Gr8t show today....Its a terrific left-right mix it up live show.
Terrific.
Dave

Great job Jack.

I dunno. At that hour on a Sunday, it's hard to hit on all cylinders about politics. Glad you guys liked the show, though. That's the last one I'll be doing until after the election. The lefty chair is usually occupied quite capably by Marc Abrams.

I have always thought that the KXL "Kramer and Abrams" on the Sun a.m. was a chance for Kramer to be the Hannity, with the dope/foil being Colmes (sp).
ie the right controls the mike and the bully pulpit and the left is the punching bag.......

BUT this am Jack was so eloquent, combative, dismissive, controlled, and good for a radio 2 hours that I would not be surprised if the KXL PD, 15 year old James ( "I love Paul Allen") Derby, considers giving Jack the Abrams gig full time.

Thanks for those kind words. It's not a particularly pleasant two hours, and I'm not particularly good at it, but if it provokes thought and discussion among the population, good.

" ...not a particularly pleasant two hours, and I'm not particularly good at it ...."

Maybe the reasoning runs the other way around -- not trained at it, and thus an unpleasant endeavor.

Either way, only a small amount of study could make you especially good, strong, cogent, straight-talking at it. Borrow and cite from the work of the autocracy killers at the Rockridge Institute think tank of progressives. The staff was some high-power highbrow poli.sci. pro's, taking names and kicking ass.

The face on the place has been George Lakoff, who burst on the scene about 6 or 7 years ago with his 'framing' meme-work about people's political mindsets and how they're made. Six months ago Rockridge Institute closed up shop, yet the contents of ideas and tracts and a veritable library developed during its productive heyday has put, and is, the most to-date progress in 'progressive.' A few hours reading is going to be enough to blow Kremer out of the water and off the dial, if not devastate rightwing hate-talk wholesale, just using common sense.

Here's the index page of significant (research) articles in the RI archive.

A particular one to start with is here: Why Voters Aren't Motivated by a Laundry List of Positions on Issues, by Joe Brewer, George Lakoff, February 28, 2008 -- an introduction to cognitive policy - the values, frames, and arguments that make sense of the political process.

It lists the major rightist intrinsics which are fallacies, within a discussion about distinguishing cognitive policies from material policies, or, what the beliefs are versus how they are carried out or enacted. The material is weapons of meme destruction, which undoes the conceptual bases of rightist 'mind frames' (or 'beliefs') and avoids the trap of arguing individual issues and matters filibustered by shifty-talk of current events.

The essay is full of good stuff to discover. This short excerpt, alone, is enough to erase the essence and all meaning of every word Kremer says:

Conservative cognitive policy over many years has resulted in the following ideas being promulgated to the public:

1. Successful wealthy people merit their success. Those who are not successful and wealthy don’t deserve to be.

2. Success is a matter of individual talent and discipline. Social factors do not enter in and government is a hindrance, not a help to this success.

3. Accountability works from the top down; those lower on the hierarchy are accountable to those on top. ...

4. High standards will separate out those who merit success from those who don’t ...

5. Morality comes from conservative religion, and so conservative religious education will help instill morality and should be publicly supported.

6. Education is, or should be, a market phenomenon, in which competition benefits consumers. This involves three metaphors: The students are consumers of their education, and will benefit from consumer choice (hence vouchers and charter schools). The public is the consumer of educated students, and competition will produce better products (students). Knowledge is something that can be delivered whole from teacher to student, like FedEx delivers packages.

7. The main purpose of education is financial success in the market. Thus education should be tailored to the needs of business.

8. Government is wasteful and ineffective, and so cannot produce quality education. Thus, education should be privatized whenever possible.

All these ideas are part of a conservative worldview.

Here are some more, laughable the first instant you read them.

Over the years, the conservative think tanks working on cognitive policy have succeeded in getting into public discourse and the public mind a set of general cognitive policies that conflict with [recognitions in] the Endangered Species Act:

1. The idea that nature is a resource for human use ....
2. The metaphor that markets are both natural and moral, and that government regulation is an unnatural and immoral interference with the operation of markets.
3. A special case of (2) is the idea that the potential for development of real property is a form of “wealth,” that governmental regulations restricting development is a “taking” of that “wealth,” and ...
4. Jobs are at odds with environmental protection.
5. When habitats are in a single state, endangered species do not cross state lines, and hence do not fall under protection of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution.

Conservative think tanks have patiently spent a vast amount of money and energy getting these general ideas into the public mind and public discourse, so that they now seem natural to many people.

I spent a very pleasant 2 hours listening to Bojack give reasonable thoughts and responses on the issues Rob Kremer decided to discuss.

I particularly enjoyed the totalitarian segment of the show.