The Politics of Delusion: smoke and mirrors

          My thesis: creationism (including intelligent design) is used as a "smoke screen" to get the public all fired up and to divert that fired up attention away from really pressing issues like environment, energy, demographics, social justice, equity..

          The same applies to gay marriage and abortion (and women's issues in general).

          Take gay marriage. The anti-gay marriage argument is patently absurd once you take the time to stop and look at it in detail. Denying gay marriage "protects the family" - presumably because all of us have a hidden (usually VERY deeply! hidden) Inner Gay which, if given permission, will pop out of the closet and take over, making us all gay.. As absurd as this seems, upon analysis, they do appear to be implying this: if gay sex is not repressed, gayness will take over and hetero-families will die out and with them the human species.. :-0 (Question: is gayness really all that attractive? One wonders.. for example, from an evolutionary viewpoint. Heterosex - originally at least - was always very much about procreating the species. If our hetero-drives weren't strong enough we would have died out eons ago. If anything, we have succeeded in OVERpopulating the world. Hard to see gayness as much of a problem in that context. One could even argue that more gayness in an overpopolated world would be a good thing: it would exert a slight downward pressure on population growth..)

            Then there is the abortion issue, so hot in the USA today. Pro-lifers, anti-abortionists, forget or choose to forget something. Pro-choice above all means FREEDOM of choice, a women should never be forced to submit to an abortion (as in totalitarian China). But the positions are not reciprocal: pro-lifers won't allow choice to those who want abortions.

            The best comment I recently heard, from a prochoice demonstrator in Ottawa, Ontario: "I am absolutely against abortion and absolutely for freedom of choice"

            As in the case of gay marriage, so too for abortion. One wonders why so much smoke for so little fire? Unless, there is a hidden agenda, and the real action is somewhere else.

             Conclusion: I propose that "wedge" issues like abortion, creationism and gay marriage are being used (manipulated) to create lines of political tension in order to divert the public's attention away from urgent matters demanding immediate action: energy, environment, demographics and their "sister issues": social justice and equity (of opportunity, of subsistence and basic social services..)

             Here is another piece of "diversionary news": racialized fear (a form of scapegoating - once again, the goal seems to be to divert attention from important collective issues relating to the Common Good that are NOT being dealt with..)


http://www.salon.com/2013/07/15/after_zimmerman_verdict_we_all_are_threats_now/

Transparency and the role of press freedom in a democracy

        Democracy is based on the rule of the People. The theory holds that, in order to make informed and intelligent choices, the populace must have access to the information required to make those choices. Traditionally, this information could come through a variety of chanals: word of mouth, public meeting including debate, theater, and street demonstration; the pulpit, the press and related printed or graphic materials (posters, artwork..)..

         The Canadian Journalism Project provides a litany of broken promises and bad faith on the part of the Harper government with regard to journalistic access to information, the very information - don't forget! - that democracy requires in order that the People make wise decisions in public matters.

http://www.j-source.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=3391

http://www.law.ualberta.ca/centres/ccs/issues/freedomofthepressandprimeministerharpersmediapolicy.php

          Thus we are left with the intriguing paradox that a goverment elected on a platform of "transparency" and "diversity of opinion" is guilty of seeking to control and direct the timing, spin and accessibility of information in the public domain. "One hand knoweth not what the other does"..

           One can even argue - I do - that even when the letter of the law (Charter of Rights) is respected, the spirit of the law - and of Democracy itself - is being violated. Justice must not just appear to be done, justice must be done.