On Fri, 07 Nov 2014 06:31:41 -0800, Carol DeVolder wrote:
Like.
I think one lesson that voters for President Obama learned
(of which I was one), be careful what you wish for. Or,
life is always less sweet than we expect it to be:
On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 8:03 AM, John Kulig wrote:
They can also say .. this will make Hillary's victory all the sweeter
[image:
Cool]
To which I quote from the Mike Nichols' movie "Charlie Wilson's
War" about the tale of the Zen master:
"We shall see."
On Friday, November 7, 2014 8:58:46 AM, Jim Clark wrote:
Perhaps things look different from up here in Canada. I see a divided
America rather than an "overwhelming victory."
To which I say: there are many ways to view what happened in this
week's election including:
(1) People will vote against their best interests (ideology trumps
cost-benefit analysis -- the failure of teaching critical thinking is
once
again apparent),
(2) This morning we learned that 214K new jobs were added in the
U.S. in October (the ninth straight month were the increase was above
200K), one measure of unemployment dropped from 5.9%
to 5.8%, average hourly pay rose about 2% relative to a 1.7% inflation
rate, the labor force participation rate ticked up from 62.7% to 62.8%
after two months of decline, and, in case no one has been looking
at their 401(k) or stock portfolio, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 are
hitting new all time highs. Financially, the U.S. has been doing very
well this year especially compared to the 2008 and when President
Obama was first elected (when the unemployment rate was over 9%
and the stock market was in the toilet). Is this an example of
emotional reasoning over logical reasoning?
(3) Science education in the U.S. has to improve because it is clear
that many voters and the people elected to office don't have a clue.
For example, see:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/06/climate-denier-jim-inhofe-in-line-for-senates-top-environmental-job
Just listen to all of the politicians who say "I'm no scientist but..."
and
then express an ignorant opinion about a scientific issue. Again,
is this another failure of teaching of critical thinking?
(4) The U.S. may be a divided country but the real question is what
are the divisions? Faith vs. Reason? Opinion vs. Facts?
Plutocracy vs. Democracy? There are so many divisions it is hard
to determine where to start. Perhaps one place to start is with
Mississippi which wants to have a "Confederate Heritage Month"
and acknowledge Christianity (not clear which version -- Catholics
might not count) as the state's official religion; see:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/05/mississippi-confederate-heritage-petition/18553115/
On Nov 7, 2014, at 7:12 AM, "Michael Britt"
<[email protected]>
wrote:
The elections are (thankfully) over and the republicans have scored an
overwhelming victory. So suppose that over the past few months you
received lots of emails from the democratic party asking you to donate
to
the party to help it win. And suppose you actually did donate, let's
say,
more than a few times. I'm not saying that this was me, but I am a
social
psychologist after all so I'll let you draw your own opinions.
Having receiving a number of such pleas for money for a couple of
candidates who lost by large margins (including one who has 20
federal charges against him and who threatened to throw a NY news
reporter off the balcony in the house of representative ON LIVE TV),
I just wonder what is wrong with the people who voted for the people
who won?
So what does the democratic party tell their supporters after the
election
in order not to lose them as future supporters? Why, you tell them
that
they actually did NOT lose. For example, you might email your
supporters
and emphasize all those places where democrats did win.
[snip]
It is called spin. Remember that old song with the lyrics "you've got
to
accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and avoid Mr.
In-Between"?
I think you overstate the "did NOT lose" part because one would really
have
to be psychotic to say such a thing (or, if it appeared in an email, an
adult
did not review the email before it was sent). It is one thing to
emphasize
the glass is half full while realizing it is a urine sample. The
traditional
optimistic interpretation gets a bit mixed up.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
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