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| Joe Bakewell. |
PRE-PACKAGED OPINION
During my
long life, I’ve been privy to a great many arguments and discussions. It seems
that people have always been inclined to parrot other people’s opinions,
derived from whatever papers they read, or whomever they listened to on the
radio, or TV. The discussions were always more interesting when someone brought
new knowledge or thinking into the process. For some groups, this became
contagious, and they all became more interesting.
Today, I
seldom encounter someone whose views are not part of a package. In the first
few minutes, I can guess what camp they come from and the rest of what they
think about current affairs. Young people, in particular, rarely consult source
material for hard facts or data. Other pressures such as political correctness,
social media, short attention spans, and electronic devices define their world.
This combined with the sad state to which our government has been reduced by
special interest money has reduced our national discourse to two echo chambers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah—I get it—it’s all about Trump and Citizens United.
Duh.
How is our
country to recover our democracy and stop the ever growing social and economic
inequality when we don’t even mention the most important issues—the ones that
will continue to drag us down after Trump and Citizens United?
Joe Bakewell.
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