On the social networking site, SodaHead.com, Gulliver responded to another participant regarding the previous post on this blog, viz., “The Pollyanna Follies.” [Note: You will have to scroll down about half-way on the page since for some reason the link is not going directly to Gulliver’s comment, which begins “Ramone, you are so right….”]
…about the Pollyanna, "hole in the sand" thinking of those who support the current administration. It is this easily misguided idealism, which seeks to make the world a better place for all, that is the problem. I think that, because their minds are dominated by feeling, the “Pollyannas” are unable to see the forest for the trees.
As "The Pollyanna Follies" article suggested, they have their eyes fixed on this one towering tree of political leadership represented by Barack Obama, but they don't realize that its roots do not go deeply into the rocky soil on which it has grown up and that it is subject to being blown over by the first big wind that roars down from the mountain tops where freedom, dignity, and TRUE Respect for all reside.
Your thinking is not "negative." The person who makes such an allegation is victimized by dichotomous thinking, viz., positive versus negative, as if the world could be neatly broken up into such neat, little boxes. The same thing occurs with "Left vs. Right" thinking, and unfortunately, the person who is more feeling-oriented and fancies himself/herself as more emotionally and intellectually sensitive tends to think that to be Liberal is to be a positive, forward-looking (progressive) person, as opposed to being a Conservative, self-centered, unfeeling, non-humanitarian individual. Unfortunately, the person who, then, identifies with the Liberal Left does so because it appears to be the only viable alternative to being regarded as one of the Conservatives on the Right, whom he/she cannot respect in the least.
These "do-gooder, feel better" people, as well as their opponents, with whom you and I get lumped, are all victimized by a consciousness that jumps from "feeling-oriented" to "thinking-oriented" and the two modes are rarely integrated in awareness to produce responses to realistic situations, not idealistic fantasies.
Gulliver speaks of the political myopia, which brings about the rancor of partisanship, and it is this political myopia that is the “author” of “The Freedom Follies,” now playing in your local political theater. In the current situation in the world, people choose sides, as if politics were a big “Super Bowl” kind of competition. I have written about this “win-lose” mentality on another blog as well as the blundering myopia that it induces.
In no situation is the Pollyanna-type myopia better displayed than in the issue of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). According to the politically correct view that evolved out of the election of Obama to the presidency and the Democratic takeover of the House and Senate, the debate is over, because the “science” overwhelmingly supports the idea that the planet has been warming and that human-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) is the culprit that will eventually tip the planet toward catastrophe unless we make far-reaching political changes immediately. The proponents of AGW have mounted an extensive PR campaign, as evidenced by the glut of advertising appearing in Copenhagen that suggests the doomsday scenario that will develop if we don’t get with the program and act quickly as a planet. The following brainwashing of children, which masquerades as education and which teaches them to uncritically accept what they are told rather than thinking for themselves, is an example of the campaign that is geared to overwhelming rational thinking and producing a world of “Chicken Littles” who lament the impending crashing down of the heavens upon their heads.
Climategate and Public Manipulation
Among the documents that were leaked from the records of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), the counterpart to NASA in the US, there is one put out by the government and ostensibly promoted by CRU. It is entitled: “The Rules of the Game,” which suggests that the manipulation of the public, not science is the primary concern of this government funded research agency. This seems to be true given the nature of the recent revelations that suggest manipulation of data, as well as bullying of other scientists. According to this document, “The game is communicating climate change; the rules will help us win it.” It states that:
…principles were created as part of the UK Climate Change Communications Strategy, an evidence-based strategy aiming to change public attitudes towards climate change in the UK.
The “Rules” document was said to be a short version of a far longer document of evidence that can be found at www.defra.gov.uk. However, I could not find anything like the this document that lays out a plan for the behavioral manipulation of public attitudes. For example, the leaked document says:
The evidence discredits the ‘rational man’ theory--we rarely weigh objectively the value of different decisions and then take the clear self-interested choice….Providing information is not wrong; relying on information alone to change attitudes is wrong.
So, it becomes clear that the communication of information is not the issue at all, but the persuasion of the public to adopt the AGW political agenda. Incidentally, the entire set of leaked documents and emails is available in a number of places on the Internet by doing a search for “download CRU files.” This will include the site found here. But, be advised, that there are a lot of files going back to the 1990s, about 61 MB, as I recall.
Gulliver, previously mentioned, has recently published a poll regarding “Climategate” on the SodaHead site. There you will find an interesting revelation that NASA is currently under siege by accusations of similar data manipulation and its resistance to FOIA requests that is similar to what had been going on in the UK before the leak.
So, more and more, we are accumulating information that raises serious questions regarding the legitimacy of AGW “science” and the co-opting of the “green movement,” ostensibly by elitist powers that seek world control through world government.
Combating Oligarchic (Elitist) Domination
As Professor James Fiskin of Stanford University has pointed out in his work on “Deliberative Democracy,” the process of democracy can only function well if it promotes both (1) inclusiveness and (2) thoughtfulness (deliberation). Thus, he has carried out extensive work on a deliberative procedure that originated in the Athenian democracy, in which several hundred representative citizens were selected by lot (at random) to deliberate and to advise those entrusted with governance of the entire society.
Fishkin calls his procedure “Deliberative Polling®,” a method that blends the science of opinion polls with informed deliberation of a randomly selected group of individuals who are presumed to be representative of the larger population from which they were chosen, be it local, national, or even international. “Deliberative Polling®” goes beyond the “focus group” that we saw so often during the last election campaign. In the latter group the participants generally do not have the opportunity to interact with expert proponents of both sides of an issue. They discuss with only the views of other members as sources of information, which are often rejected, out of hand, as a reflection of “Them” in the “We versus Them” mental framework provided to them by their pre-existing belief structure.
As Gulliver has pointed out in a related discussion of Professor Fiskin’s work,
…when a diversity of viewpoints are brought together in a deliberative group by random polling methods and there is a balanced, intensive exposure to both sides of an issue, coupled with discussion, this typically leads to changes in attitudes as measured by before and after polls. Of course, a reality-oriented outcome depends on very careful, unbiased selection of the issue to be discussed, for example, as in the case of the current conflict regarding anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
The deliberative polls that have been done regarding AGW, however, have begged the question in assuming that existence of AGW is a closed case and that there is nothing further to debate regarding its reality. Thus, the deliberations that have been carried out have focused on how best to implement changes to "save the planet" from disaster, rather than whether the science supporting AGW is legitimate or junk. I firmly believe that if the public were exposed to the dissenting, scientific view of global warming, we would see a further erosion of support for activities like the Copenhagen summit or "Cap and Tax" just as has occurred recently with the revelations of "Climategate."
Thus, even those who would attempt to inform the public and to promote thoughtfulness and deliberation regarding important issues fall victim to their own belief systems and to the manipulation of their beliefs to serve the political agendas of those who control the media and the governments of the world. Consequently, it is important for someone to apply Fishkin’s “Deliberative Polling®” methodology to groups who are responsibly exposed to both sides of the science of global warming and climate change. Fishkin has shown that attitudes are more likely to change when information is presented in a balanced way, although, I suspect that this “balance” is often presumed and not in fact existing. Thus, the changes may be toward the unconsciously accepted “truth” and not toward that which is regarded as “untruth.” Accordingly, the experts who represent each side of an issue should be chosen by their respective peer groups and not by those who are conducting the deliberative poll.
Such representative exposure to both sides of the AGW issue is necessary to counter the overwhelming government and media push to “prove” AGW in the court of public opinion. This push is similar to the emotionally-toned summations of attorneys in a court case, but it is being carried out on a far larger scale and with the potential for devastating consequences that will exceed even those portrayed by the “alarmists.”
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