MANIPULATING EMOTIONS

Emotions are not really a short topic but here is a thumbnail sketch on some of what I have been considering.  Emotions work to try to keep us feeling pleasure instead of pain.  Thus, when someone tries to decide whether a person on trial showed the proper (or sufficient) emotion, it is as useful as the people who made determinations as to whether a woman having visions was a witch centuries ago.  Clinically depressed people have flat facies (general appearance;  an appearance and expression of the face characteristic of a particular condition especially when abnormal) and show a 'deadpan'.  Many people have schooled themselves in a defense mechanism, to not show emotion so that they will be less vulnerable to people using their emotions to hurt or torture them.

Some people have an ability to 'read' other people's emotions quite accurately.  I'm assuming this is done by filing away data associated with particular expressions then the brain does a search on the 'symptoms' and concludes the feelings (emotion).  For example as to how confusing this can be and how easily misread, people may cry from sadness, pain, exhaustion, stress, frustration or happiness.  This suggests the importance of context in determining emotional response.  Often when one sees a person who has been hurt, one may show an identifying sadness, though some people (who feel no joy) cannot resist laughing when they see a pratfall or similar accident.  The sadist may show laughter and real pleasure at witnessing the pain of the tortured.

My basic point is, emotions are too easily misread and conclusions are reached by assumption. with insufficient evidence.  In courts, media often picks up that the defendant didn't show enough remorse.  Terror and anxiety often masks other emotions which can include remorse and shame.  Denial may also obscure what might have been a different emotion felt.

Thus, those who play on people's emotions may be real masters at manipulating to get people to 'feel' what they want them to feel.  The TV appliance demonstrator convinces people they cannot live without this latest widget which will make all work easier; the elixir salesperson convinces the public that they are missing the fountain of youth if they don't rush to eat, drink, rub on, or otherwise use their product.  There are groups in the United States currently who are inflaming anger, like Glenn Beck who has mentioned revolution more than 170 times in around 250 of his shows. through lies.  Anti-abortion zealots have raised the sense that abortion is so bad, it is justifiable to take the life of a doctor (an adult, teacher, parent, on whom many rely) to save the life of an unborn fetus.  It is unconscionable to make a choice to take one life to save another when no crime has been involved.  Sarah Palin, who seems to charm many, is another who is inflaming towards Revolution and works on the gun-toting crowd.

Those in the media and public view have no idea that they will be responsible for any violence that erupts as result of these inflammatory speeches they give.  Will they be held responsible for the consequences?  If we examine precedent, it may be unlikely.  The poor brainwashed soul who takes illegal action will be the one to pay the price. For some sense of the thinking that allows someone to fall prey to the inciting to action when otherwise helpless and not understanding that 'government', we often see a paranoia. Read the letter from Timothy McVeigh to Fox News as to why he bombed the Murrah building. It speaks to the point.

WONDER OF WONDERS: A COURAGEOUS REPUBLICAN!

David Frum, a Canadian-American journalist who has, for the past several years been a Fellow at AEI (American Enterprise Institute), was fired from there today.  He has been publicly outspoken about the Republicans recently and was heard to say that the Republicans have finally seen Waterloo but it is not Obama's but that of the Republicans.  Needless to say there are quite a few Republicans who disagree!

Frum, a Harvard graduated  lawyer for the GW Bush White House.  Paul Krugman has written his usual pithy, Opinion, article titled The Conscience of a Liberal and I suggest you read it by clicking here.   It is interesting for those of us who never saw Fox News as Fair and Balanced but, rather, Unfair and Imbalanced, were shocked to see that someone finally on the Republican side of the fence has seen the truth about Fox News and the ship that Roger Ayles clearly states he is there for ratings not truth from like Beck, Hannity, Rove and so many others.  Those who work there may feel popular by the numbers who watch them, of the ilk of the teabaggers, but they must feel the lack of respect from thinking, educated, logical and really fair people.  He says he used to think that Fox News worked for the Republicans but has now realized that the Republicans work for Fox News!  Read here.

THOSE ABUSING DECORUM IN CONGRESS SHOULD GO INTO A PENALTY BOX

An article was written about the teabaggers.  For the full article, click here.  Mentioned was:

"According to the poll, it “has more women than men; is mainly white and Republican and voted for John McCain, and strongly supports Sarah Palin.” They (85%) also feel that the government is doing too much."
“The Tea Party movement is mostly made up of people who consider themselves Republicans,” said Brown. “They are less educated but more interested in politics than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack and are not in a traditional sense swing voters.”

The people fanning the flames do not see their responsibility to what will inevitably end up in innocents getting hurt.  Today the brother of the targeted politician had the gas line cut to his house.  It seems fortuitous that no one was physically hurt .The law should pursue the senders of hate email , faxes and phone threats.  Their names and faces should be made public.  Those who claim to be pro-life do not see the hypocrisy of their actions when those who are threatened are beyond their fetal stage.

As for those who misbehave in the Congress, they should be given 'time out' just as one does with small children or adult hockey players.  If they can't behave or do their job (as McCain is threatening to do for the rest of his term) they should be suspended (without pay) for a period determined by someone appointed as a parliamentarian.  Any one who has ever raised children knows you can't moderate or modify behavior if you do not force accountability.  Our judicial system had once known it.  The witch hunts were an abuse of good judgment when good people feared the people who were considered law. and did nothing to save these women in their own ignorance, much like the misinformed teabaggers today.

BULLIES IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS CAN TAKE LESSONS FROM THE, POLITICIANS, AND OTHER TALKING HEADS

When even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Roberts,  violates protocol and makes faces at what the President is saying, tlaking while the President is speaking; when a Senator from the west yells "Baby Killer" as a pro-choice Democrat explains why he has accepted the Healthcare Bill; when the President is speaking and a senator yells out "Liar"; when Fox News interviews the President and talks over him rudely, doesn't allow him to talk much and accuses him of not letting the interviewer talk enough, we are in a very sad state as a country by the choices we have made of putting these rude, out of control people in charge of the country and on the media as though they are same as those whom we can respect.

The country wonders why children are so disrespectful and are such bullies today.  Just look at the models we show them on TV.  Where is the parent group that wanted violence taken off TV?  Are there no groups incensed by the behavior and words of those people who have a vast audience in the media, who advocate violence, who hurl racial epithets at Senators walking near the Capitol; or homophobics who dare insult a Representative who has served his country diligently and with dignity for years but who dares to be out of the closet and honest about who and what he is?

Where is the rage at these injustices?  If those behaviors slip by people, what about the fools who believe that Obama is not an American citizen, is a Muslim...and worse, an Anti-Christ. That he is worse than Hitler and a Socialist?  If that is not bad enough, the Republicans who were voted into office encourage these atrocious behaviors.  When discussing poor losers, John McCain should stand out in history as a leader...( deserving of the equivalent of an Oscar).about the only thing in which he is a leader today.  Could he not see the gracious way Gore, Kerry and Hillary Clinton took their losses.  None of them said they would just collect a Senate salary and stop working!!  Just what are the Republicans using for brains?  Do they not realize that many are without jobs in this country, yet forced to pay their salaries while they collect salaries for doing nothing?  What can possibly be going on in the mind of these people?  And yet, they say say they are there representing their constituents.  How condascending of them!

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE BUT NOT A DROP TO DRINK EXCEPT IN AUSTRALIA

In the natural order of balance we in the Northeast USA are drowning in rain, flooded basements, swollen rivers, and ponds where they didn't exist before.  Down under, in Australia, there is a massive drought.  Fortunately, it seemed a good idea to be prepared.

One desalinization plant, already in use,  has an output daily that would fill 600 Olympic-size pools.  Click here for more details.  While our Senate has people who believe we have the best health care system in the world and others there believe our education facilities outshine the rest of the world...they are wrong!  While some of those may have been facts at one time, the very people who cling to the notion that it is still fact are the ones who sat back refusing to do the job in Washington for which they were sent there; choosing, rather, to spend all their efforts on getting re-elected.  They didn't notice the rest of the world passing us by.

California is also experiencing a significant drought problem.  I have no idea what is currently being done to solve it other than trying to bring the mountain to Mohammad..  As David Korten writes in When Corporations Rule the World, "Externalized costs don't go away -- they are simply ignored by those who benefit from making the decisions that result in others incurring them."  Just as those who use up resources with no thought of what problems may occur.  The easiest thought is to carry water to where it is needed, no matter how far...the cost must be born.  Arizona is enraged at California saying the Californians have stolen their water.  One enterprising scientist changed tactics and, rather than bringing water to thirst, he makes water out of anything that is liquid wherever it is needed.  Given the Mohammad quote, the theory is not new but how quickly small minds forget lessons learned.

Problem solving  that comes to everyone.  In fact, as we have witnessed with politics recently, saying no is not a problem solver, either.  Usually it takes money to establish and prove new ideas.  In the past, those who wish to suppress them simply buy the ideas and their rights and simply sit on them forever.

THERE IS HOPE FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS, IT SEEMS

Despite all the day's talk about Nancy Pelosi having counted the votes well before bringing a vote to the floor on the Healthcare Bill, I sat white knuckled throughout the process, little allowing myself to believe that either campaign or voting promises would be kept.  However, kept they were.

Earlier in the day, as I watched Meet the Press, Tavis Smiley was the most cogent on the panel.  He chastised the politicians who spoke for the media, marketing and re-election, rather than thinking 'what is right for the people'.  After all, a vote is a vote and it doesn't matter that it be the same politician as from the last election process.  Representatives and Senators need to understand they are not important to the process as individuals, only that their vote represents the needs of the people, their constituents....a notion which has escaped too many in Washington. D.C., apparently.

Without question, many will be disappointed that things will not change fast enough but we all want to get to the destination in a hurry.  We forget the train will only go its maximum speed, which does not equal the speed of light.  Thanks to Obama for being a man of his word and coming through with a campaign promise..

SHOULD THE POPE BE GIVEN ABSOLUTION? or DOES THE BUCK STOP AT THE TOP.

In a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics, Pope Benedict acknowledged the sense of betrayal in the Church felt by victims and their families  For the complete article, click here. 

As Benedict worked his way up in the church to become Pope, it is beyond my ken that he didn't know about the abuses, just as it was beyond me that Cardinal Bernard Law in the Boston area was faultless.  Apparently no one in the Catholic church minds the store.

The emotional damage done to so many boys and girls has no end.  It lives within them forever. Defrocking a priest or even sending him to jail does not wipe out the emotional cost to the victims.  It changed the picture that sex should be a commitment to love, relationship, vows of closeness to another.  Instead, it became something dirty, secretive, and shameful.  It has made parents accuse their children of lying to them if they sought parental help because the parents would sooner believe their children untruthful than lose faith in the clergy.  How sad that so many needed to believe in the lies from the priests as much as we, as a country, have failed to pull the curtains apart to show the real 'Wizard of Oz' in politics, police departments, teachers, in fact in every part of our lives.  One's profession does not determine morality, integrity or honesty.  We, too often, don't get a close enough glimpse of a person to decide for ourselves.  Some of us who have skills trained over the years to look for clues in behavior not simply believe words, sometimes can see through the con artist in whatever cloak is worn.  Unfortunately, not enough people are intuitive, or are capable of developing that discerning skill.  This is why juries make so many errors regarding guilt and innocence and so many found guilty on circumstantial evidence.  We hear "he/she didn't look sorry enough"; "his face looked guilty'; "his eyes were too close" and many other ridiculous assumptions like the talking heads make on TV political shows.

With reference to religion, there are too few who understand that Faith does not mean blindly believing everything said by people working for the church business.  In fact, what one may believe the existence of a God, or an interpretation of the Bible (not necessarily the word of God or Christ), is personal to that individual and should be determined by what that person can believe. To be a good person does not require belief in any singular religion.  There are good people in all religions and among Atheists and Agnostics. Behavior and professed belief, as evidenced by the sins of the churches, are not one and the same.