Podcast 608-Political Talk Gets Harder Every Day For Me

Can We Have The Room?

Time to clear the air. It’s getting harder to talk politics every day. On the heels of a presidential address to a joint session of congress things seemed to calm down. Then President Trump tweeted from his rooms at Mar A Lago. Trump alleges President Obama spied on him at Trump Tower. Suddenly it’s the end of the world. We’ll talk about it in Podcast 608-Political Talk Gets Harder Every Day For Me

During the election Republicans told everyone they would repeal Obama Care. Now suddenly ‘conservatives’ like Charles Krauthammer are telling people attempts by some republicans to repeal an entitlement are bad because “you can’t repeal an entitlement“. Isn’t that why people voted for republicans? In Podcast 608-Political Talk Gets Harder Every Day For Me.

Parallel Universe

We live side by side. Speak the same language. Shop the same stores. However, we live in different countries. Use completely different information sources. Believe completely different histories. Listen. Read. Watch only things we agree with. Tumult. Confusion. Frustration. We’re told what will happen not given news. News is a recitation of facts about things which have happened. Not a recitation of predictions about what’s going to happen.

Proof In The Pudding

People getting their jobs back at the factory? Economic growth at 4 percent? Respect for the United States across the world? Draining the Swamp? Making America Great. Again? Time will tell. In Podcast 608-Political Talk Gets Harder Every Day For Me.

Digging In

Wanna talk politics? Dig in. Help your audience dig in. Pick your poison. Dictator. Fascist. Racist. Or, Great Man. Elected by a landslide. Keeper of a mandate. A revolution. That’s not politics. Not discussion of policy with an open mind. This is riding on a train. North. South. East. West. Pick a track.

Cowards

I don’t like any of them. They’re all cowards. Doesn’t matter if there’s an R or a D in front of their name. Say one thing. Do another. Demand the media defend them. Demand the people defend them. Pass more laws impossible to understand or debate. Engage in one intrigue after another. Another investigation. Trial. Debate. Protest. Outrage. Rinse and repeat. In Podcast 608-Political Talk Gets Harder Every Day For Me.

Advancing The Story

Hard out here for a Podcaster. Best thing. One on one talks. Challenge. Try to make sense out of it all. Grow our thinking. Enjoyed our one on one. Ok you guys. You can have the room back.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 506

Future Shock. As the 24 hour news media and talk radio fixate on gorillas and high school election antics, its hard to get a conversation going about the future. Is the future potential leaders want the future we should have? Is it the future we want? There are developments almost everyday now with autonomous cars, robotics, materials, aviation, and communications; the building blocks of a future wave that will leave nothing untouched and unchanged. A series of stories from today’s headlines shedding a light on one potential future and a question; Planners and government officials are  diverting resources to bring about a vision of the city of tomorrow, which is really the city of the early 1900’s. Is this what you want? Will the driverless car, autonomous software and machines, robotics, and other developments make trains, buses and the standard bureaucracy heavy city, state and federal government ‘obsolete’? If so, why is so much time, effort and authority expended to see that we plan for and create a urban spaces, and that suburban villages and towns conform to a vision of a city that probably never existed and never will. Driverless cars will render the amount of space needed for freeways and parking ramps obsolete. Remote technology, robotics and other technologies may mean that people will not have to travel to large office complexes for their work, with increasing freelance employment. What are our so called leaders talking about? Minimum wages, government controlled health insurance and trains. Trains. Why are we planning for 1940’s Chicago when reality could be closer to Jefferson’s vision than Robert Moses? The old world is being torn down and a new one is being built that will be very different from what we know. Do our leaders understand this? Future Shock. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Cars.

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Podcast 425 – New Thinking Part 1

New Thinking Part 1. These days, politics is one emotional appeal after another. The media refers to politicians like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as ‘populists’ but in fact they are demagogues; Using emotional appeals and often stimulating people’s long held prejudices and biases to gain support for their campaigns. In 2016 we’re going to see the ‘new rules’ of politics come into play with a vengeance. Most of the action will take place on the so called ‘small screen’ which means your television and especially your smart phones, social media, news websites where viewers watch a video, or part of a video and move on. A strange and symbiotic relationship between media, polling and politics have turned American politics into a freak show. Outrageous characters and weekly ripples in story lines mean more eyeballs. Media moguls and the candidates are laughing all the way to the bank, to the Capitol and the White House. Meanwhile increasingly angry voters become frustrated, losing faith in the outcome of elections, voting and the government itself. Moreover, the worst invective is often heard at meetings where the same politicians and charlatans troop through and tell people what they want to hear. It’s time for a reboot of American Political Thinking. It doesn’t start with politicians or personalities. It starts with individuals, communities, and values. It means researching and thinking about the concerns of your community, developing ideas about issues, talking about those issues, and creating effective political organization around those ideas, not the rhetoric of some pol who will forget about you and your concerns the minute he is elected. A new America is being created.  A new way of thinking is being created, whether you want it or not. If we don’t change the way we think about politics, taking it back to the blocks and rebuilding it, we’re doomed to being controlled by personalities — demagogues — more interested in power than the people. I’m starting a new series of podcasts, which will bear the ‘New Thinking’ title. I’ll do them when the spirit moves me, or I encounter a person or situation I think will help build a new way to think, talk and DO politics in this country, because what we have right now, isn’t cutting it. Sponsored by Baklund R&D, Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate. 

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