The birther movement: immune to facts?

[Octafish]

Once a lie gets broadcast on the tee vee as "news," it's accepted as "fact" by a certain percentage of people, no matter the truth.

The birther movement: immune to facts?

(CNN) -- Can the "birthers" ever be convinced that Barack Obama was born in America and is eligible to serve as president?

Probably not, according to one prominent psychology professor and other political observers.

SNIP...

(Emory University's Drew) Westen, a professor of psychology and psychiatry, cited what psychologists call the "sleeper effect."

"If you present negative information about someone and it initially goes unchallenged, you might alter some people's conscious beliefs by challenging it later," he asserted. "But they are left with a negative gut-level feeling that doesn't go away."

"Political feelings, once they are strongly held, tend to be resistant to facts. It's just the result of the way our brains work," he said.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/27/birthers.evidence/

That's why Karl Rove and the pukes are so fast with the lies: Once "in," it's near-impossible to drive out of a certain type of citizen.

[fascisthunter]

1. psyops...?

... me thinks so.

[Octafish]

4. Agree.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” -- Josef Göbbels

It's pretty clear: We the People don't vote for that part of the "State" that controls things in today's United States of America.

[H2O Man]

20. Right.

It is not intended so much to influence elections, as it is to create a hostile environment, and to increase the potential for violence.

[FSogol]

2. Freedumb!

:shrug:

[Octafish]

8. Low Information is dangerous to democracy.

Krugman reported many Americans differentiate between "Wall Street" and "large banks and financial institutions."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/low-information-voters/


PDF on what Bartels found regarding low info and presidential politics:

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~mwallack/3310-11/bartels.pdf

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I've long admired Westen's work.

I think his insights are a lot deeper than the Lakoff work.

[Octafish]

10. The Political Brain

http://www.thepoliticalbrain.com/videos.php

Thanks for the heads-up, Jackpine Radical! I look forward to learning more...

[Jackpine Radical]

19. Get the book--it's cheap on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Political-Brain-Emotion-Deciding-Nation/dp/B001L5T2I4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1304028888&sr=8-1

The Political Brain is a groundbreaking investigation into the role of emotion in determining the political life of the nation. For two decades Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has explored a theory of the mind that differs substantially from the more "dispassionate" notions held by most cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists—and Democratic campaign strategists. The idea of the mind as a cool calculator that makes decisions by weighing the evidence bears no relation to how the brain actually works. When political candidates assume voters dispassionately make decisions based on "the issues," they lose. That's why only one Democrat has been re-elected to the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt—and only one Republican has failed in that quest.

In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.

Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. He shows how it can be done through examples of what candidates have said—or could have said—in debates, speeches, and ads. Westen's discoveries could utterly transform electoral arithmetic, showing how a different view of the mind and brain leads to a different way of talking with voters about issues that have tied the tongues of Democrats for much of forty years—such as abortion, guns, taxes, and race. You can't change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it. And here's how…

[warrior1]

5. Please

simple fact, they are racist. They know that he was born here, this is just a distraction away from they fact that thy are racist.

[Octafish]

11. Of course, many, if not all, racists are low-info types.

Buddha said sin results from ignorance.

The OP is to help shine some light on their methods for increasing the reach of their ignorance.

[H2O Man]

21. Exactly.

Well said.

[DirkGently]

6. Rightwing thought is religious in nature. Believe what you want first; change the facts to suit.

[Octafish]

13. Magic of Believing

Remember how Reagan would make stuff up as fact from his dim memories of movies he saw or acted in? I believe he read Claude M. Bristol, who popularized the concepts of mind over matter (belief over reality):

The Magic of Believing

[DirkGently]

15. Wow. Like a precursor to "The Secret." Explains a lot about Reagan's worldview. 8)

[Snoutport]

7. Racism is rarely based in fact

[Octafish]

9. Eugenics and 'The Bell Curve' tried.

Smart people know all people are equal under the law and in spirit. I think it's why smart people overwhelmingly are liberal and democratic.

Unfortunately, evil people tend to flock and organize. What the great reporter and author Edwin Black found:

War Against the Weak

[JuniperLea]

12. Intelligence, knowledge, and open-mindedness...

Clearly have a liberal/progressive slant.

[TheKentuckian]

14. If facts mattered then we wouldn't have the discussion at all.

They have had more proof than I have ever seen for years.

I think Obama is the only person's birth certificate I have seen other than my own and maybe my little sisters back in the day.

[MuseRider]

16. I have come to the conclusion

that you just can't fight stupid.

Everyone in this country has the opportunity of education. I watched my brother, HS graduate and someone who is not stupid, BE stupid in his life choices and in his political beliefs. Nothing you say, even if he agrees with you, changes his Bill O formulated political thoughts. I think Colbert was brilliant when he started talking about his guts and feelings as being the sole influence on political ideology. Why go anywhere else for information? It is all about how you feel. Besides, people who write books are obviously elitist liberals.

We can't stop and give up but trying to educate willfully stupid people is as difficult as those who are so steeped in religion. They will not even listen.

[bobthedrummer]

17. K& "counted" R#5-we don't torture, money trumps peace, regime change etc... n/t

[RedCloud]

18. Why it's like arguing with a redneck. What's the point?