Al Gore: "Facts" + "Logic" = "Better Decisions"
On MSNBC’s 5/30 program of “Countdown with Keith Olberman”, Keith interviewed Al Gore about content from his new book entitled “Assault on Reason
Most importantly, Al Gore emphasized the value that the new internet-based tools available to us (like blogging) have in making a difference, especially by those that use it to “blow the whistle” on any unintentionally false or misleading information that is presented by the media. He points out that “we need a lot more of that”. He believes that for Democracy to work it is important for people to take part in the process and for the American public to be fully invited into the conversation.
The dangers come up when:
“the conversation is diverted to these trivialities and these propagandistic efforts to sway public opinion…in a one way dialogue, then people don’t have a way to join the conversation. One of the reasons why so many American’s feel as if their votes don’t count, their opinions aren’t heard, and that they have no way of meaningfully participating in our democracy is because they know”….that these are one way conversations that aren’t based on facts or logic.
“when the bulk of it is made up of these mass persuasion techniques that don’t respect the facts and don’t respect the people that are the objects of this persuasion, then we get the kind of serious mistakes”…such as the climate crisis, the invasion of Iraq (et al)… “These things happen not just because one White House makes terrible decisions but because we are more vulnerable to these kinds of sophisticated efforts to bypass reason and logic to reach a preconcieved policy that was decided before the facts were ever brought into play”. If a decision is made regardless of the facts… “then there is no discussion of the facts that is going to matter”…
“We the people must reclaim the integrity of our democracy by using the new tools that are now beginning to be available to us to insist on respect for reason and logic to the degree that our founders hoped would be the case.”
