Podcast 602-Political Fighting Doesn’t Make Civil Society

Fighting and Arguing

A presidential press conference that had the look of a Dino De Laurentiis movie. Angry tweets. Arguments about whether the president is a narcissist or psychotic. These days the argument is the thing. Division. Confusion. Anger. Frustration with the fact that everything is political. A friend said recently, “When civil society breaks down everything becomes political”. The more we fight about politics the less we know. Argument and rhetoric have replaced substantive discourse. This idea forms the basis of Podcast 602-Political Fighting Doesn’t Make Civil Society.

What is Civil Society

People think Civil Society these days is political action groups. Angry protests. Social media rants. Angry calls to talk radio. Everyone wants the silver bullet argument. We want to be the guy on TV that ‘takes it to them’. This is not civil society.  In Podcast 602-Political Fighting Doesn’t Make Civil Society.

Stop Yelling and Start Building A Community

Civil Society is community. It is distinct from government and business. Civil Society is individuals working together to solve problems, build community and be good citizens. People who have learned from experience to build consensus to get things done. Civil Society is the core of your town, village, city, county and state.

Fighting and Arguing Does Not A Warrior Make

Do you show up to set the chairs up and make the coffee for the community meeting? Help your neighbors? Attend boring public meetings no one else cares about?  Are you one of those people who responds to calls for help in the community regardless of where they come from?. Are you willing to work with people you may not agree with politically? Show genuine concern for others through your actions? You’re the real warrior. Commentators and people who imitate them are not warriors and they are not leaders. We’ll talk about it in Podcast 602-Political Fighting Doesn’t Make Civil Society

Eroding Civil Society

There are times when political action is called for. When people who have different points of view try to gather people to their cause. These can be bitter contests. Bitter feelings linger after contests that inevitably produce winners and losers. These days people won’t convene with anyone they don’t agree with. Discussions descend into bitter screaming matches on Social Media, Talk Radio, and Cable TV News. The media cultivates and encourages anti social behavior. Friendships are ended. Familial relationships are strained.

Don’t Argue

A true warrior doesn’t yell and scream. A leader is a good citizen people trust. These are people who understand people of like mind have to work to see that their ideas gain support. Protests and rallies serve a purpose but they are just a starting point. You don’t win in the rally. You win because you can work behind the scenes to build support for a concept, idea, or a solution to a problem.

It May Not Be Working Anymore

Recent studies show the stress levels of Americans increasing since the election. Not just the left. People on political right show the same kinds of intensifying stress levels. This kind of stress can’t be sustained. We might be seeing the end of the efficacy of rhetorical argument to fuel a movement. People may have just about had it with all the shouting and arguing regardless of where it is coming from. Maybe rebuilding civil society is a good first step.

Sponsored by Hydrus Performance and Brush Studio.

Podcast 596-Our Values

Journalism’s new norm is reaction. It is called News. In Podcast 596-Values, news coverage today is a reaction to something someone said or wrote. News is reaction to a new initiative by some government entity. Donald Trump hasn’t been president for a month yet. Already it seems like a year. Trump’s pace of executive orders, executive actions, tweets and initiatives allows him to dominate the media battle space while he cooks up another controversy stew to cauterize yesterday’s controversy.

In Podcast 596-Values, where is the media battle ground? It’s not the Internet. It’s some some battlefield in Europe or Virginia where armies clashed. It’s not a battlefield with stories of élan, bravery or great deeds. The media battle space is our brain. This battlefield is as small or as expansive as it needs to be. As the media storm rages and the wind blows, how do we know our tent is securely fastened and isn’t going to blow away? It call comes down to something called values.

In Podcast 596-Our Values, time to take a pause in this daily insanity of back and forth partisan media coverage. A break from ‘journalists’ who call two or three people, get some quotes, write it up and call it a day. Time to take a look at what we believe as individuals and as a people. Democrat, Republican, Populist, Populist Nationalist, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, Moderate, Partisan, and Extreme alike. We’re all on a journey together in our lifetime on this planet.

What do we believe? What are the Values we hold dear? Where do those values come from? How do those values anchor us when the gales of change blow up even when those gales are generated from the hot air of politicians in Washington? Politicians who cry and grandstand secure in the knowledge the things they say and do won’t be investigated for any length of time or to any real conclusion?

Reporters determine our values by looking at the latest poll or driving to a shopping center and asking people in the parking lot a few questions. The result is a few hundred words taking the ‘temperature’ of regular everyday ‘folk’. Don’t have any supporters of the president in your state to talk to? Just drive across the state line to the first town and sit in the parking lot of a Safeway or Piggly Wiggly until mom and the kids show up, or chat up and write up what old uncle Frank thinks, while he sits in his 1997 Lincoln waiting for Aunt June. The headline? “Middle America Supports Trump”. Boom.

Work on a national TV show? Find that article about middle america. Get that pollster on the show. Find that Congressmen who says that crazy stuff. Get that woman on from that foundation. Say some stuff. Get some calls. Move on to the next ‘story’. Clicks. Listens. Comments. Calls. Ratings!

The battlefield is the mind. How do you avoid becoming a casualty in the partisan political war? It’s increasingly a battlefield filled with threats. More and more it’s a battlefield better characterized as a moonscape no man’s land, where the shell shocked wander, dazed and confused. Survival in this environment depends on what we believe. Why we believe it. Where we learned it. Who taught us. Where we get our information. How we check our information. What anchors us in the storm, or what kind of ground we have pounded our tent pegs into.

Sponsored by X Government Cars and Hydrus Performance.

 

Podcast 594-Civil War-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show 63

In Podcast 594-Civil War-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show 63, Suddenly people in this country are interested in George Orwell’s 1984. A new movie is being made called ‘Little America‘, a dystopian depiction of what happens after the ‘Trump Administration bankrupts America and the Chinese take over’. Several stories suggest rich people are worried about a Civil War between the haves and the have nots. The Rich are building bunkers and buying reinforced compounds in New Zealand. In fear of a Civil War the Elites are signing up for luxury bunkers in the desert, protected by mercenaries. Academics are getting into the act by lecturing and writing about the Civil War between Athens and Sparta. Of course all of this will be caused by President Trump’s Authoritarian ways.

Tyranny

Of course in order to have tyranny whether it is fascism, communism some kind of junta, or 1984 style mind control, the conditions to support such tyranny have to exist first. Mechanisms like the peaceful transfer of power, countervailing powers, representative state and federal power, and a robust judiciuary governed by a written constitution have to be disabled. The United States differs structurally and significantly from unstable powers that have experienced tyranny like Germany’s Weimar Republic, Italy prior to Mussolini and the Russian Monarchy’s spectacular failure prior to Bolshevism.

In Podcast 594-Civil War-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show 63, reaction to the first week of the Trump presidency has been nothing short of hysterical. From Shia Laboufe’s ranting in New York City to the media taking the bait on an almost hourly basis either pointing out that Trump is always wrong or asking what he is doing. Honestly, it seems like Trump is doing exactly what he promised and what the people that voted for him expect him to do. From the controversy with the Mexican government over the wall, to the back and forth about illegals voting and brining back torture, the media is like a moth to a flame. As Trump and the administration tweets and stunts and the media reacts, the new president is signing executive orders and readying legislation. These real actions aren’t getting nearly as much coverage as his tweets and comments. None of it is getting any real substantive or investigative reporting.

Now the American Left is convinced we won’t last through the presidency of Donald Trump. Now the left is posting the crazy memes on social media. Now the left is putting up You Tube videos predicting a massive economic failure and national takeover of one kind or another. How quickly they forget their brethren on the right who were posting videos telling the world us Barack Obama wouldn’t leave the White House and would declare martial law, or that Hillary Clinton and her reptilian cohorts would stage a coup and remove Trump before he could be sworn in.

Civil War?

In Podcast 594-Civil War-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show 63, Civil War. Really? Civil Wars are the bloodiest wars of all. Time for a little history lesson regarding the American Civil War, which killed over six hundred thousand people in a country which boasted only 33 million at the time. This is the worst war in American history, worse even than World War II which only claimed somewhere around four hundred five thousand casualties. It almost goes without saying that the fissures that sparked the Civil War in the US were significant. Nothing like the minor political differences we have to today.

After the National Park Service and the EPA tweeted and spoke out about the new president’s supposed positions on Climate Change, they were told to stop tweeting. This is viewed as tyranny? Does anyone remember Reagan firing the air traffic controllers? What about Harry Truman firing Douglas MacArthur for doing exactly what the park service in the Badlands did; Going around the president to the media with a position that undermines the boss. What is the difference between a public servant and a civil servant? A public servant has an election certificate and has been chosen by the people to represent their interests. A civil servant works for elected officials.

Then there’s the executive orders. People hated Obama for issuing executive orders because he was blocked by a republican congress, but suddenly Trump’s use of executive orders is just fine? What’s the history of executive orders? How many executive orders have been issued? Which president issued more in recent history? In short the use of executive orders, which have been issued starting with Washington, does not make any president a dictator. It is the content and constitutionality of those orders that is in question.

Finally almost everyone is predicting Trump’s presidency will be a disaster. This podcaster refuses to take sides or defend this president, but will give credit where credit is due. As was suggested at the dawn of the Obama presidency concerning the Stimulus, what if it works? Of course we know the ARRA was a dismal failure in terms of making the economy grow. So let’s afford Trump the same consideration and ask what if his policies work? If the United States starts experiencing 4 to 5 percent economic growth per year for the next few years, things are going to be completely different in this country.

In Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show 63, when Reagan came into office in 1981, some people thought he would be a great president. Others weren’t sure Carter was so bad, despite the economic problems the country faced at the time. 2 years later, we all knew James Earl Carter, for all his sincerity and honesty, had been a terrible administrator. It was hard for some to recognize what a good president Reagan was but eventually many did. Is it possible people will be saying the same about Trump in a couple of years?

Time will tell.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus Performance.