Podcast 610-Davis & Davis Discuss Right Wing Political Correctness

Republican “Political Correctness” Is Now A Thing

Right wingers are thinkers. Open to new ideas. Right? Nope. There’s a new kind of “Political Correctness“. “Patriotic Correctness”. If you question right wing ideas and conclusions? Present a source not ‘approved’? Say something not part of the right wing mainstream? You’ll receive the same pressure to tow the line usually reserved for the left. In Podcast 610-Davis & Davis Discuss Right Wing Political Correctness.

Republican Win

Republicans are happy about their victory in 2016. Makes sense. Putting on blinders can be politically dangerous though. Andrew Davis is a film maker and reporter in Los Angeles. Bob Davis is a podcaster living in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Father and son have discovered right wing political correctness at about the same time. Alex Nowrasteh of CATO is the subject of this father and son podcast. In Podcast 610-Davis & Davis Discuss Right Wing Political Correctness

Social Media

Say something that doesn’t support Trump? Tweet something raining on the republican parade? Insults and propaganda follow. Furthermore, ask for proof or supporting arguments you’ll get only right-wing approved links and comments. Seems like liberty people used to be about open discussion. Sadly, not any more apparently. It isn’t easy to talk about. We have to talk about the hard things. In Podcast 610-Davis & Davis Discuss Right Wing Political Correctness.

Alternate History

Rational right? Party of Reagan and Ron Paul? These days the right has it’s own media. It’s own history and narratives. Ask a question? Disagree? You’re a ‘democrat’, ‘communist’, ‘marxist’. Facts? Principles? Proof? Meme. Picture. Link. There! Shut up. These are reactions usually reserved for the political left. In conclusion we wonder what happened.

Socialist Construct For 70 Years

We have had big government since the 1930’s. Seems like we’re fighting over different sides of the same coin. If Patriotic Correctness demands loyalty to the right wing version of big government how does the right present an alternative? In conclusion, political correctness leads to tyranny. Especially relevant is the fact that it isn’t easy to point out. If you’re on the political right though, you have to point it out. Because most people are good, maybe it will do some good. In Podcast 610-Davis & Davis Discuss Right Wing Political Correctness.

Podcast 605-Bannon’s Fourth Turning

Steve Bannon and The Fourth Turning

The President’s co chief of staff is obsessed with a book called The Fourth Turning. Podcast 605-Bannon’s Fourth Turning discusses reaction to the idea someone as powerful as Steve Bannon would formulate a political philosophy on a pop history/sociology best seller. The Fourth Turning co-author the late William Strauss was a playwright, theater director and lecturer. Co-author Neil Howe is a best selling author and consultant. Strauss and Howe coined the term ‘Millennial’. Both men described themselves as Amateur Historians. The Fourth Turning, Bannon’s apparent zeitgeist, was published in the early 1990’s. See a video of the two authors appearing on C-Span’s BookNotes here.

Chaos Dead Ahead

The book some say Steve Bannon has based his political philosophy on postulates every 80 years the United States is marked by crisis and chaos. Business Insider says Bannon believes the United States will soon reach our climax conflict and that Trump is in the White House to usher it in.

Is the United States in a Political Crisis?

Politicians tend to magnify the political challenges they face. Reporters play along. Divided since the beginning crises of one kind or another have been a way of life in the US. It’s very American to think of the government with distrust and apprehension. Especially when, as the saying goes, the legislature is in session. Are we in a political crisis?

Want To Know The Future?

Crisis will find the Trump administration. The response to crisis is what will determine it’s fate. Theories predicting ‘the’ crisis are questionable. Free Will is a gift to Human Beings. We think and act voluntarily. We can be the authors of our own stories. Controversy surrounding the Fourth Turning and Steve Bannon’s embrace of the theory encapsulates much of what is wrong with our politics. In Podcast 605-Bannon’s Fourth Turning I’ll tell you why.

One Day At A Time

Living one day at a time doesn’t mean avoiding passionate views. We do not remain passive and uninvolved but do the best we can with what we have. We will never know exactly what tomorrow may bring. Isn’t that the fun part of life?

Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

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Podcast 589-Celebrity Worship

Podcast 589-Celebrity Worship-When The Famous Become Gods

Fame. Notoriety. Our fascination with famous people. Our fascination with those who are famous. One of the things I like to do in podcasting is to focus on the first thoughts I have at the beginning of the day. You might think podcasting in this manner is easy. Unfortunately sometimes these first thoughts turn out to be a lot deeper and complex than first imagined.

Two thoughts ignited Podcast 589-Celebrity Worship. First, the concept of fame itself. Where did it come from? When did it start in the United States? What makes someone famous these days? How is that different from what made someone famous three hundred years ago? Second, we form a bond with famous actors and musicians because of a movie or a song we connected with at a certain time in our life. The performer is forever part of our life because of a performance.

The kick off for these first thoughts is the HBO documentary ‘Bright Lights’ detailing the relationship Carrie Fisher had with her mother Debbie Reynolds. Both of these women are recently deceased. Carrie Fisher from a heart attack and her mother from a stroke shortly thereafter. Some of the content in the documentary has to do with Postcards From The Edge, first a book and then a movie about the relationship between Carrie and her mother, in which Meryl Streep played the role of Carrie Fisher.

All of this connected for me because Streep’s recent comments about the President-Elect at the Golden Globe Awards. The Golden Globes usually has lower viewership than the Academy Awards and would be forgotten save for unsavory comments from Streep this year. While any citizen has the right to say what they want about political events, stars seem to think they can use their fame to tell the rest of us what we should feel, how we should vote and how to live our lives

Back in the day, people became famous for doing something. They discovered a continent, or won a big naval battle, a war, or saved western civilization. One became famous for building a bridge, mass producing an automobile or opening the east to western trade. Great artists and performers became famous for work that changed the world. Today it seems like people become famous for being famous.

The roots of this kind of fame, or notoriety go back a long time. Dime store novels, traveling road shows, Vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, and the movies. It wasn’t long before you could become famous for just playing someone who had actually accomplished something. Actors who played western heroes, Pharaohs, and Great Leaders became associated with the accomplishments of someone else.

2016 was the first time I’ve seen the media tally the deaths of ‘Celebrities’ as they might natural disasters. We ‘mourned’ the loss of people we did not know as though they were part of the family, and seemed to forget the thousands who have been killed in America’s violent big cities, or in war zones across the world.

Prince, David Bowie, Carrie and Debbie Fisher and many others. Oh! What a loss!

Some people who are famous for a role they played in a movie forty years ago have insights into how fleeting fame is. Carrie Fisher reluctantly came to terms with her connection to the character she played in the original Star Wars, comparing it to her mother’s performance in ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown’.

Fisher considered herself the ‘caretaker’ of the Princess Leia character, and felt she was irrevocably connected to her. A fact fans sometimes did not seem to understand. Or did they? We wonder what fame and fortune is like because we think of people who are famous and rich at the height of their powers. What is it like when people who live every day of their lives in scrutiny begin to age and decline?

We all love our movies and TV shows. We love our favorite music and performers. Human beings need entertainment. We all love a good story, told well. Great artists don’t do what they do because they want to change the world. They do what they do because doing it is what makes them happy. Sometimes the result of their work is world-changing. I don’t think they know this when they are creating these world changing works. Sometimes too, a movie is just a movie, or a song is a one-hit wonder, or a show only airs for two or three seasons. We want to know the people who write and perform these works, and some of us put them up on a pedestal.

Do we mistakenly worship these people and their works and believe they have some insight or power to be able to tell us how to live our lives or what kind of political system we have? What happens when the works of Hollywood form a bond with the works of fame-seeking politicians in our capitols? Are the performers worthy of our worship? What happens when powerful media mechanisms make politicians famous for being famous?

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbings and Heating of Saint Paul.

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