Misrepresenting Everyone Else

Of all the egregious common practices of political campaigns willing to do “anything” to win the right to represent everybody else, is the gross misrepresentation of everybody else -- so one can emerge as the “best” of the choices.

Lost in these struggles for the right and the vote to represent all, is that any individual can always represent themselves, and their own point of view, as the basic right of every citizen. He just does not have the right to vote as a representative of everybody else, or as a representative of the “majority,” which more often than not these days, is merely the wishes of one, or a powerful special interest group that effectively manages and manipulates the rest.

That’s what “democracy” has come to be in a mass media society -- where those most highly valued, have a regular, captive audience -- even of their own choosing, but more likely, habit. Independent thinking people are much less likely to be slavish audiences of mediocre talents that now run regularly on mass media programming.

Even brilliant people don’t have much new to say -- much less have to fill a two-hour time slot daily. Far better for a society, would be to see the many different viewpoints from their original creators, rather filtering all the diversity through a single self-proclaimed, “liberal and progressive” celebrity. In fact, just to put labels on oneself in that way, and self-censor one’s thinking to the political correctness pronouncements from “powers that think they are,” is already an indication of mediocrity of mind and awareness.

When I ran for public office, I was struck by the promise, that so and so promised to do certain things if they were elected -- implying that they would drop off the face of the earth if they weren’t elected, rather than continue on representing the rightfulness of their way of thinking. And that is just as important as winning these elections, and getting trapped in the bureaucracies and the will of the many.

That has always been the advantage of rare independent thinking people -- to think and represent another point of view, and not merely go along with the majority, or demagogic point of view -- which is for one person to force everybody else into their way of thinking -- as though they thought of it themselves.

That “demagoguery,” is the worst kind of “democracy,” and if nothing else that each citizen must do in their lifetime, is be aware and understand that difference -- between the reality, and what the manipulator (leader) would like us to think.

The Face of Mainstream (Mass) Media: Helen Thomas, The End of an Era

I don't know if she's still living -- nor do I really care -- but John McCain's introduction of Sarah Palin as the most important and influential woman in the country, who would challenge the eastern establishment, did not sit well with -- the eastern establishment, and set them off in a rage that the perpetual sneer and loathing on Helen Thomas' face immortalizes. That is the face of a woman scorned -- and consumed with vengeance to retaliate.

Throughout much of the 20th century, the self-anointed dictators of American thought and culture at the New York Times and Washington Post decided what was fit to be news, and in the beginning of the 21st century, that has shifted more to television celebrities, but beyond that, is the shift away from mass media altogether, and mass anything as well -- as the shapers of participation and thinking in the emerging new culture, moves on toward more personalized and authentic real involvement.

So what we now see playing out in the mass media, is the beginning of the end -- because mass media has become increasingly dominated by the partisan left -- driving out everybody else, which the politics of this election just makes ever more clear. Fortunately, that half of the population being driven out, is the portion of society well-equipped and well-disposed to carry on without and beyond the mass media, centered around affinity groups of common and strongly shared values and beliefs.

That would be the churches obviously but also other interest groups that bond because of their passion and high engagement -- which the secular media does not, by its very superficial nature of reporting from the outside journalist's point of view. The only exception, is the discussion of the relatively disengaging political arena which they have killed because of their overarching dominance of that discussion -- from their liberal, eastern elitist perspective they maintain is the enlightened and progressive -- they wish to impose on everybody else as the only way it can be now -- as their only remaining "expertise."

Thinking Americans and people of the world, feel competent to do their own thinking now. They have as much access to the information -- and no longer are dependent on the superior "intelligence" of such people to tell them what to think.

So the political campaign they are discussing, is largely symbolic of that struggle to maintain that control and influence in America, for one final show of power -- but as we note in the personages that should be its venerable figureheads, those faces morph into contortions of hate, partisanship and unrelenting ugliness with no redeeming qualities, no reason for continuing to tune in other than for that continuing control. For that, one can just as easily talk to the old lady (man) down the street complaining about everything -- sharing her misery about the life she can no longer delude anyone she is the center of. She is the proverbial "gray lady."

And that is also the fitting end for the television reign of "Oprah" as the contemporary goddess of all things right and wonderful in this country as well -- undoubtedly for the next generation of wannabes to her fame and fortune. But she is her own end of an era. The next generation will not be about endless self-promotion and aggrandizement -- masquerading as charm, wit and charisma. One wonders why one should be seeing "Whoopi" on television at all.

They are exhausting themselves in the selling of "Obama" -- whose charm is that he owes his persona entirely to the power of the mass media. He is their ultimate creation, entirely from nothing. They made him entirely, and can destroy him just as easily. And that is their power. But there is no reality to sustain that image -- beyond the unrelentingly campaign to, which eventually consumes every bit of energy and resources to maintain the fiction in preference to the reality. And so their final victory is their ultimate collapse into nothingness.

One walks away -- and it merely shrivels. It is the end of an era.

NYC, DC, Chicago, LA and SF papers endorse Obama

All the more reason we need to elect John McCain president.

All these glittering generalities and lavish praise for his "high and lofty intellect" reminds me of the designation of William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" as the greatest novel ever written.

Nobody can understand it, but it creates a lot of jobs for people to interpret and explain its profundity to everyone else.

That's what they don't like about George Bush, John McCain and Sarah Palin -- their ability to speak for themselves directly to the American public, instead of needing intermediaries to interpret their “high intellect” (intelligence) to the masses.

All the elitists of the world are banding together for their last stand -- against the leveling of the playing field for the next phase of democracy -- which is everybody thinking for themselves and making up their own minds, and not being told by the self-designated few who is “intelligent” and “correct,” and who is not. And that is the most revolutionary development of these times.

That's really the struggle of this election, the bigger story than which of two men becomes the highest representation of this country.

One is actually, and ironically, the agent of change, while the other talks about change, but really means to keep the old status quo -- of elitism. And that is what really upsets the status quo -- that people might actually want to run their own lives, and are capable of doing so, rather than continuing to be lifelong wards of the state (government), with “beloved” leaders directing their every “choice.”

Right now, there is great disruption in the markets as the change in values is recalibrated. Things that were recently skyrocketing beyond people’s abilities to afford them, are now falling at alarming speed betraying they were only recently so highly prized. Other things, by maintaining their relative values, are emerging as the next values societies will come to appreciate and treasure.

Foremost among them, is the freedom of not being trapped with inventories of falling values -- and thinking there are no choices, no options otherwise. And that is the true value of diversity -- that there are many ways of being, and not everyone forced into one unvarying, conforming mold of “political correctness” -- dictated by a few, from New York, DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco -- the old power centers of the 20th century, and their outdated hierarchies.

A Thinking Person's Guide to the Presidential Election

Rather than hoping for Obama to provide miracles and unlimited federal funding for pork barrel projects, what intelligent and responsible people in Hawaii need to do now is have a constitutional convention and rewrite the rules for their own self-government, instead of waiting for other people to make money everywhere else, and then come to Hawaii where they can get ripped off by people who don't know anything else anymore.

Show and develop a little self-respect and belief in yourselves and own abilities. You can think for yourselves and run your own government. You don't need all the shucksters and shysters coming from all over the world attracted by only the MONEY and dreams of unlimited wealth exploiting the native population.

Don't blame Lingle or Bush. Some of Hawaii's finest moments came as a result of and after 9/11/01, producing many of its peak years.

But the problem with people raised on a welfare mentality is that they don't know how to handle "success," and turn it into a bigger failure, because instead of saving the surplus (capital), the government workers plunder it for themselves and their own raises -- and then are moaning, groaning and whining for unlimited more federal and tourist dollars, when times are tough and require resourcefulness, which they are discouraged from learning in government schools.

When a people don't have a REAL education, when things go wrong, instead of looking at what is happening and why, they merely look for somebody to blame -- thinking that's all they have to do, and all they can do, because they have no other skill.

And so the next demagogue who comes along promising he'll "Take care," and the people don't have to do anymore thinking for themselves, is the person the schools indoctrinate them to vote for.

Really, what Hawaii needs now is not MORE hopelessness and despair, MORE victimization and entitlement, but the frontier virtues of self-reliance.

That's WHY the western orientation of McCain-Palin is preferable to the model of eastern big-city machine politics.

Think about it, really think about it -- instead of having these big-city political machines tell you what you ought to think, repeat and chant mindlessly as their "political correctness."

Why should the people at the New York Times and Washington Post decide how you should live in Hawaii?

Are the Markets Forecasting an Obama Win?

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Down -- Obama.

Up -- McCain.

It’s Pretty Obvious

The only hope for Honolulu (Hawaii) is for straight-talking leaders who can maximize functioning with the present realities instead living in their delusions of unlimited free money from the federal government -- that is not going to be the future world.

Barbara Marshall also asked at the City Council meetings if there was a plan other than the Rail -- for the next 20 years of empty promises and dreams with no accountability. Do we expect to fool the people forever? Someday, even the supporters of Mufi Hannemann and the unions will have to wake up and realize you can't get something for nothing all the time.

People one day wake up and realize they have nothing, and the other guys have everything. It doesn't just happen.

So I'm glad to hear that Ann Kobayashi and Panos Prevedouros are talking reality and hope the people of Honolulu are finally waking up to listen -- and really do something about all their problems -- with what they already have and can do better with. The whole Hawaii culture and society is about waste, fraud and corruption -- but nobody sees it because everyone is drowning in it.

In its own way, the current downturn is a return to reality -- forced upon everyone. Most people have the basic competency to overcome failure and hardships; much fewer people know how to handle success, and so we often learn about those destroyed by their apparent success only leading them to greater excesses and abuses that were not magnified as long as they struggled.

Then as soon as they have the power, instead of using it for the good, they use it to destroy all their rivals for good. That’s pretty much been the story of leadership and power in Hawaii -- of this primitive notion of fighting to get to the top, and once there, using that power only to aggrandize more power to themselves, or at least, establish a lifetime sinecure for themselves.

Leadership was never meant to be permanent but revolving as the needs changed -- to meet the needs. It was never a wise idea to become just skilled at obtaining pork barrel monies (earmarks) without ever developing the ability to produce anything of real value -- after spending the monies, and then applying for the next boondoggle.

In a world of global trade, one has to come to the table with something of value that the world wants to trade for, and lacking that, there is no market for those who just want more money.