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The neo-liberal and neo-conservative movements are indeed good examples of what long-term planning and concentrated effort can do. If cooperation and long-term planning happens to be an advantage of evolutionary importance... it makes sense to fool others not to cooperate or plan long. The main difference between haves and have-nots of this world I see the following: The haves cooperate actually a lot, by providing each other plenty services (financial, legal, informative, recreational, etc), while have-nots know nothing but to compete with each other, each "cooperating" only with one rich employer, so to speak.
Let's unite the left of the left to makes our idea triumph. OK. Just one issue. our ideas. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Cue in a march of the right-wing penguins who don't cara about ideas but just triumph. "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
Consider for example Krugman's interview at Foxnews. Did he really change many minds?
In print, Krugman is a master. But he's not suited for the television age. He stammers. A man of fairly short stature to begin with, he slouches in his chair, like he's taking up as little space as possible. He allows people to talk over him and interrupt him to get in their little bon mots and sidetrack him from his reasoned arguments. Most damningly, he has trouble making eye contact, and often looks away and down at the table when he speaks, which could give the impression that he's dishonest.
The point is, I was amazed at the number of people I would have bet stammered. "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
stammer ['stamər] verb [ intrans. ] speak with sudden involuntary pauses and a tendency to repeat the initial letters of words.
I checked the video once more, and I have to say, I did not see much stammering of Krugman until the last 55 seconds. He looked pretty comfortable, and was not hiding eyes. The description above does not really apply to this video. In particular, Krugman's face language was good when Cavuto mentioned 9/11 first time, and still fine even when he was accused of lying.
There were 2 appearance problems for Krugman: Cavuto was not allowing to talk and finish arguments around the middle point of the interview, and then 1-2 min. before the end. And with the last minute, Krugman was flattered by Cavuto saying how great economy now must be despite "corporate" and "stock" bubbles collapsing (presumably in 2000).
But on the other hand, Krugman did not have much interesting to say. His main argument was that "majority of people do not think that the economy is great" - which is a weak proposition. (How does he know what people think?) Foxnews viewers had to hear more how unequal the wealth distribution is.
Taking a cue from the Lakoff school, a little laughter, pointed dismissiveness followed by some salient points can go a long way...
And people who were criticising Krugman for his body language don't know what they're talking about - he was doing just fine. "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
"Republicans are the party of bad ideas. Democrats are the party of no ideas. A Republican will say, 'I've got a really bad idea,' and the Democrats will respond, 'And we can make it worse!'" Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
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