/Standard Newswire/ -- Following Saturday's tragedy in Tucson, Arizona where six people were killed, including a nine year-old girl, Sarah Palin and her Tea Party, along with some talk show hosts, are being blamed for the horrific incident. Will America view this as a wakeup call or just another story in the news cycle?
On Sunday morning, highly respected ABC commentator George Will is ready to forget it saying, "Whenever these things happen, and that is a search of the social environment to find some prompting that caused this, to make it more soothing and understandable. The truth is there are 308 million people in this country and a few of them are unhinged and that may be the final explanation."
That may be the final explanation if you make your living in television news and represent conservatives in America. Obviously, there are many people in this country who are capable of these types of violent acts, but not everyone is as eager as Will to brush it off and move on.
"The facts about the killer are coming out now and revealing him to be one of the unhinged people George Will referred to," said John Ruane, longtime journalist, media relations expert and author of "The Wizards of Spin." "The politicians have their own set of issues to sort out here, but the broadcasting community should take responsible steps to ensure they aren't playing a role in pushing these types of people over the edge. That's really the issue they have to face here."
In the introduction to "The Wizards of Spin," Ruane chronicles the change in the news media over the past 30 years, moving away from the "just-the-facts" reporting of the Walter Cronkite era to the sensationalistic commentary that dominates cable news over the past 10 years. There are so many choices for viewers and listeners now, and media outlets have to compete for ratings to survive, so it's easy to see why some talk show hosts have become more combative and sensationalistic.
"I have been on the book circuit talking about how some of the talk show hosts are inciting their listeners and viewers to the point where this country has become very angry and divided along social and political lines," Ruane said. "It's obvious some broadcasters purposely incite their listeners along those lines of division, growing the gap between a respectful debate and violent argument, and that can't be dismissed here. Something has to be done to demand responsibility on the part of all broadcasters. There are very smart professionals in this country who I believe can be assembled on an independent panel to address this issue."
-----
Community News You Can Use
Click to read MORE news:
www.GeorgiaFrontPage.com
Twitter: @gafrontpage & @TheGATable @HookedonHistory
www.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com
Twitter: @artsacrossga, @softnblue, @RimbomboAAG @FayetteFP
Showing posts with label political. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (ret) Calls on Obama Administration to Identify Greatest Threat in History to Our Democracy
/PRNewswire/ -- Family Security Matters' Contributing Editor, Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt, has called on the Obama administration to clearly identify what he terms "the greatest threat in history to our democracy." He further identifies clearly that threat to be the one "posed by Islamic extremism."
Lt. Col. Zumwalt, author of "Bare Feet, Iron Will - Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam's Battlefields," strongly believes that earlier generations of free societies were able to recognize, understand and defeat earlier threats to their existence posed by Nazism and Communism because those threats were made clear to them. But, the threat posed by Islamism to America remains obfuscated by a President unwilling to call it what it is. He states the irony of the president's position when he says, "Obfuscating a threat seeking the destruction of our way of life shows unbelievable naivete by our President, underscored by a determined unwillingness to call Islamists 'the enemy' at the same time he freely attaches such a label to his political opponents."
In comparison, Lt. Col. Zumwalt points to the utter failure of South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung's "Sunshine Policy" which sought a soft policy of political and economic interaction with Pyongyang, thinking it would reap more benefit. Under cover of that policy, Pyongyang—using other assets it garnered under the policy and the millions of dollars paid by the South in 2000—aggressively pursued its nuclear arms program, and other aggressions which culminated in the sinking of a destroyer and artillery attack on a South Korean island. The Sunshine Program was abandoned in 2008 under the new presidency of Lee Myung-bak.
Similarly, while acts/plots of domestic terrorism by Islamists in the U.S. were low between 2001 and 2008, the number had doubled by 2009, a time during which this administration removed all reference to "Islam," "Islamic extremism" and "jihad" so as not to risk offending moderate Muslims.
Carol Taber, president of FamilySecurityMatters.org , where Lt. Col. Zumwalt's article "Obfuscating the National Security Threat" appears said, "The threat posed by Islamism to America remains obfuscated by a political leadership unwilling to call it what it is. Thank God some of our other leaders, such as Lt. Col. Zumwalt, do not lack that courage."
Lt. Col. Zumwalt, author of "Bare Feet, Iron Will - Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam's Battlefields," strongly believes that earlier generations of free societies were able to recognize, understand and defeat earlier threats to their existence posed by Nazism and Communism because those threats were made clear to them. But, the threat posed by Islamism to America remains obfuscated by a President unwilling to call it what it is. He states the irony of the president's position when he says, "Obfuscating a threat seeking the destruction of our way of life shows unbelievable naivete by our President, underscored by a determined unwillingness to call Islamists 'the enemy' at the same time he freely attaches such a label to his political opponents."
In comparison, Lt. Col. Zumwalt points to the utter failure of South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung's "Sunshine Policy" which sought a soft policy of political and economic interaction with Pyongyang, thinking it would reap more benefit. Under cover of that policy, Pyongyang—using other assets it garnered under the policy and the millions of dollars paid by the South in 2000—aggressively pursued its nuclear arms program, and other aggressions which culminated in the sinking of a destroyer and artillery attack on a South Korean island. The Sunshine Program was abandoned in 2008 under the new presidency of Lee Myung-bak.
Similarly, while acts/plots of domestic terrorism by Islamists in the U.S. were low between 2001 and 2008, the number had doubled by 2009, a time during which this administration removed all reference to "Islam," "Islamic extremism" and "jihad" so as not to risk offending moderate Muslims.
Carol Taber, president of FamilySecurityMatters.org , where Lt. Col. Zumwalt's article "Obfuscating the National Security Threat" appears said, "The threat posed by Islamism to America remains obfuscated by a political leadership unwilling to call it what it is. Thank God some of our other leaders, such as Lt. Col. Zumwalt, do not lack that courage."
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Why People Embrace God Before Elections
/PRNewswire/ -- As Americans consider which candidate to vote for in the upcoming elections, they are reminded of the government's vulnerability and wonder how their decisions will affect a fragile financial landscape.
This sense of instability can have wide implications, not just for government but also for faith in religion and God, according to new research from Northwestern University and Duke University.
The study examines how people cope with events that shake their fundamental need to believe in an orderly, structured world and suggests that when a government weakens, people's faith in a higher power becomes stronger. Surprisingly, the research also finds that when faith in the stability of God or the government is shaken, people turn to the other entity to restore a sense of control.
Professors Aaron Kay, Adam Galinsky and their colleagues examined whether changing political climates can drive religious belief, especially faith in a controlling or interventionist deity. They found that beliefs toward God and the government can help satiate the same psychological need for structure and order and are interchangeable with one another.
"This research holds important implications for our understanding of the formation and strengthening of religious belief," said Galinsky, the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School.
Lead author Kay, an associate professor at Duke University, added, "Although there are undoubtedly multiple causes of religious belief, one cause may be that when people perceive their government as unstable, they turn to God or other religious deities to fulfill a need for order and control in their lives."
To test their theory, the authors conducted a diverse set of experimental designs, laboratory, field settings, and independent and dependent measures. The experiments were designed to demonstrate that external systems of control can also compensate for one another. The researchers gathered results from college campuses in Malaysia and Canada which found that perceptions of decreased government stability, such as immediately before an election, led to increased beliefs in a controlling God. Conversely, increased perceptions of political stability led to weaker beliefs in an interventionist God.
In a longitudinal field study conducted in Malaysia, the researchers tested people's sense of governmental stability and faith in a controlling God both before and after an election. Before the election, government instability was perceived to be high and people were more likely to believe in a controlling God, compared with immediately after an election, when a sense of government stability had been restored. In another study, when participants were led to believe that scientists have concluded that God is unlikely to intervene in the world's affairs (e.g., is not an effective source of control), they showed higher levels of government support compared with participants who were led to believe that God may play an interventionist role.
According to Kay, one implication of this research is that higher levels of religious belief, commitment, and possibly extremism might be more likely in those countries that have the least stable governments and other secular institutions.
Galinsky noted the timely relevance of their research: "Particularly in today's landscape and with upcoming elections, we find uncertainty swirling around government. It is in these cases when people are likely to turn to other sources of control like putting faith in an intervening God."
The new study, entitled "For God (or) Country: The Hydraulic Relation Between Government Instability and Belief in Religious Sources of Control," will be published in the November issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (published by the American Psychological Association). Kay and Galinsky co-authored the study with Stephen Shephard of the University of Waterloo, Craig Blatz of Grant MacEwan University and Sook Ning Chua of McGill University.
This sense of instability can have wide implications, not just for government but also for faith in religion and God, according to new research from Northwestern University and Duke University.
The study examines how people cope with events that shake their fundamental need to believe in an orderly, structured world and suggests that when a government weakens, people's faith in a higher power becomes stronger. Surprisingly, the research also finds that when faith in the stability of God or the government is shaken, people turn to the other entity to restore a sense of control.
Professors Aaron Kay, Adam Galinsky and their colleagues examined whether changing political climates can drive religious belief, especially faith in a controlling or interventionist deity. They found that beliefs toward God and the government can help satiate the same psychological need for structure and order and are interchangeable with one another.
"This research holds important implications for our understanding of the formation and strengthening of religious belief," said Galinsky, the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School.
Lead author Kay, an associate professor at Duke University, added, "Although there are undoubtedly multiple causes of religious belief, one cause may be that when people perceive their government as unstable, they turn to God or other religious deities to fulfill a need for order and control in their lives."
To test their theory, the authors conducted a diverse set of experimental designs, laboratory, field settings, and independent and dependent measures. The experiments were designed to demonstrate that external systems of control can also compensate for one another. The researchers gathered results from college campuses in Malaysia and Canada which found that perceptions of decreased government stability, such as immediately before an election, led to increased beliefs in a controlling God. Conversely, increased perceptions of political stability led to weaker beliefs in an interventionist God.
In a longitudinal field study conducted in Malaysia, the researchers tested people's sense of governmental stability and faith in a controlling God both before and after an election. Before the election, government instability was perceived to be high and people were more likely to believe in a controlling God, compared with immediately after an election, when a sense of government stability had been restored. In another study, when participants were led to believe that scientists have concluded that God is unlikely to intervene in the world's affairs (e.g., is not an effective source of control), they showed higher levels of government support compared with participants who were led to believe that God may play an interventionist role.
According to Kay, one implication of this research is that higher levels of religious belief, commitment, and possibly extremism might be more likely in those countries that have the least stable governments and other secular institutions.
Galinsky noted the timely relevance of their research: "Particularly in today's landscape and with upcoming elections, we find uncertainty swirling around government. It is in these cases when people are likely to turn to other sources of control like putting faith in an intervening God."
The new study, entitled "For God (or) Country: The Hydraulic Relation Between Government Instability and Belief in Religious Sources of Control," will be published in the November issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (published by the American Psychological Association). Kay and Galinsky co-authored the study with Stephen Shephard of the University of Waterloo, Craig Blatz of Grant MacEwan University and Sook Ning Chua of McGill University.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)