Britain Falls to American Hegemony
If you want to watch the news in Britain, you watch the BBC. The BBC gets a LOT of money from the British government and has a long-standing reputation for high quality impartial reporting of the news of the world. This impartiality is insured in part by the existence of Ofcom, which is accountable to the British government (something like the American FCC) and ensures objective reporting and content.
I will say up front that I like the BBC for exactly these reasons. The talking heads report the news and actually leave me to interpret it and think about it on my own. I watch the BBC periodically both to get a non-U.S. perspective on the news and also to see news actually reported. No jokes. No snide comments. No “personalities” hawking their latest book. No infotainment. Just news.
There is, however, a new player at the table within the admittedly monolithic world of British news. A new on-line news service called 18 Doughty Street (named after the address of their studios in London) is becoming more and more popular. It was launched on-line explicitly to avoid oversight by Ofcom. The idea is to provide some balance to the traditional reporting of the BBC, but, in the words of co-founder Ian Dale, “no impartiality”. The format and content of the product by 18 Doughty Street would be profoundly familiar to anyone subjected to what currently passes for news journalism in the U.S., and this is exactly the point. These folks figured out that what the U.S. news broadcasters are doing makes money, and they have adopted the formula essentially whole. Given it is an on-line product they are also able to extend the interaction with their audience. Viewers get to vote on various aspects of the content, and those votes help determine what will be shown.
The overall political bias of 18 Doughty Street is currently conservative. For example, they are quite up front about their attacks on the BBC as liberally biased and are working to end its taxpayer support. This bias makes it more difficult for me to watch their content (and I have), but that’s not my point. If Doughty Street is financially successful, then it’s almost certain that competing liberal programming will be produced and make money fighting Doughty Street. At that point can a British Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly be far behind?
We started Brave Humans to work against exactly this sort of crap, and I use that word intentionally. Not liberal crap, not conservative crap, but crap masquerading as information and news. Here’s hoping that the BBC or some other reputable news organization can find the answer to the challenge posed by Doughty Street. That answer has eluded news people in the U.S. and forced us normal folks to come up with one of our own. One final quote from Doughty Street co-founder Ian Dale illustrates the problem perfectly. “ Do you know the problem with balance?” he asks. “It’s boring.”
Mr. Dale, not only is it NOT boring (check out the BH action for the past few weeks if you don’t believe me), it’s the only way we’re going to move forward on things that matter. If the people at Doughty Street don’t get this, surely there are many brave humans in Britain who will.
Be Brave. Be Human.
-Grant
March 17th, 2007 09:05
How on earth can anyone making a critical review make a bad mistake in the first line???
BCC for BBC on the link.
As an aside - the blatent bias of the BBC; not so much concerning political parties (though this is very evident); but on major national and international issues is getting worse, as is their denial of this bias, and the mistakes they are making on a fairly regular basis.
They are also in denial that they are the main communicator of the current government backed political correctness programme.
The period leading in to the next election will observe an escalation of BBC bias in supporting a basically incompetent and obviously failing government; and an escallation of attacks on a similarly less than attractive and flawed opposition.
We not only do not trust our politicians but we treat the information from the BBC with significant distrust - something they are also in denial on.
When eventually non-massaged data is released of the public not renewing their BBC TV licences, we will see tangible evidence of the deterioration of their integrity and quality of service - this is a situation they are not likely to accede until forced when digital expansion is on-going.
March 17th, 2007 09:12
Typo corrected. Thanks for pointing it out, Colin. And welcome to BraveHumans!
March 17th, 2007 09:41
I am with Colin on this one. The bias of the BBC has been much discussed in Britain in the last year and has even been reported on the BBC website.
However, I am not so sure that a definite point of view (aka bias) is necessarily a bad thing, as long as the organization (or program or newspaper, etc) is honest with itself first and then with its listeners/readers.
I may be wrong but I think the thing most of us object to is the pretense of objectivity in various media– not the having of a point of view and arguing for it vigorously. I think this is why Bill O’Reilly is still wildly popular, despite his really obnoxious delivery and way of interacting with his guests. One knows where he stands on the issues he reports.
March 17th, 2007 13:46
Brian, I think you have made some interesting points here, but you make some assertions which are flawed. We’re not trying to compete with the BBC. We’re trying to complement what they do. Much of what they do they do well. I am not an enemy of the BBC - indeed I will be appearing on their news channel tonight. But they can’t provide political people with the programming they want. Where would you find hour long interviews with politicians on the BBC? Nowhere. We’re not party politically biased, but if I as a presenter have a view I want to feel free to express it. Our view is that we are as right wing as the BBC is left wing. They openly admit they have a liberal worldview. We openly admit we have a conservative worldview. Surely in the world of broadcasting there is room for us both.
March 17th, 2007 14:27
Pretty dramatic title, isn’t it? Britain Falls? To American dominance and influence?
Please, Grant. That’s quite sensational. Almost Fox-News-ish.
And heaven forbid a business try to make money by catering to the desires of their clientèle….
March 17th, 2007 17:07
Hello to all, especially Mr. Iain Dale, Co-founder of 18 Doughty Street. Mr. Dale, welcome to Brave Humans and thank you VERY much for taking the time to respond to my post concerning your site.
First to Colin, as to how such typos can happen, what can I say? Computer pixies, sunspots, allergies, lunar eclipse… In any event, thanks for pointing it out. It has been fixed.
Lily, I think I address your comments in the body of this response. Please let me know what you think.
Scott, I make no apologies for the title. Yes, it’s a bit over the top, but one thing Americans are mercilessly expert in producing and exporting is popular culture. With apologies to Mr. Dale, I see the current incarnation of 18 Doughty Street as one more example of this process.
OK, Let’s start with the idea that the BBC is biased. I’ll certainly concede the point, given Ian’s infinitely better-informed assertion that this is the case. The question then becomes what do you do about this?
Doughty Street is one answer, and I think a problematic one. The Brits and the rest of us need a better solution. Lily, I agree that bias is human and unavoidable, but that doesn’t make it good or right. In the past, large news organizations (at least in the U.S.) seemed to agree that, although bias existed, it was generally thought to be a problem to be aware of and guarded against in the effort to get the story right. Large newspapers like the New York Times, the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune, among many others, were known to be biased in one form or another, but if they printed a story, readers could assume the facts were generally as accurate as effort, experience and professionalism could make them. The old-school “network” news shows (ABC, CBS, NBC) had generally the same reputation. Please don’t misunderstand; this was not Nirvana or any sort of perfect world, but I think it beats what we have now.
What now passes for news reporting in the U.S. on places like FOX News and MSNBC has gone beyond accepting bias and has elevated it to a fetish. Now bias needs to be the basis of your story. With some commentators and programs the bias IS the story.
Scott, I think part of the problem is the current business model underlying the news. The old U.S. TV news folks will tell you that in the old days the news COST money; it seldom made money. The networks competed in part for prestige, to use the news to bring people to the network and then (hopefully) keep them there, but also because many of the people involved thought the news was, in part, a civic duty. The fact that this sounds as quaint as it does is part of the problem. Scott, I really DO blame the current networks and news programs for focusing more on the money than the news, because doing so kills the integrity of the process itself. American Idol is not objective, and that’s fine. It doesn’t need to be. That show’s purpose is to entertain and make as much money as possible. But now that profit and entertainment are the goal of the news, the news has lost. We have lost.
At one time I listened to a lefty radio personality named Stephanie Miller. She states explicitly that her show is NOT a news broadcast. It is entertainment. She and her staff are there to make you laugh, first and last, but they make you laugh using the current day’s news and politics. And she did make me laugh. The woman is good at her job. She also made me feel smart, and vindicated and part of a larger community of intelligent “right thinking” people. It was us against the bad guys, and by God, we were going to win.
People, however, DO use this show as a source of news, just as they use John Stewart and Rush Limbaugh, and therein lies the problem.
The line between these shows/personalities and legitimate news in the U.S. is simply gone. People watch O’Reilly and Olbermann for exactly the same feeling of “us (always) outnumbered good people fighting the good fight against the demon hordes of the other side”. The bias is the point, and the news is forced to fit into the appropriately sized and shaped box.
What makes this even more problematic is the rabid insistence by players on all sides they are the only ones who are NOT biased. Fox’s claim of “fair and balanced reporting” is only the best-known example among many.
I no longer listen to Stephanie Miller because I think this sort of infotainment is a trap, and that’s my point. I miss the jokes and the laughter, but mostly I miss the feeling of righteous outrage against the other side. Those sorts of feelings keep you warm at night, and maintain a show’s ratings. But they also keep me insulated from any opposing viewpoint and any demand that I think on my own.
Iain, this is my problem with your program. There is room for both left and right, but if you present only one viewpoint- or present the other simply as an evil, greedy, immoral or stupid caricature, you will gain audience and voice. You will also go a long way towards degrading the news process in Britain even more that it apparently is at present. If your bias is the primary reason for people to watch your programming, you cease to be a viable news source and become a pundit site. Pundit sites are fine and valuable-Brave Humans is a pundit site. But they are not news in any sense of the term. The U.S. has already gone down this road. Please don’t follow us.
March 17th, 2007 20:45
Iain,
Welcome to BraveHumans. I do hope you’ll hang around and add your views to our discussions here.
Just as a note of correction, it is Grant who took the time to contribute this post, not I.
But to the topic at hand. On a general level, I think I can agree with your approach. BBC bias or not, I can see issues with a country’s main source of news being tax funded and “watched” by the government. As Colin pointed out, there are many who do not trust the BBC for exactly that reason. So I can completely understand creating alternative news venues which lie outside Ofcom.
I also think I disagree with Grant’s assertion that presenting news from a specific slant (in your case the conservative, or anti-establishment perspective) in and of itself is a bad thing. So long as news venues are honest, both about the facts and about their political slant, they can provide a fresh perspective that will gain viewers.
However, I do agree with Grant that such a pundit-news approach is problematic. As we have seen in the United States, it leads to increasing polarization of the political sphere, and reduces civic discourse to echo-chambers. Although 18 Doughty Street is still young, it already shows indications of encouraging that shift in the U.K., just as the rise of Fox News encouraged the shift in the U.S.
As an example, I visited your site this afternoon, and right in the middle of the site is a big picture of Al Gore with the headline “Do as I say, not as I do — The Climate Change Hypocrites.” Clicking through leads one to a short video telling you how pro-environment politicians such as Al Gore are hypocrites, because Gore has an electric bill 10x the U.S. average, for example. What that gains you is sympathetic readership, as Grant pointed out.
What it prevents is any meaningful discussion of the issues. For example, Al Gore’s approach to climate change is to continue to live the big life, but to offset that lifestyle by purchasing “green” power, or installing solar panels. His is the “have your cake and eat it too” approach. The fair question to ask is whether such an approach is possible in general, or if it is only possible for the rich. If global warming is a serious issue, does it require working class people to reduce their quality of life in order to reduce their carbon footprint while the wealthy can just buy their way out of conservation? There are a host of other related questions which should be asked, and which pro-environment politicians should be forced to address (in those hour-long interviews you mentioned, for example). However, because of its front page, and how it addresses the issue, 18 Doughty Street can’t ask those questions objectively. The sympathetic audience would simply view you as pandering, and those with opposing views would see you as simply pretending to be balanced. This is exactly how Fox News evolved from an “alternative” news station to a conservative echo-chamber.
I agree that you should be free to express your views as a presenter. Forced neutrality is not the solution. But creating a pundit-news site which hinders open discussion is, I think, the wrong approach to take.
Here at BraveHumans, we have tried to create a site which can ask hard questions AND engage open discussion. You have the opportunity to take a similar approach on a much larger scale.
Brian
March 17th, 2007 21:14
Brian: I agree with a great deal of what you have written here but take monumental exception to this:
“However, I do agree with Grant that such a pundit-news approach is problematic. As we have seen in the United States, it leads to increasing polarization of the political sphere…”
I believe that it is a misunderstanding of our political reality to see Fox News as having encouraged polarization in the political sphere. Fox News gave voice to a large majority of people in this country who were already polarized and shut out of mainstream venues. In other words, Fox News (and, indeed, the blogosphere) have enabled the rest of us to push back.
If you watch FN, you will see that it always has someone (usually someone reasonably well-known) represent the contrary viewpoint. I haven’t watched the msm in years but that was not the case with them. Has that changed?
Our elites had a field day believing that everyone agreed with them except for a pathetic handful of troglodytes. They have not accepted reality gracefully!
March 17th, 2007 23:32
Clearly Fox News gave voice to a conservative demographic which was not largely heard in the days of the big three, just has Air America has given voice to the silent left. The issue for me is not that they have been given a voice, but that both Fox News and Air America pander to their respective audience. As Grant has pointed out, this encourages listening only to your camp, and your views are therefore never challenged. The other side becomes increasingly seen as delusional, extremist and un-American.
March 18th, 2007 00:04
Hello all,
Lily, just to expand on Brian a bit here, this is not a rant about the evils of conservative media. It is a rant about the divide created by a media marketplace in which one never has to hear a voice of dissent, except in the process of ridiculing that dissent. This is becoming increasingly true on ALL sides of the political spectrum. Fox was only a single example in my last reply and it was a minor example at that.
My point was that I have been guilty of listening only to those media voices that tell me what I want to hear. Trust me. None of these were Fox:). I think this is a mistake most of us make, and it is profoundly dangerous. We must deal with those with whom we disagree. Pundit driven news that intentionally focuses only on what we want to hear makes this even more difficult than human nature does to begin with.
March 19th, 2007 02:35
Grant and Brian,
As I read your latest writings, it seems you are decrying the lack of balance in the reporting and the editorializing of any given platform, ie, news show, radio host, internet blog.
This is the Open Public Square, allowing any and all voices to speak and promote their viewpoint and agenda. There is no limit on the expression of opinion.
The alternative is some form of “balance” being mandated in each venue, where a host or organization is required to provide the opposing view.
This is the “Idealist” or big government approach. It presumes that individuals have not the capacity to ferret out the information they need for themselves.
I am not the person to make the best case for the liberal or leftist viewpoint. Forcing me by convention, custom, or law would do both me and the opposing point of view an injustice and a severe diservice. The point that our country’s founders so forcefully made, and enshrined into our constitution was that the public square is open to all ideas, and that people are free to listen to each one according to their own preferences.
Our citizens are very free to pick their views. One correllary of that is they are free to pay no attention to views which have no answers, or no allure for them. If their choices no longer provide the results that seem best according to their own judgement, they are perfectly free to give their voices, votes, money and allegiance to the competing philosophy. This is the balancing we use in the practical world. Each idea, party, and movement must compete constantly for support by attempting to provide what the public needs.
One thing our public has proven is that while they are capable of supporting leaders and movements of some disdain and even lunacy, the public acting in the aggregate finds the error of it’s way and acts to move to a better choice.
The price of this freedom is the potential of bad choices. The cure of forcing anything is a greater threat than any temporary mistake in public policy. This country constantly reinvents itself, and the free choice of the people is the real key to this security and freedom.
The strength of America is the vigorous, open, competitive contest of ideas.
It is not as important as you presume, that the balancing is done within each particular individual. Some of us seek constant information to make the best possible judgements and decisions. We are inclined by nature or training to amass data, assess the data, and re-eveluate on a real-time basis. This is the type of people we are, and we value this method. Others have a simpler view of life, rooted in upbringing, temperament, religious belief, custom, or other basis. For them the constant review is a waste of time. There are eternal verities which govern their views. As long as they are satisfied with the results of their views, it is irrevelant for constant consideration.
Our political and social view is that one man’s opinion is as good as another at the ballot box. It matters not how he arrived at his disposition. That is the freedom of our country, and it serves us well.
Have faith in our way of life . Have faith in our people.
March 19th, 2007 17:07
You will now read something you thought would never come from the official “right wing crackpot” of the Brave Humans blog (or so I’ve crowned myself).
It is true that media outlets have a strident bias, but we idealize whoever or whatever we think never did (Walter Cronkite, the NYT of old, etc.)
To be historically accurate, our media outlets have actually become less biased over time (mostly due to lawsuits or the threat thereof).
At the founding of our country, newspapers would print truly offensive, patently false, and completely one-sided diatribes against all political folk. It was really nasty and it was driven (behind the scenes) by the politicians themselves.
And it was then (as it is now) those diatribes that sold newspapers. The difference today, as alluded to above, is that the line between opinion and news has become blurred.
The whole “us vs. them” isn’t new, either, though you are correct about our select media vacuum emphasizing that effect.
Where I differ with you is the impression that the “common man” is becoming more polarized. I used to think that, too, but I decided to test it out.
I talk to a *lot* of people in my line of work. And a lot of people believe things I don’t agree with (Darn Them!), but the reality is that most “normal folk” are able to filter through the biased messages that they receive to come up with some semblance of the truth.
While we really don’t like the conflict involved (or so polls show), the average American is actually better educated on the news / issues because of the conflict.
For example, I detest political ads from all sides at election time. And I really detest the mud-slinging negative ads (which are, again, nothing new). However, I have seen studies that show that the more negative a campaign gets, the more informed the voters are.
So, take heart. If Britain goes the way of America, people will learn to think for themselves more and be better informed than they are today.
And isn’t that what Brave Humans do, anyway? Think?
Dan
March 19th, 2007 23:49
Hello all,
Denis, I would agree, “the strength of America is the vigorous, open, competitive contest of ideas.” that’s actually my point. The contest of ideas is currently rigged to a greater extent than it has been in a long time.
In any contest worthy of the name, the players face each other on relatively neutral ground and fight it out to see who wins. In the current media climate in the U.S. that contest virtually never happens because the two sides have virtually stopped meeting in any meaningful sense. They simply play with themselves in their home stadium to a packed house of loyal fans. If you see the opposition at all, they’re a set up as a sacrifice to the home team.
This has ALWAYS been a problem, but the advent of modern media has made it infinitely easier for us to never have to listen to anyone who doesn’t agree with us. With the dramatic increase in media outlets we can now get exactly the message we want, from exactly the source we want, in exactly the format we want. Again, the tendency to believe what we want to believe is part of being human, but the opportunity to feed that bias is currently more pervasive and powerful than it has been in recent memory.
There is simply a whole lot less incentive for ANY media outlet to work to appeal to a wide audience because they know that the market is fragmented and they have a better shot at success through targeting a more specific group as effectively as possible. This seems to be exactly what has happened in the U.S. and what may well be happening now in Britain with the advent of media outlets like Doughty Street. For many of these groups the news product they put out is the primary or only thing they do, and so they MUST make it commercially work or they don’t eat.
The older news sources generally had fewer competitors, and so more incentive to appeal to a wider audience as a route to success. They also traditionally existed within larger organizations. Because of this they were at least somewhat more insulated from the relentless need to turn a profit on their own. They could afford to annoy or even challenge their viewers or readers without losing their job. This is simply no longer the case. Annoy me once and I change the channel and never look back.
Daniel,
Thanks for being one of the few folks who doesn’t think I’m completely out of my tree on this one. I agree that the good old days were NOT always good, but as I say above, I think the brave new world of exploding media makes the bad potentially a whole lot worse than it has been in the past.
Could you expand on some of your comments that the conflict and bias may actually lead to a better-informed population? I’d love to see more on this because it surprises the crap out of me and would be a welcome outcome. I’m trying to wrap my head around how attack ads can have ANY positive outcome for anyone other than the politicians who run them. I can see, for example, how repeating two competing attack ads could get the two competing messages into peoples’ heads, but the messages themselves are so flawed that simply knowing them might not do any good.
-Grant
March 20th, 2007 23:06
Just pondering the proposition that truth emerges from “a contest of ideas” … and the sporting metaphor “fight it out to see who wins”.
This sounds like a very masculine paradigm. [Glances up, and notes that most contributors are men - Hi Lily!].
What about ‘exchange’, ‘dialogue’ and ‘listening’?
In Australia, we noticed a marked change in media style when a second govt funded TV service started in the 1970s I think. This was an initiative of the heyday of multi-culturalism and this TV station (SBS) was set up to provide news and cultural programs in common community languages.
Because the service was run on the smell of an oily rag, their news program tended to show footage from various foreign news media that was largely unedited. It was fascinating to watch similar news items on commercial stations and SBS, all using the same footage, but the SBS footage was more extensive, cos of less funds. In effect, we got to see the world through multiple eyes, not through the filter of the TV station. SBS news is the best in Australia for giving breadth. And we got to see how footage could be edited to give a different picture.
Truth emerges from different perspectives, and ‘contest’ is only one way to encourage different perspectives.
I suspect that US news dominates because the US has the resources to produce lots of visual footage. Putting together a TV news program, the producer is heavily dependent on the visual material available.
At least SBS lets us know that Italy, Portugal, Poland, etc HAVE news services!
However, I don’t recall ever seeing a TV news item about Tanzania - a country of 35 million people. Of course, we did get to see Rwanda for a while there, and now we get brief glimpses of Sudanese camps.
So, US hegemony is a real danger. The victor writes the history, and at present, the US has the resources to tell stories in engaging and compelling ways. The dominance depends on resources, and with 25% of world GDP, the US has the resources.
March 22nd, 2007 18:14
Those darn U.S. males…oh, wait…
Anyway, the theory on why “more negative = more informed” (and it’s only theory while the result is fact) is that the more politicians throw mud, the more people are motivated to find the truth for themselves.
While there is certainly a lack of thinking going on in general, most people are at least aware that their news has a bias, regardless of the source. This leads people to at least think a little critically.
It *is* interesting, however, that no matter where you get your news, there is a “those bad guys are out to get us good guys” angle.
Dan
March 22nd, 2007 20:39
Hi Dan,
Thanks. I get it. In essence that’s what I’m trying to do by swearing off John Stewart and trying to check out Fox, BBC etc. to round out my daily NPR/CNN addiction. I’m hoping that multiple competing sources will result in better understanding on my part. It’s also in part what promoted the BH idea.
-Grant
March 22nd, 2007 23:39
Hi Grant –interesting reading. It’s a thought I’ve had many times , and I’m glad you’ve articulated it, that these pseudo-news shows simply coarsen and confuse the conversation. The tendency to say “there is no such thing as truely unbiased reporting , so let’s just forget the importance of the attempt” is a bit like suggesting that any attempt at something difficult (dieting, morality, faith, compassion) is just too implausable, so let’s just be fat immoral, secular, and heartless. I suggest that the effort is important, and from the tenor of most people’s remarks on this site, I think that most of us are trying to fight those good fights.
Here are a few points of thought on other elements of the conversation.
In No. 8 above, Lily, you suggest the emergence of Fox news as a venue for the disenfranchised Right who had been excluded by the elites (code for Lefties?) at the Major Networks. This is an often quoted and rarely (in my reading) disputed “fact”. But another possibility is that the Right were outside the mainstream because that is where the facts placed them. Just like the Communists, Black Panthers, and Hippies, they didn’t have a station of their own because they were not mainstream. They were radicalized by the extremesim of their beliefs. (Also, the Hippies were stoned, but that’s another story…)By claiming the Center, they radicalized the Centerists who did control the media, made themselves victims of the Libiral Media Elites ( and as we know there is no group so strong as organized victims)and the true Left are now so far marginilized as to be off the radar.
And yes, Fox does introduce people regularly as “Liberal” and “Democratic” commentators, but I see them either as centrists (being radicalized by the labels) or weak, usually giving in to the Fox cultural bias: again; it’s not unbiased news– this is just all part of the show. (Coming next, the lions vs. the Liberal Elites.) Just more bread and circuses.
Re: the comments of Iain Dale: Iain, you write as if the BBC were a monolith, and only your opposition will create fairness and balance. But don’t the Guardian, and the Telegraph, act as counter-weights?
As a human being, you are as entitled to your opinion as any other person. I would still maintain that an Ideal would be to have real news shows which try to present fact as such and then clearly mark where the spin/interpretation begins. This is dramatically different than the situation where Government Idealogues churn out talking points which are then echoed out over the Rush/Drudge/Fox web. Public figures become larger than life. As such, and especially when using the public airwaves, they have a moral obligation to report news as news and opinion as opinion. Anything else is likely to become manipulative, and as reprehensible in fact as the allegations made against the BBC. You have the opportunity to do something better, not to just hit back “from the other side” What if there were only one side, and it was ours?.
Also, did the BBC actually describe themselves as having a “liberal worldview”? I’ve seen that phrase used by their detractors, but when and where did they claim that? I’d be glad to see the reference. Thanks.
Grant- you are right about the business interests fragmenting the audience; business models and news reporting are incompatable. That is why there IS a role for government, thru independent agencies (like the FCC or Ofcom, but it needs to be more insulated from political appointees) which will protect the public interest.
Gillian- thanks for those great words in comment 14: exchange, dialogue, listening. The old paradigm is certainly a battle metaphor. We could use more people who are trying to listen and not score points.In this I disagree in some measure with Denis who says “the strength of America is”the vigorous, open, competitive contest of ideas.” Not if it’s a brawl. Not if it’s winner take all. Not if it’s K Street Projects and the disenfranchisement and systematic exclusion of competitors as enemies, the labeling of people who disagree as traitors and cowards. We need truely Brave Humans who are willing to change this in their every day actions.
I try to be one, but old habits die hard; I constantly fail, and then begin again. And of course, first we would have to see it as a problem to solve, not a technique to delight in while achieving victory over foes. Repeating the old self-interest patterns of the past is not Bravery, and it does not serve Humans well.
Nick