plans were a bad idea, and now this article explains why") is standard operating procedure in a world where there is not enough time to become an expert on everything.

Similarly, Swiss's apparent thought process of (1) listening to 1-2 GWB speeches and not being impressed, (2) reading an article that seems to explain it, and (3) thinking the article is interesting enough to be linked, doesn't seem to be particularly fallacious (to use your term) to me.

[Rhydderch Hael]

A> The article is meant to convey that the current administration is exerting control over the populace through verbal intimidation and techniques meant to shadow the truth and inflate emotions. Objectives that can only truly prevail through an air of ignorance on part of the addressees (the American people).

B> I found quite a bit of troubling irony that a proponent of this exposition against the ignorance and manipulation of the people, had himself professed a succor with that same bugaboo: moving forth while not armed with enough information/experience of the matter under debate.

Sorry for bringing out this tangent, but all I wish is to see that our perspectives are sufficiently expanded beyond our inherently focused (and biased) points of view before we engage in a debate of principle. Because without first having a glimpse of the other side's objectives, motivations, and point of view, we're never going to get a reasonable discussion. Just a laying of facts, nothing more, and the exchange of insights will be stilled.

[Occhidiangela]

Bush Dominates a Nation of Victims

The author is a Pot Calling The Kettle Black. No $100 bucks per hour from me to that snake oil salesman. His profession are the guys who have embedded the "Cult of the Victim" into the American psyche. I fart in his general direction.

BS pile #1: That the American public really are victims. If true, then they have allowed themselves to become so via apathy, and fifty years of psychiatrists and psychologists, and some sociologists encouraging everyone onto the victim bus. Anyone, GW Bush, Ralph Nader, or Al Gore would have had the same success in any post 9-11 willingness to feel like sheep who need protection: that sentiment has been massively exploited by media and by both political parties. If one goes to that well to often, however, it will run dry and folks will stop listening.

Are not many people still speaking out against what the President is doing, or in some cases, how it is being done? Read the paper, turn on the radio. The creeping erosion on the limitations regarding privacy and some Civil Rights is still a topic of currency. If anything, the Media have chosen to become dominated, as have some talking heads, and they sure should know better, they use words to make a living as well. That concerns me, the willingness of some media organs to be mouthpieces for any incumbent.


BS pile #2: Domination? The short term political high from the latest War is shrinking, IF IF IF you care about polls. (I don't) If you want to see domination, go back to Ronald Reagan. While he had a Democratically led Senate and House as checks to his influence, in terms of message dominance and practical power and influence, not to mention being thought of in high regard, Ronald Reagan was orders of magnitude ahead of GW Bush at present. Evidence? Count the votes, not the opinion polls. What held Reagan back was the "balance" part of checks and balances, just as the Republicans held Clinton back more recently when they won some seats in congress to reverse long standing Democratic domination of those bodies, current President gets some things through that those other two could not, but see more below. I did not note the 2002 off year election being any great victory for his party.


BS pile #3: Didn't I just check again on the popular vote from 2000? No dominance here. Did I not note how his Court appointees are still not getting confirmed and approved? No dominance here. Was his tax cut not massively reduced by Senators, both in his party and in the opposition? Who is he dominating? What segment of the population has followed his lead?


BS pile #4: Is the "what really was the truth behind the rhetoric in the State of the Union speech" investigation being closed down? No! Let's see how that plays out before anyone talks about domination. Some of the rhetoric is defensive in nature. Not sure how effectively it will be used in the next year in the political battles, but that tool is as available to his opponents as the 9-11 national anger is for him. So is economic uncertainty.


The article, IMO, misses a significant point: Bush has harnessed a long lost voice in American politics, and seems to still have them supporting him: Meade's Jacksonians, people who do not see themselves as victims. (As described in Special Providence) A key emotion he seems to have tapped into foreign policy wise is:

"They don't like us anyway, screw 'em all, save six for pallbearing duty."

That undercurrent in American popular opinion concerns me a great deal more than the empty political rhetoric about an "Axis of Evil" ever will.

I would argue that the current administration's public language is so inelegant, so simplistic, that it is in many cases dismissed out of hand as just that: words with little substance, soundbytes from a teleprompter. I'd go so far as to say that the creation of a new Credibility Gap is a significant political hole that is being dug on a daily basis. (The Shills at Fox news, of course, have their own axes to grind, and pretend that utterances from White House come from the burning bush. No pun intended, sorry.)

That has little to do with dominance and a lot to do with timing, and knowing who one's power base is in the first place.

While I am at it, might I point out that psychiatry and psychiatrists have been using language as a weapon, as a tool, to keep their self-licking-ice-cream-cone existences vibrant via ENCOURAGING the ideal of victim status? Blaming society for one's own crimes is Victim Status at its finest, and right up the author's alley.

Consider the source: as tainted as any politican, given the subject, which is using words to influence other people.

[--Pete]

. . . it *becomes* the truth." -- Pete's first law of propaganda.

Hi,

While I agree with your overall analysis of the article, I still think that the USA is (or is well on the way to becoming) a nation of victims.

Every minority (except possibly the white non-Catholic christian male) is constantly bombarded with news, op-ed, and soap operas that stress how they are oppressed by society.

The target of crime is made into more of a victim by the do gooders than by the original criminal. And the criminal himself becomes a victim of society in the eyes of those who care more about feelings than facts.

The true victims of a disaster (natural or man made) are the dead. But the "grief counselors" do an excellent job of making anyone within six degrees of separation of these victims a "victim" as well.

A nation that once was able to cross the continent, burying its dead as it went but still carrying on now falls apart and becomes so many sheep because a criminal killed some 4,000 people. A person considered by many a fool and a dullard suddenly becomes wise and innovative because he uses the sledge hammer of the world's largest military to strike at (and, BTW, miss) the tack of international terrorism.

Yeah, not everybody in the USA is dominated by the sweet Nellies who need "closure" for the cow that died to give them a hamburger -- but it sure seems that we're on those skids, have been, and are speeding up.

Perhaps the pharmaceutical industry should quit making feel good pills and Viagra, and develop something that will stiffen the nation's *spine* instead.

--Pete

[Occhidiangela]

(or is well on the way to becoming) a nation of victims.

That the "on the way" can be slowed, stopped and reversed. Gonna take some work, and the undoing of the legacy of what some call "chick think and a lot of psychobabble.

Psychobabble seems ot be a lot like propaganda, as I see it, per your First Law. :)

[pakman]

Psychobabble is a great song by Alan Parsons Project :P

[Sir_Die_alot]

What a great line!

[Zarathustra]

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