Thursday, November 11, 2010

Angry Voters of a Decaying Empire

By Phil Rockstroh
November 11, 2010

Once again, partisan Democrats are reeling in shock and humiliation, boggled by a familiar scenario -- the sheer velocity of their reversal of fortune and the Republican right's perennial ascendency.

Read on.
Posted by at

3 comments:

Morton Kurzweil said...

It seems that way, doesn't it? That's only because you assume that humans are served by reason and can act for their own good,
Someone human named our species 'Homo sapiens', wise man, when the latest neurological and genetic studies make us Amygdalites, not humans.
We behave and form convictions based on the functioning of our limbic system, an earlier evolutionary that the higher brain functions of reason. It processes emotion and motivation in reptiles and hasn't needed to change much to improve our survival as a species.
That is the key. We are confused by reason when it interferes with our needs to be a herd animal. We can rationalize our vote, our religious beliefs, and our patriotism as if we were making individual choices for the common good, when all the while we are impelled by our emotions to convictions based on fear and flight. We develop hierarchies of religious and political governments that express our instinct to swarm because others do, to herd because others do. That is a successful response if the herd is to survive. It is a fatal response if the higher rational parts of the new central nervous system are to survive.

Thu Nov 11, 06:28:00 PM 2010
rosemerry said...

Phil always gets us thinking, and this is a marvellous example! Nobody else has this way of lyricising while punching us with truth.

Fri Nov 12, 05:12:00 AM 2010
Lynne Gillooly said...

Excellent piece, yet so depressing because it is the truth.
My personal belief is the door swung open for this collective cognitive dissonance to spread like cockroaches in a Victorian when Reagan repealed the Fairness Doctrine. It introduced us to the first corporate prostitute Rush Limabugh. Today over 90 percent of our airwaves are filled with such programming with no accountability or time allotted for reason and sanity.
Goebbels said you can control a people anywhere at any time by doing 3 things
1 always have an enemy (Obama, gays, Muslims,illegals etc)
2. Always be the uber patriot
3. Always have the means to repeat and repeat your message until it becomes the truth (see talk radio)
It worked in Germany and it has worked here....

Wed Nov 17, 04:09:00 PM 2010

Post a Comment