[Peace-discuss] I want you/She's so heavy.

[Carl G. Estabrook]

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

The spectrum in the US currently has been labeled "the Left-Right paradigm" - there are two (and only two) essential positions in that spectrum. Those who fall outside it - e.g., Noam Chomsky and the late Alexander Cockburn - simply aren't part of the game.

Democrats and Republicans and working strenuously this week to ensure that Ron Paul's anti-war and anti-Wall St. views are not included in the spectrum. He has been thrust outside the limits of allowable debate, along with with Occupy Wall St. and the unclubbable element of the Tea Party.

It will be interesting to see if the minions of the 1% - the Republican and Democrat establishments and their candidates - can police the boundaries. --CGE


On Aug 26, 2012, at 5:00 PM, "E. Wayne Johnson" <ewj at pigsqq.org> wrote:

> Freedom of speech and the ability to make one's self heard are not the same.
> 
> Indeed some fora do not permit some discussions and one can be ejected, refused entry, or have one's microphone 
> turned off, or otherwise be squelched, sussed, or neutralized, if certain rules are not obeyed.
> 
> 
> On 8/27/2012 5:40 AM, langenheim, ralph l jr wrote:
>> What, pray tell, are the limits to allowable debate?  So much for freedom of speech and opinion. Ralph Langenheim