Civil Discourse and Politics

Civil Discourse is a core value of the public radio audience. It seems civil discourse is almost non-existent in 2012. Tracy Powell writes for Poynter.org that the problem is being made worse because local news outlets are not reporting on the toxic mix of money, politics and media.

"A Free Press report released this week says that “perhaps the most important story of the 2012 presidential election is the toxic mix of money, politics and media that is shaping so much of the discourse in the months before the general election. Yet that’s not a story you’ll find on the local news.”      Toxic Mix 

Powell suggest that local news stations are not reporting on this mix because of the money involved. Local TV is making a lot of money accepting misleading advertising from candidates and Super PACs. Because of this voters are being denied real coverage about the dangers and divisiveness of this type of campaigning.

How the phantom of ‘socialized medicine’ came to be

Related to this is Trudy Lieberman's article for the Columbia Journalism Review about Jill Lepore's "The Lie Factory." Lepore's New Yorker article describes the work of Campaigns, Inc. (NPR had a feature on Campaigns Inc. and their founders of the company Whitaker and Baxter, Political Consulting And The 'Lie Factory) Whitaker and Baxter may not have invented the negative (dirty) political campaign but, they refined it into an art form. They invented political consulting. Their methods are slash-and-burn, repeat-the-lies, cutthroat campaigning. Keep it simple. If you explain something, you've lost the advantage. Lieberman reexamines how Campaigns, Inc. scuttled Harry Truman's plan for health insurance. When introduced by Truman, the plan had overwhelming public support. with the backing of $1million dollars from the AMA, Campaigns, Inc turned the public against the plan.

This type of campaigning is exacerbating the us vs. them mentality. That point was brought home to me in a class about Parables. The focus of the study is John Dominic Crossan's, "The Power of Parable."
There are four types. They are riddle parable, example parables, challenge parables and attack parables.
Whitaker and Baxter used attack parables. They are angry and aggressively hostile. They are meant to divide and marginalize opponents. It is deliberate in squelching civil discourse. The leader of the class pointed out that attack parables can provoke violence. Violence runs through three stages.

• Ideological violence is thinking that persons, groups and nations are inhuman, subhuman or, seriously lacking in humanity (sound familiar?).
• Rhetorical violence is speaking on that presumption by dehumanizing those "others" with rude names, crude caricatures, and derogatory stereotypes.
• Physical violence (sometime lethal) is acting on those presuppositions either by illegal attack or, if in a potion of power, by official, legal political action.

Lieberman points out that the simplicity of the lie makes it difficult to combat. Powell points out that is why the political ads need to be consistently questioned by journalists. Considering the hundreds of ads running today...covering the issue once is not going to cover it.

I've been working on two projects about civics and civil discourse. A couple of weeks ago the issue of politics was broached during a civics discussion on the Real Life Survival Guide. There was real hesitancy in the room to discuss politics. It has become increasingly difficult to rationally discuss the issues because of the negative examples around us. I've also been working with the Civil Conversations Project from APM's On Being. Their goal is to bring people with differing views together of a rational discussion around issues that are dividing us.