[extropy-chat] followup avoidance upon unexpected dissident responses

Technotranscendence neptune at superlink.net
Sun Dec 7 19:19:40 UTC 2003


On Sunday, December 07, 2003 12:01 PM randy cryofan at mylinuxisp.com
wrote:
> Also, a former poster to this list, Anthony Garcia,
> was recently on the Houston PBS "connections"
> TV show.  He is a Texas Libertarian party activist
> and sometime candidate.  He "debated"/discussed
> various broad political issues with representatives
> of the local Democrat, Republican, and Green
> parties.  Interesting to me was how the moderator
> and Dem and GOP representatives completely
> ignored Anthony's occasional comments about
> broad issues regarding how the dems and gop
> use their power to keep 3rd party candidates off
> the ballot and away from the media. However,
> almost every comment from the dem and gop
> representatives, even when about seemingly
> trivial subject matter, prompted a followup from
> the moderator and the other major party candidate.

Well, I'm not sure of the selection process.  I've seen debates where
third party candidates have done well, but, typically, major party
candidates try to keep third party candidates out of debates or minimize
their impact in them.  This might happen by selecting a moderator who
does not take the third party candidates seriously.

Remember, too, major candidates don't want the situation to get out of
control.  Typically, they go for the so called center and ignore their
radical wings because they know their radical wings can't go anywhere
else.  Enter a third party candidate and that could change.  Now, the
mainstream candidate is given a dilemma: go more purist and alienate the
center or focus on the center and lose the radicals.  Most mainstream
candidates want to avoid that.

It's also like chess too.  In a lot of games, people use the strategy of
simplifying by trading pieces.  By simplifying the "candidate space,"
mainstream candidates can control the terms of debate and not have to
worry about losing support to radical or other factions within their
base -- or expending effort defeating them.  (Why are the Republicans
without any contenders for the Presidential nomination?  Well, Bush can
focus on the Democrats -- rather than fight a bitter primary like last
time and them have to fend off his opponents.  The same logic applies to
third parties.)

> When confronted with an unexpectedly dissident
> response, media hosts quickly change the subject,
> or break for a commercial, or inject an identifying
> announcement: "We are talking with [whomever]."
> The purpose is to avoid going any further into a
> politically forbidden topic no matter how much the
> unexpected response might seem to need a
> follow-up query. An anchorperson for the BBC
> World Service (December 26, 1997) enthused:
> "Christmas in Cuba: For the first time in almost
> forty years Cubans were able to celebrate
> Christmas and go to church!" She then linked up
> with the BBC correspondent in Havana, who observed,
> "A crowd of two thousand have gathered in the
> cathedral for midnight mass. The whole thing is
> rather low key, very much like last year."  Very
> much like last year? Here was something that craved
> clarification. Instead, the anchorperson quickly
> switched to another question: "Can we expect
> a growth of freedom with the pope's visit?"

The BBC is one of the most biased news services anyhow.  They make
statements like that all the time.  I wonder if part of it is just the
service trying to avoid anything that might make them personae non grata
in Cuba.

> On a PBS talk show (January 22, 1998), host
> Charlie Rose asked a guest, whose name I did
> not get, whether Castro was bitter about "the
> historic failure of communism". No, the guest
> replied, Castro is proud of what he believes
> communism has done for Cuba: advances in
> health care and education, full employment,
> and the elimination of the worst aspects of
> poverty.

Which is why people general hop on inner tubes from Key West to get to
Cuba.  I've heard the Cuban Coast Guard has to turn these immigrants
back, so many are trying to migrate to the Caribbean paradise.  Also,
note how those deluded enough to leave Cuba, quickly return when they
discover what a great land they've left.  This explains Florida's
declining Cuban population: more of them move back to live happy and
free under Castro.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.:)

> Rose fixed him with a ferocious glare, then turned
> to another guest to ask: "What impact will the
> pope's visit have in Cuba?" Rose ignored the
> errant guest for the rest of the program.

I know you got this off another site, but have you ever watched Charlie
Rose?  He's not only politically biased and shows it, but he's a bad
interviewing.  He talks over his guests, ignores those he can't control,
and generally overtly steers the discussion.  Watching him, one gets the
feeling the guests are there merely as props  for him.  (This has
nothing to do with my disagreement with his particular politics, as I
find other Left-wing interviewers to be much better and even among the
best I know, such as Terry Gross (NPR) of Leonard Lopate (WNYC).)  So
I'm not surprised he would do this -- if, in fact, that's what he did.

But to turn this discussion into a positive direction:  How would you
get the media, etc. to pay more attention to radical or dissident views?
One thing to do might be to hire a polling agency to do a survey with so
called radical positions and see how many people hold them.  Let's say
you find 40% of those surveyed hold the radical position.  Yuo could
then use the poll to show how media coverage of such positions is far
lower than their actual representation in the population.  That might
shame some in the media toward mending their ways.  (Of course, I'm
assuming that these so called radical positions are more prevalent than
mainstream reporting would have us believe.:)

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/




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