Stop-Talking Points - Gauging Legitimate Protest

[This is a fairly long and complex post. Basically it looks at how to determine legitimacy when people use protest that disrupts speech, action, or just to make a point. I've used headers to help people keep track and for those who just want to skim the main ideas. I also have a section below called The Apparent General Rule which offers a simplistic way to start to determine legitimacy in the situations I discuss. Finally there's a discussion of the larger context.]

As I understand it, Republicans invented a technique they called talking points. The inner circle would decide what phrases they wanted their network to use that day to help spin the issues their way, and then all over the media those phrases would be used repeatedly, droning them into the heads of listeners and readers. It worked so well that Democrats following their lead.

This story seems to signal that we've come into a new era - Stop-Talking Points - where the Republicans are sending out messages on how to literally prevent political opponents from expressing their views.

From the New York Times:

“Become a part of the mob!” said a banner posted Friday on the Web site of the talk show host Sean Hannity. “Attend an Obama Care Townhall near you!” The exhortations do not advocate violence, but some urge opponents to be disruptive.
“Pack the hall,” said a strategy memo circulated by the Web site Tea Party Patriots that instructed, “Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
“Get him off his prepared script and agenda,” the memo continued. “Stand up and shout and sit right back down.”

Of course harassment of unwanted speakers and attempts at censorship aren't new. We've seen this in Alaska recently as bloggers have been vilified and threatened with lawsuits and death threats. This has happened to Shannyn Moore, Celtic Diva, and AKMuckraker.

And more recently, when Gryphen at Immoral Minority posted about a rumor that the Palins were splitting, the kindergarten where he teaches part time was flooded with mail saying he should be fired.

I contacted my school the other day (the first day they were back in the office) to let them know, and became aware that they had been inundated with hate mail and threatening phone calls. Some making defamatory allegations and others threatening to kill me on school grounds.

Ex-Governor Palin and her supporters regularly attacked Andre McLeod and others who filed ethics complaints. And now we learn the Attorney General would like to amend the Ethics Law (such as it is) in a way that would deter people from filing ethics complaints. From the Juneau Empire:

[Attorney General Dan Sullivan] also said the state should consider giving the Personnel Board, which hears ethics complaints, authority to order reimbursement of fees and costs from people who file complaints they know to be false.
"I would not call that a penalty, I would call that shifting the balance," Sullivan said.

(In a strong governor state like Alaska, it seems odd that we need to boost the governor's power for balance against attacks from individual citizens filing complaints.)


So What Does This Mean?

A quick thought is that the health care forums story suggests the Republicans' ability to frame issues through talking points has lost some of its potency and so now they have shifted to simply preventing the other side from talking.

But are there times when it is legitimate to protest in ways that prevent an event from happening and/or prevent people from talking? How can liberals, for example, decry people disrupting the health care town meetings but cheer the Iraqi who threw a shoe at then-President Bush in Baghdad? Why is it not ok for people to try to get Gryphen fired, but it is ok to boycott products from South Africa? You can't say "it's ok if we do this because we're right, but it's not ok for them to do it because they are wrong." Unless you can show there are fundamental differences in what they are doing.

So what are some of the reasons people might try to stop speech? (These are not mutually exclusive.)

A. They feel threatened: Whatever they are opposing - a new law, a new product, new ideas - threatens something they feel is vital to them. In the health debate, deep down, the key players in the insurance and drug companies must see their profits at risk. This doesn't mean they don't have some legitimate arguments, but it does suggest the public's interest is a much lower priority than their own on this issue and that they will fight this as strongly as they can and they may stray from legitimate means.

Based on what I see on white supremacist websites, there are a number of people in the US who are threatened by having a Black president. Here's an example of what you'll find:

Within our lifetimes, the United States of America as we know it will cease to exist as one united country. Rather, it will Balkanize into several racially-based smaller states after an awkward period of racial civil war. It will be unpleasant. It will be bloody. It will be messy. Millions of people, both innocent and guilty, White and nonWhite, will die. But, it is inevitable. Multiracial democracy founded on the myth of racial equality cannot succeed. What cannot fly, should fall, and what is falling, we should still push, and say, fall faster!

What kind of world will our kids inherit from us? If you are concerned about the future your White children and grandchildren will have in an America where they will be a minority in the country their ancestors created, lend us a hand. Look inside to find out how...

Others are threatened by the economic crisis, others have their identity threatened, some feel their way of life is threatened. Such people are ripe for any group - liberal, conservative, religious, or whatever orientation - to recruit, to help, and/or to exploit. If they are given the respect they feel they aren't getting, but deserve, they can be used as foot soldiers for any fight that seems consistent with their goals. Fighting health care reform can be equated to fighting Obama, who for some, is a key symbol of what is wrong with the US.

B. They feel excluded from participating in the debate and decision making, so the only way they see to get a voice or to stop actions they were prevented from deciding on, is to protest and perhaps physically disrupt something .

If people aren't allowed to participate meaningfully in decision-making that affects them, their choice is to accept the status quo or take whatever action is available to them. In the 1700's colonists in North America threw tea into Boston Harbor and took other actions that led to a revolutionary war. Indeed, some of today's conservative call themselves the Teabaggers. Martin Luther King led peaceful, but disruptive demonstrations to end segregation in the Southern United States.


C. They do not have any persuasive arguments so they try to end the debate.

Repressive governments around the world stifle dissent through social pressure and use of police state tactics. The Chinese make every effort to prevent public displays of dissent, though this doesn't completely stop all demonstrations or online criticism. There is a current story about apparently Russian attempts to block a Georgian blogger which also affected Facebook and Twitter.

The Iranian government has so far been reasonably successful in breaking up the protests about the recent election. Some White Southerners used a variety of methods - including lynching - to suppress any form of dissent from Black citizens.

In all these cases there is some fear that 'the other side's arguments' may challenge the legitimacy of the suppressors power.


D. They think they will lose and the issue is so important, they go beyond normally accepted methods. (This is closely related to people feeling threatened.)

The California Science Center's fear exhibit tells us that prey animals have developed a variety of defensive behaviors.

Most prey animals will avoid fights with predators, if at all possible. Therefore, many species have evolved tricks to try to keep predators from attacking.

Some animals puff themselves up to look bigger and scarier. Some flash their fangs and extend their claws to show that they mean business.

Other animals use camouflage to blend in with their surroundings. Some animals, such as chameleons, can even change color to better hide themselves.

Still other animals create a diversion to mask their escape. Octopi, for example, secrete a black dye, which creates a disorienting smokescreen effect that can help the animal make a timely getaway.

The exhibit says in a different part that

If a prey animal has nowhere to go or seems to have no hope of making an escape, it will usually fight its predator. Using any built-in fighting implements it has – claws, antlers, hooves, horns or tusks – the animal will struggle to get away.

They also see the basic defensive behaviors in humans. So while many people will try to freeze and blend into the background, and others will flee, some will fight. When they see no other options, and they aren't willing to give up quietly, someone is likely to get hurt. We see this, for example, in people who 'go postal'.

Those with more planning and organizational skills may set up organizations and fight in more effective ways - such as the underground in WW II Europe.

The people who have been showing up at the health forums seem to be 'puff[ing] themselves up to look bigger and scarier. [Or] flash[ing] their fangs and extend[ing] their claws to show that they mean business."

But the White Supremacist websites suggest others are planning for future civil war to regain what they believe to be their freedom to live their values.

E. They feel that what is being said is extremely offensive or dangerous.

This includes a variety of people including those opposed to hate speech; those who block profanity on broadcast television and favor movie ratings; and those who ban books and CDs. It also includes people who classify government information.




I'm sure you can think of other reasons. The point is that there are both legitimate and illegitimate reasons for protesting and for stopping people from speaking or acting.


So How Do We Determine What's Legitimate and What Isn't?

Like a jury weighing a case, we have to look at the reasons for this sort of behavior, separate the legitimate from the illegitimate ones, and then look at the actual behavior and try to determine whether it's legit or not.

And like jurors, we will find some cases easy, some hard, and some in-between. In most cases there will be some legitimate aspects but also illegitimate aspects. We can't know people's intent for sure. The job of the jury is to read between the lines and figure out which witnesses are telling the truth and which aren't, and which side does the best job of making its case. And sometimes juries are right and sometimes they are wrong.

Before going into some of the complexities I would say that it seems there is one distinction that generally would be an important starting point to separate legitimate from illegitimate attempts to protest or disrupt the speech of others:


The Apparent General Rule:

If the protesters are trying to gain access to the discussion from which they are blocked and/or have been previously blocked so they can participate in decisions affecting them, it is more likely to be legitimate.

If the protesters are trying to block others' speech although their own speech has not been blocked and/or they have not been blocked themselves from participating, it is more likely to be illegitimate.

But as I've said, these things are generally not black and white. There are often conflicting strands of legitimacy and illegitimacy intertwined. Some other factors that seem to need weighing include (working from the categories identified above):

A. Feeling Threatened. Fear can be legit or illegitimate. Some of the possible situations include:

• the fear is ill founded - the person's brain doesn't function properly as with psychotics.
  
• the fear is ill-founded because they have the facts wrong.
  
• the fear is well founded, but the proposed solution is not.
  
• the fear is well founded and the proposed solution has a chance of success.
  

B. Exclusion from participating in the debate and decision making
Here are some possible situations in this situation:

• They really have been excluded and others, with more power, have made decisions that will seriously and negative affect their lives.
  
• They could have participated in the decision making, but didn't. Their proposed option - if they have one - could have positive or negative outcomes.
  
• They participated, lost the legal battle, and now are taking to the streets in an attempt to force adoption of their preferred solution.
  
• If they have been excluded, it could be because
  
  • they have no power and others do
  • the decision isn't relevant to them
  • they don't have legitimate jurisdiction in this area
  • the others fear them and have used trickery

C. They do not have any persuasive arguments. Some possible situations:

• Their facts and arguments are bogus
  
• They argued but their facts and logic were unconvincing to most
• They didn't have access to needed information to prove their case
• Their world view is different from those in power, who thus did not buy into their basic assumptions
  

D. They think they might lose so they must go all out.

C seems to be the situation in the third bullet of B above (they already lost in the legitimate forum.) D is similar, but they haven't yet lost the battle. This appears to be the case of the people fighting health care. Note, that doesn't make them right or wrong in their fight, that's a different issue.

E. They feel that what is being said is extremely offensive or dangerous.
Possible situations:

• It may be offensive to them, but not to others. (Then we get into questions like, what percent of the population is offended and how serious and rational is their offense compared to other values like free speech.)
  
• It may be dangerous to their legitimate rights
  
• It may be dangerous to their situation, but the advantage they fear losing was not gained or maintained legitimately
• It may be dangerous to their situation, but the loss they would experience may be minor compared to the gain others receive or their own potential future loss (say if global warming predictions are accurate, clinging to a carbon spewing present would hurt the status quo folks as well as others.)
  
• It may be dangerous to their situation, but slight modifications could reduce the problem
• It may not be dangerous to their situation

Again, there is no shortage of complexity. All five points could apply in a situation or just one or two. Any number of the situations (plus probably many more) could exist.

There do seem to be some easy calls. If we know that people's positions are based on false facts (such as the Obama health plan includes 'death squads') or they are using illegitimate means to overturn legitimately made law.




I'm having trouble bringing this post to a close. Partly this is my own inability, but partly there is just so much complexity in this. In many cases it isn't neat and clean.

Plus, I never am satisfied looking only at the immediate short term situation because I know that lasting improvements come only from major systemic changes. So for people who haven't fallen asleep already, here's looking at the bigger picture.

The Larger Context

But what do we do with genuinely fearful human beings - whether their fear is legitimate or not, whether solving their fear requires taking away the basic rights of other others or not? Some of these people may well be seriously mentally ill. (I think we all have touches of mild mental illness now and then.) Some may have grown up in an environment which taught them (through instruction or experience) to hate or fear or believe that all their problems are caused by others. Some may have brain wiring that predisposes them to behavior that is extreme compared to most people. Some of them may be all those things AND be right.

To prevent as much dysfunctional adult behavior, I think we need to start with how we raise kids. We have plenty of research on ways to raise children to improve the odds that they will become happy, healthy, and ready to learn, and eventually take their position in society as responsible adults.

For people whose brains function abnormally (in a destructive way) we need to find ways to either cure their mental illnesses, help them live with their illnesses productively and with a reasonably decent quality of life, or provide them a safe and stimulating living environment where they cannot hurt others. And even more, we need to prevent those mental disabilities that are preventable through the best possible programs of prenatal care and by giving all parents as much information as possible about research results on good parenting. (And we know a lot that could be implemented for much lower costs than paying for the consequences of producing incompetent adults.)

For those who are fully capable of rational thought and free of other psychological conditions that lead to anti-social behavior, we need to make it easier for their parents to raise them well - through education and through social and economic infrastructure that increases the likelihood that people can attain their fullest potential.

Even if we were all mentally stable and healthy, there would be people in the United States who have legitimate fears that their situation in life is going downhill. Whites may no longer be in the privileged position of knowing that the establishment is made up of people that look like them, and that the rules and practice of society tend to favor them. The proportion of women to men in colleges puts women ahead in many fields and overall, which means men are losing more and more legitimate power relative to women. This raises the possibility of their increasingly using illegitimate power in their relationships with women. Further, technology and trade policies have altered for the worse many people's ways of life. These people are legitimately threatened and need to be shown not only compassion, but also reasonable options to adapt to the new realities. If not, more will become like fearful animals and for some attack will be their preferred response.

So, the protesting of changing health care and the attacks on bloggers to me is a minor symptom of bigger issues that need to be addressed. We need politicians who are able to address the short term problems, but also have their eyes on the longer term adaptations our society needs to make to cope with the world's inevitable changes.

Alaska Overnighters

The writers were given actors in costume and a word with which to write a play. Then they actors had to rehearse it. All this in 24 hours.










There was something good in all of them, but this one managed to put a lot more together well.

This one took place on a train between Brussels and maybe Dusseldorf.


The graduate, about to get his diploma is knocked out by a stray baseball and sees his future.

Evil summer camp.

[Double click any picture to enlarge it.]

Glen Alps Sunset/Moonrise

Anchorage lights starting to go on, Denali's peak
coming out of the clouds 150 miles away.

Looking in the opposite direction, the moon
was rising from behind the mountains.

Visiting and Blooming in Our Yard Recently

A magpie family is spending the summer
in a nearby yard. The birds are beautiful,
but their call is the equivalent of bird barking.

The steller jay that sometime joins
them speaks the same language.

A new resident hosta.

Dianthus gnappi

This is a very common flower, but up
close it looks unusual. Any guesses?

Pansies have such outrageous colors and patterns.

Amanita.

Short Hike in Eagle River

I had to get back for a 2pm dental appointment to get my teeth cleaned, so DZ got up about 9:20am - his earliest morning so far - so we could get out to Eagle River for a short hike first. It had rained much of the night and the clouds were still heavy and dripping a bit.




Here's a view from the viewing platform on the Rodak Trail, right near the visitors' center.





Is there a pink birch species?

The trouble with google is that as soon as I type a question like that, I have no excuse for not looking it up.

"Pink Birch • Schizomeria serrata

Pink Birch is the common name for a number of species which form a medium to large tree throughout the region from New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago to North Queensland and the Solomon Islands. It occurs in lowland and montane forest. In the Solomon islands, it is represented by only one species, generally scattered but locally common. Small sawn parcels could be made available by special order. [From SolomonTimbers - a pdf.]

I think our trees are probably a totally different species since they live in the cold and these are from warm regions.



Red Bubble writes about pink birch bark, but those are pink from the winter morning sun.

There's a soda called pink birch beer in Scottsdale, Arizona.



We walked on to Rapids Camp where we looked at the yurt, but since there was obviously someone inside, we went down to see the rapids.

And we got back in time to get the things on the Costco list (lots of milk for Dick and he got some pizza) and for me to drop him and the food off at home while I biked back to the dentist. And running up the five flights of stairs, I got to the waiting room out of breath, but a minute early. But Diane gave me a bad time for sitting in a corner where I wasn't easy for her to see. She continued to pick on me while she cleaned my teeth. Which is consistent with the sign on her wall.

[If you enlarge the list, you can see that the author and artist was Janet Casoy.]

Happy Birthday J

Thirty Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill

JL suggested I read the Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill. It was checked out from Loussac library so J brought Thirty-Three Teeth. (When I told JL, he said I had to read them in order, but I was already half way through Teeth.) These books have an M in their library call letters - they are murder mysteries, but they take place in Laos and the main characters are all Laotian.

One of the best ways to get a sense of another culture is to read good fiction by someone in that culture. With google it's easy to find fiction about the place you are going. Even at the library you can search the name of the city or country and 'fiction' and come up with some good options available in the library. While they don't give you the well organized tips a travel book gives, they give you a sense of the place that travel guides can't convey.

These books don't quite fit this category because they are written by a foreigner living in the culture. So in that sense it's a little filtered, but that can give the advantage of having a guide explain what's happening.

I think the key aspect that will be strange to Western readers is the role of spirits in this book. For people who read science fiction or vampire stories, a little suspension of the normal rules of physics shouldn't be a problem. And people who believe in things like creationism, immaculate birth, and resurrection, should also feel comfortable with the idea of people believing in things that can't be explained by science.

When I tried to find some quotes to give you a sense of the book, I realized that the writing was a little heavy. The real draw of this book is the easy-to-digest peek into life in Laos and a sense of a place that most people know nothing about.

At the beginning you meet two of the main characters - Siri, the coroner, and one of his assistants, Dtui.

Siri walked into the office to find Dtui at her desk poring over the pictures in one of Siri's old French pathology textbooks. As she studied the black-and-white photo of a man who'd been sliced in half by a locomotive, she chewed on a rice snack wrapped in pig intestine. (pp. 36-37)

This sounds - and was probably intended to sound - a little gross, but really a lot of these foods look and taste delicious and you wouldn't know what they were made of if you didn't ask.

Siri is a widow who spent most of his life as a doctor with the communist rebels in the jungles of Laos and only recently (this book starts out in March 1977) has moved into the city when the communists finally overthrew the King of Laos after the US left Vietnam.

Boua, his wife, had been the middle child of nine and the only rebel. While her family was in the royal capital working under the king's patronage, Boua was in France training to overthrow the royal family and rescue her country for communism.

She had returned to Laos after eight years with ideals and a rather baffled doctor husband called Siri. (p. 65)

As we read, the existence of spirits becomes increasingly important. Siri has recently been buried alive when a stupa in a temple in the old royal capital of Luang Prabang fell on him. Later he meets a shaman named Tik.

Tik sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at this guest. He was a man who didn't waste time creeping up on the point. "I feel you should be dead."

Siri joined him on the ground. "How could you know?"

"How could I not? How could I miss the incredible force you drag behind you? A powerful shaman and a wild pack of angry spirits could hardly arrive in Luang Prabang without my knowing. Tell me. Begin with this morning."

Siri related the events leading up to his death: the sound, the stupa closing around him, and the feeling of being dragged below the earth. He told him how he knew beyond a whisper of a doubt that he was dead. Tik gave him an admiring chuckle.

"Ahh. They're devious, the Phibob. Those from the south especially so. Yeh Ming has obviously made some powerful enemies over the past thousand years." (p. 126)

This isn't a great book, but it lets you travel to Laos and it's pretty short - 238 small pages. Now I have to get the first volume of the series.

American Violet with Basketball on a Warm Night

We saw "American Violet" Monday night at Bear Tooth. I'd just like to call people's attention to the movie - it's about how the district attorney in the Texas town of Melody got federal money by raiding poor black neighborhoods and arresting masses of people and getting them to plea bargain for a lower sentence, even though in many cases they had no evidence at all. Without their own attorneys, they depended on the public defenders who basically told them they were better off making the deal. It turns out that for every conviction (and the plea bargains were counted) the county got anti-drug money from the feds. The DA had considerable power over the justice system. So in the movie the ACLU sends a couple of lawyers who team up with a local lawyer to defend one of the victims of a raid. It was a powerful film and I was surprised the ACLU didn't have a representative there to solicit memberships.




While J was talking to friends, DZ and I went across the street to Play it Again Sports and found him a used basketball for $6.










We walked home from the movie on a very delightful evening. It was almost 9 pm and the temperature was 78˚F (25.5C).

When we got home, DZ rode over to play with his new basketball at Wendler.


.

Sunday Bike Ride

Sunday after dropping off our houseguests at the train, DZ and I rode Campbell Creek trail out to the end near Dimond and Victor, then found our way to Kincaid and rode the Coastal Trail to Westchester Lagoon and back home via Chester Creek. I'm hoping to put together a guide to how to get from one trail to the other where there are still gaps. Here we checked where this long bridge at Taku Lake went (to Foxridge/76th and C.)





Here's a peaceful little spot right off of Minnesota and Dimond. You can see Minnesota in the background. One of the things I love about Anchorage's bike trails is that right in the middle of the city and busy intersections, you are in a quiet oasis lined with trees as though you were way out in the wilderness.


After the Campbell Creek trail ends around Dimond and Victor, we wandered through neighborhoods until we got to Jewel Lake Road and Strawberry. It's been interesting to see when DZ pulls out his camera - generally to get pictures of cars like this one. It turns out I got part of it accidentally while documenting the street. His picture when the car turned left didn't come out.





Finally we are getting back to dedicated bike trail. (When you double click to enlarge these, the pictures are much sharper.)


What should you do when you see people this close to moose and starting to get even closer? Last summer I tried to tell my visiting British friend that he was too close (and he was twice as far away as these people) when the moose charged at him and the others next to him. They ran and the moose stopped. When these folks began to walk toward the moose from where they are in the picture, I shouted to stay back, this was a wild animal with a baby. They did back up but when they finally walked on they muttered something to me. One might say it was their choice and the natural consequences would be more effective than anything I might say. But I remember the man who got killed by a moose at UAA after people had harassed it all day. These people might not have been hurt, but there would have been an irritated moose on the trail with lots of Sunday bike and pedestrian traffic going by. Someone else might have been the victim of their foolishness. On the other hand, we don't hear many stories about people getting hurt by moose so maybe I was out of place to interfere. I have to admit this moose looked extremely mellow.





Not far later we saw this mother with two calves. (#2 is still in the bushes here.)





DZ hadn't eaten much and was extremely happy to be able to get a hotdog from this vendor at the parking lot with the view of downtown near Earthquake Park.

I'd heard about some new outlet for fish at Westchester Lagoon, but hadn't seen it.

This is from a Federal Site where the links don't work right on my Macbook using Firefox, but I tried what I did at the ABC site to find this:

Chester Creek is one of several small salmon-producing streams in the Anchorage area. Chester Creek and its outfall (Westchester Lagoon) are heavily urbanized. Westchester Lagoon is maintained with an obsolete water control structure that is a barrier to fish passage. A new water control structure is under design and scheduled for construction. Anchorage Fish and Wildlife Field Office staff coordinated assessment of coho salmon passage into Westchester Lagoon (Chester Creek, Anchorage) with Alaska Pacific University. College students installed and operated video equipment to count coho salmon escapement through the old outlet structure for Westchester Lagoon. A new outlet structure to provide better fish passage is under construction and passage through the old structure will serve as baseline for evaluation of the new structure.

DZ's bottom was getting sore, so we skipped the loop around Goose Lake and came home through the neighborhoods near Lake Otis.

Dan Fagan Becomes a Man

I stopped writing about Dan Fagan's column a long time ago. But I have to break that silence now. In yesterday's column in the ADN Dan Fagan tells us:

Too much of what was coming out of my radio show, Web site, and Sunday column was unwholesome. For some reason I had convinced myself it was my job to run down and criticize others. It is one thing to analyze policy and issues. It is an entirely different thing to tear down someone's character with personal attacks.

I will tell you I am ashamed of the way I have conducted myself publicly in recent years and frankly I am embarrassed by it too.

I have tried on this blog to focus on policy and not personality, not always as successfully as I would like. When Dan's newspaper column began, I tore his words (not him) apart pretty ruthlessly. (But I learned as a teacher that separating one's words from one's identity is not easy. Even if you stay strictly on the content and the grammar, it can be painful for the recipient.) When some humanity showed through in his columns I saw that as a good sign that there was another Dan Fagan inside there fighting to come out.

In August 2007 Dan wrote about what a good man his father was. Dan wrote and I quoted him:

He modeled a life of character, integrity and honesty. But most importantly he showed me how to treat a woman.

When a man is a real man, he does more to help build a better society than a hundred thousand government programs.

Manhood is not about I. It's about service, sacrifice, devotion, selflessness.

Manhood is about respecting, honoring, and yes, even loving.

I went on in that post to speculate that perhaps Dan's ranting was projection, that he was angry at himself for not living up to model his father set.

Dan just doesn't live up to that great role model he's just praised as "the kind of man we need to make this country work right." Is Dan really ranting against the world because he can't face the fact that he doesn't live up to the expectations set by his Dad? According to Wikipedia

psychological projection (or projection bias) is a defense mechanism in which one attributes to others one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted subconscious impulses/desires without letting the ego recognize them.

Could this be Dan really talking about himself:

But where are the men today? Why are so many obsessed with their own needs instead of their families?

On July 27, 2007 I saw some improvements and asked if they meant Dan was going to start spreading happiness instead of bellyaching:

But let's give Dan some credit here. He even recognizes some subtleties - that some people are unhappy because of chemical imbalances or real tragedies. Dan's taken some big steps in his articles. And in today's he tells us that spreading happiness is much more important than 'bellyaching.

'Dan, are you going to follow your advice and spread happiness on the air, or are you going to keep bellyaching?

Perhaps Dan gained some self confidence with all the attention he got from his radio shows and his newspaper column. Enough to recognize that he wasn't using his power to make people happy, but to spread negativity. But now that he's gotten some of what he wanted, it's empty. He writes he's lost the joy in his work.

But he also wisely wonders how this will affect him. I'm guessing he's asking the same question I've been asking. Do people really have to dump on others to get ratings?

Does this change mean I will lose many of my radio listeners? Perhaps. But recently I've lost the joy in my work. It has become a grind. I now know why. If my profession calls for tearing down others to be successful, then I'll just have to find another career.

I suspect that the listeners who tuned you in regularly did so because you reflected their feelings. This is not an easy world to succeed in. Our national myths push the idea that if we just plug along and work hard, we will be successful. So there are a lot of people out there who either have to face the truth about themselves (they aren't strong, they aren't working hard) or they have to find scapegoats to blame. When people talk about systemic obstacles to success, many just dismiss them as 'socialists' because that doesn't seem to fit our ideals about rugged individualists. But it isn't just socialists who talk about helping others. Christians do that too.

Dan, it seems you've broken through some of the morass. You recognize that what you've been doing - gaining a local following (and a fair amount of flak as well) by tearing down others - isn't what your Dad taught you to do. It isn't what your religion tells you to do. Now perhaps you can help your followers get past that teenage rebellion stage and take responsibility for their actions and grow up, like you seem to be doing. You even apologized to the people you wronged.

In conclusion, I want to publicly apologize to Sarah Palin, Sean Parnell, Hollis French, Art Hackney, Mark Begich, Frank Murkowski, Matt Claman, Lisa Murkowski, Don Young, Ivan Moore and too many others that limited space won't allow me to name.

Dan, I've learned in life that inside every person I meet, no matter how much I may dislike what they say and do, there is a real human being. If I can connect with that real human being, I know that I will like that person. You've shown glimpses and now your human has come out on center stage.

I'm truly happy for you and for the extra energy and power for good our community gains. I am confident that now your successes will come from leading a life that is consistent with what your Dad has taught you. I'm sure there were/will be tears in his eyes when he reads this column. (You wrote about your Dad dying of cancer back in March. I don't know if he's moved on to another place or not. Wherever he is, I know that he knows about this column.)

I would also note, that this forgiveness thing isn't limited to Dan Fagan. Nils Andreassen writing at Think Alaska made a similar kind of apology to Sarah Palin yesterday too.

[Update Monday afternoon: I got that is out a little faster than I probably should have. There's a section above where I've left between-the-lines some of the steps in my logic. I talked about 'systemic changes' and then jumped to 'helping others.' I'd say the rugged individual model makes it hard for some to acknowledge how social, economic, legal, and political structures can set up obstacles for some people to succeed. Fishers know how changes in the law have favored some and put others pretty much out of work. We all know how our choice of employer (or losing our employer) can mean we are cut out of much of the health care system. So, those who acknowledge that not being materially successful is not always caused by lack of grit or by laziness, are more willing to help those on hard times, either personally or through supporting policy changes that result in needed assistance.

Also, while Dan has apologized and stated his new goals very publicly, this is a significant change in behavior. So I will try to support him when he walks his talk and I'll be tolerant if he slips into old habits, so long as he acknowledges them as slip-ups and renews his commitment to the new Dan.]