Peak Oil News and Message Boards

A while ago I personally redefined PC to POPULAR CLIQUE. That seemed to be a more fitting description of what we meant when we said ”PC.” It reminds me so much of Jr High when we are sooo hyped attuned to one another’s position in the peecking order.

Then today Toe Cutter referred to the Overton Window, a phrase I was not familiar with. So I looked it up on Wiki. It seems my redefinition of PC to Popular Clique was along the same lines. What is PC is what is allowed within the culture without being unduly criticized or ostracized.

The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences.[2][3] According to Overton, the window frames the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Wiki carried this Chomsky quote which framed it nicely.

Noam Chomsky said in 1998:

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.[10]

And this is what I see a great deal of, debate within defined limits. When one goes outside those limits then the sophomorish ridicule and condemnation begins. The intent being to shame one back into the acceptable limits of the crowd while threatening ostracizisim for non compliance.

According to Lehman, who coined the term, "The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window. That is absolutely false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is, and then moving to be in accordance with it."[7]

OK, I get what Lehman is saying, our Leaders are constantly seeking where the herd is pointed and the run to stand at the front.

So how does the herd decide which way to point? I am thinking that the MSM, Fox included, is where these limits are defined, it’s how we are told what is and is not acceptable, how broad the limits of discourse. The suave male newsman, the quite attractive newswoman, are the embodiment of the “political clique”, they are the “cool kids”, “most popular”, class President. Of course none of that seems to predict much how well the succeed in finding personal happiness, but in 7th grade it’s powerful.

And maybe that defines the USA POLITICAL status right now; 7th grade theatrics.

Very interesting. The way the range of acceptable opinion is manipulated is 100% engineered to keep the increasingly disenfranchised members of society on opposite sides of the political divide. It makes it more clear why we do not see the disenfranchised from rural Red states joining forces with the disenfranchised urban minorities to push for reform for mutual benefit.

Public health care, living wages, fair taxation, improved education, tariffs to protect domestic industries, etc. etc.

We have this dumbed down tribal polarization that is all about identity politics, culture wars, racism, etc. etc. to keep all the disenfranchised distracted so that the above mentioned reforms stay out of the range of acceptable opinion or they become demonized which is the same thing. Public health care option becomes socialism or taking away your freedom of choice or death panels etc etc.

I still come back to this again and again, this tribalism is fabricated to keep the privileged in the position to game the system.

The hemorrhaging of the middle class, the wage disparity, loss of standard of living, these gross inequities maintain themselves by engineering the range of acceptable opinions.

Something has to break through this fabricated divide, a movement that will unite the disenfranchised and move toward real meaningful reform.

You know when it is close to the breaking point when the methods to keep the divide in place become more draconian, amping up the racism, sending federal troops into the cities to intimidate, becoming more of a police state, the agitation growing, protests on the rise. etc. etc.

WE are at the very beginning of social unrest. This fabricated tribalism and the range of acceptable opinions is going to break down as social unrest busts it wide open.

"When one goes outside those limits then the sophomorish ridicule and condemnation begins."

That's a broad generalization. In most cases we're talking about people pushing extreme ideology and it's ridiculed and condemned for a very good reason. Of course, you're not gonna like this if you subscribe to this ideology, but hey, there are pros and cons to society being guided by joe sixpack.

Newfie wrote:A while ago I personally redefined PC to POPULAR CLIQUE. That seemed to be a more fitting description of what we meant when we said ”PC.” It reminds me so much of Jr High when we are sooo hyped attuned to one another’s position in the peecking order.

You can't spell pecking? You're ON THE INTERNET. Pecking is what chickens, and birds in general do.

Defining things any way you want is "fine", but it doesn't mean much. Look at the credibility of conspiracy theorists overall (in the real world), for example.

Newfie wrote:So how does the herd decide which way to point? I am thinking that the MSM, Fox included, is where these limits are defined, it’s how we are told what is and is not acceptable, how broad the limits of discourse.

Sort of like this website,back in the real peak oil fear days? A pretty standard comply or be cast out routine.

I think the church invented it with excommunication long before folks like Chomsky came along.

Newfie wrote:And maybe that defines the USA POLITICAL status right now; 7th grade theatrics.

Sounds reasonable. I like the Overton Window reference.

Political Influencers

As the 2020 presidential race continues, some candidates are turning to social media influencers to spread their messages and garner support for their campaigns. It was reported that former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg recently partnered with popular Instagram accounts to create meme content for promoting his candidacy, called the Meme 2020 project.

The appeal of influencer marketing is the same for politicians as it is for commercial brands: It allows them to reach a younger audience that is increasingly resistant to traditional advertising tactics.

https://www.emarketer.com/content/polit ... the-brands


This one is fun, it lists the “influencers” by state.

https://ballotpedia.org/Top_influencers_by_state