“The West Wing”, Season 3, Episode 12: “100,000 Airplanes” (January 16, 2002) SCENE: The team is gathered in the Oval Office. President Bartlett has told them that he wants to include something in his State of the Union speech to say that we will cure cancer. His advisers explain, one by one, why he can’t…
What do we resist? We resist job losses. We resist wage stagnation. We resist corporate welfare. We resist corruption. We resist cruelty. We resist dictators.
We resist Republicans.
We elect people to do one thing only – to make decisions.
But we never ask them the fundamental question: ”How do you make a decision?”
The story of America cannot be told in terms of what we are or what we have been. The American story is that we are a people in motion – we are going someplace. Someplace better than where we are or where we were. It’s not about where we are, it’s about the journey we are on.
It’s not about what we are, it’s about what we are trying to become.
The speech is a lesson in the tactics, large and small, that hold a message together and burn your ideas into your audience’s consciousness. Repetition. Litanies. Framing. Promoting your Values, naming the Villain, holding out a Vision.
Into this world came this song. It certainly wasn’t on the radio, but I had bought the album – my second Dylan album – and listened to it, late at night, in the living room, on the hi-fi console, with my headphones on, in stereo.
When I first heard it, it was just “the next track” on the album. But halfway through, I stopped and moved the needle back to the beginning. I listened. Then played it again. And again. And again.
I learned, in 5 minutes, about poverty. Farming. South Dakota. Pain. Helplessness. Desperation. Terror. Loss.
As we await the trial phase of the impeachment proceedings, it’s apparent that many members of the U.S. Senate are jumping past the first question – the question of fact – and starting on the question of punishment.
Uncertainty damages business … and people too. Too bad about the student loan forgiveness plan. I remember (in 2012) when the Bush tax cuts of 2003 were scheduled to expire. Republicans raised a hue and cry about the “uncertainty” that this cast upon our economy. Businesses didn’t know how to plan – should they expect…
But guns have long signaled something different in rural places than in urban ones. Just as significant, guns now signify something radically different than they did a few decades ago. In short, guns have become highly politicized, both a cause and a symbol of our nation’s accelerating polarization
But for the 24-hour political newscasters, the Iowa caucus results were a panic moment. And now, 36 hours later, they are still mumbling and grumbling, talking about apps and coding problems and the horror of having to wait.
