Triangulating

I have been aware lately about a way of communicating and operating that is now coming to an end.  To this point it was successful.  It was effective; so effective that it has proven to be the preferred way of communicating and operating for the top leadership in our country.  There are other terms for it, but I am going to call it “triangulating.” 

Communicating and operating by triangulating is the art of talking politics.  Veteran politicians can enter a room, sense its atmosphere and talk successfully about a myriad of topics in a way that pleases a crowd.  They then can enter another room and talk about those topics to a different crowd with different views, pleasing them as well.  How does he do it?  Triangulation.  Many topics are so complex that they are made up of several subtopics.  Where supporters of gun control might have vastly different view than 2^nd Amendment Rights advocates, a skilled triangulator can easily know to talk about the sub-parts of those issues that both agree on.  Both sides are against crime.  Both sides want their family members safe.  So the skilled politician learns to speak around a topic, only talking about the areas of agreement.  He triangulates the issue. 

I believe that people are now exhausted from the triangulation of politicians.  Take a look at what is happening at this moment.  There is a divide between politicians and voters and I think it is because of this exhaustion that voters feel.  When you identify the politicians’ and the pundits’ top choices for leading challengers for the Presidency, you come up with Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, maybe Mike Huckabee. .  When you look at the people’s choices you get Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and now Herman Cain.  What is the difference?  The first group triangulates.  The second group speaks boldly and shoots straight to the issues.  The first group attempts strategies to find positions that claims the least negatives.  The second group tells you what they think and then invites you to like it or not. 

Right now I think this phenomenon is not limited to politics.  I can sense that people are generally tired of the triangulation approach to all of life.  There is a new openness for truth about God and truth about life’s issues.  Triangulation is really the avoidance of the main issues.  Society is tired of avoiding them.  In our personal lives and in our culture, I believe we know that we cannot avoid the central issues anymore.  The truth is not complicated.  It doesn’t take triangulation for us to understand it.

Speaking Truth to Power

Truth Seeker combs the airwaves and blogasphere for you.  Lauri B Regan has nailed the truth in a way that resonates with me.  Her article is a must read.  The phenomenon of this administration is not Obama as much as it is the tidal wave of support that he rode to the Presidency.  Who are the people who got us here?  Regan discusses who they were in 2008.  More importantly she discusses how they could surface again in sufficient numbers to re elect Obama.
I wish I had discovered her before.  She expresses the truth.

Read her article here:  

For an added bonus click on her comments and find the one by Jonathan Cohen. Iron sharpens iron. 

Thinking Out Loud

Thank goodness you don’t hear it as much as you used to.  You heard it virtually every day during the election process.  And you mostly heard it from the Democrats as they pursued a blitzkrieg of shrieking at the Republican candidates and anyone who supported them.  “Nazis!!  Fascists!!”  You would hear it.  You would see their signs (nice, neat union made signs).  “Fascists!!  Nazis!!” 

Actually, when you are all steamed up and angry they are fun words to say.  You can yell the words out easily with a lot of volume.  The problem that I had with the constant barrage from the Democrats was that it was evident that they did not have the slightest clue about what constitutes fascist beliefs.  They just knew that it sounded bad.  And they knew that if they could brand their enemies (fellow Americans) with it with enough regularity, that it would somehow stick.  The fact that the media would report it as if the label had merit in describing the conservative movement is the biggest crime.  No one in the media would ask those throwing out the words to clarify themselves.  No one would challenge them.  After all they were all on the same side. 

With the end of the first quarter coming, corporations are now reporting their end of year income.  They are also reporting how much income tax they will have to pay this year.  General Electric, with income coming in multiple billions is paying nothing.  Nada,  Zilch.  Zero.  Would you like to guess about General Motors?  Chrysler? 

Here is a new term to learn.  It has been used in Washington for years.  Now we as the citizens of this country need to know what it means.  It sounds good.  It sounds so  . . . well, so fair, so collaborative, so let’s work together.  Public – Private Partnership.  What is it?  It is a connection between the government and a corporation that benefits both.  What benefit can a corporation give a government?   Immense benefits.  More than that, it can give immense support to government’s elected officials.  And what benefits can the government give corporations?  Tax benefits, of course.  In the one country on the planet where corporations are taxed at a higher rate than any corporation in any other country, General Electric paid no taxes this year.  Public – Private Partnership is exactly what National Socialism is.  Public – Private Partnership is the very definition of Fascism.  The cozy and strong relationship between a country and a corporation like GE is exactly what national socialism is.  If a corporation and its employees supports the government then good things happen.  If it doesn’t  . . .  well, the tax man, the regulator, the czar of your industry, the EPA, they all cometh.   

How can General Electric’s competitors compete with GE when they are taxed at 25% and GE is not.  Which corporations will survive in this environment?  The corporation that pays taxes at the highest rate on the planet or the corporation that supports PACS that donate over $6 million to elected officials and gets no tax bill even though it got huge government contracts and over $5 billion in profit? 

You see, the people who do the voting in this country have a tremendous responsibility to fight through the slogans and sound bites.  Those who were pointing their fingers and shouting “Nazis!! Fascists!!”  are indeed the ones who are supporting just that.  It’s a tough assignment to educate the public.  How do you shout “Public-Private Partnership!!”  in a way that makes people recoil in disgust? 

The dream of capitalism is the dream of a level playing field.  It is the dream of equality.  It is the dream of being given an equal chance to be successful whether you are a 3 man company or you are General Electric.