Word is Rep. Anne Donahue (R-Northfield) will be a guest on the Mark Johnson Show tomorrow (Tuesday, January 25th) at 10:15 AM concerning the Tasers and Act 80 mental health/disabilities police training bill, H. 3.
The radio talk show itself starts at 9:00 AM and ends at 11:00 AM. Listen live locally on WDEV Radio 550 AM or 96.1 FM or, via streaming audio online, here.
For those who are not able to listen to the show segment live, later on Mark Johnson often posts archived audio clips of some interviews on his blog, here.
On Thursday, January 27th at 10:00 AM, the House Committee on Government Operations will have Rep. Donahue speak to them briefly regarding H. 3. Check the committee’s schedule, here.
Related information:
2010 Updated Act 80 Report from the Vermont Attorney General to the state legislature; note group recommendations beginning on page 4 (PDF version)
Read the following as an example of why Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training — which is what the following article refers to and is much more extensive than the Act 80 training — is better to do so sooner rather than later or, put another way, proactively versus reactively: Cardalls want mental health training for cops (via Salt Lake Tribune), here.
We've seen a rapid swing on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, from the initial charges on the left that the shooter was encouraged by wild rhetoric from the extreme right, to an almost immediate backlash from the wingers who denied that he was motivated by right-wing views, to even claiming that he is a leftist.
Is this a claim that he was acting at the direction of Sarah "Crosshairs" Palin? No. I'll stipulate that Crosshairs wasn't seriously trying to provoke an assassination attempt when she published her violent campaign poster.
But there is no question that, to the extent Loughner's writings set forth any political ideology, it is the ideology of the extreme right.
Human beings are reactive creatures. We’re simply wired for crisis management rather than crisis prevention. I think that, more than any other event/message/policy is driving the post-election rebound in the Commander-‘n-Chief’s approval ratings. Very simply, it’s already water-splash-in-the-face time for those who checked out of last year’s elections (and the new House of Representatives hasn’t even gotten going yet.)
In 2000, the University of Vermont School of Natural Resources conducted exhaustive research on the Environmental and Social Effect of ATVs and ORVs, upon which the ANR based it’s 2001 recommendation that public lands not be made available for ATV use. This study cited numerous environmental impacts beyond those that might be controlled by “good behaviors” on the part of the riders. Without the benefit of contradictory evidence, and despite objections from both the general public and the environmental community, in January 2010, former Governor Douglas (aided and abetted by a more submissive ANR) went ahead and opened the door for ATV use on state lands.
Then-Senator Peter Shumlin never made a secret of his opposition to allowing ATV trails to cross state lands. He expressed this opposition even before announcing his candidacy and never wavered. Why then does it come as such a surprise to some that one of his first moves as Governor is to rescind the limited permit for this activity ?
In today’s Free PressDanny Hale, chief executive of VASA, the Vermont All Terrain Vehicle Sportsman’s Association, is quoted as saying of Shumlin:
“This is just political payback for the people who voted for him,”
Say what? So now it’s wrong somehow to live-up to your campaign positions…because the majority, who supported you based on your principles expect you to do so? Not the best argument to make, Mr. Hale!
Overlooking the unlikelihood that supporters of ATV use on public lands voted for Shumlin in the last election, ATV rider, Lloyd Church of Townsend, threatened political retribution of a different stripe:
“Two percent of the people put the governor in, so when he runs next year, talk to your neighbor. A three percent change could take him out,” Church told the meeting.
Governor Shumlin has expressed his willingness to meet with VASA to discuss the issue, and that’s all well and good; but 3,000 VASA members insisting that they have a “right” to use state lands for recreation, should not be overly indulged. Of course they have a right to that use, but that right is subject to the same limits observed by all the non-ATV-riders in the state. If my idea of recreation is to build the perfect campfire, that doesn’t give me the “right” to build one in the middle of the Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail!
Impacts to the natural environment aside, the vast majority of Vermonters do not wish to ride ATV’s on state lands; nor, I’d wager to guess, are they particularly happy about encountering ATV’s as they hike or stroll through state lands. The argument made by VASA that the elderly or disabled cannot access state lands unless ATV’s are permitted is simply disingenuous. There are channels available by special permission for these populations to be transported onto state lands, on a case-by-case basis. Once there, most elderly and disabled users would find the experience much more pleasant without the threat of ATV’s bearing noisily down upon them.
So quit yer whining, VASA. It’s not all about you. The rest of us have rights, too.
Please do this before reading further, as it provides the foundation for the rest of the piece.
We can talk about metaphors– missing the forest for the trees, or vice versa. We can talk about why the video above was problematic for so many people. About half of us, when watching it, miss the big, obvious aspect of it.
It’s also why I missed this at first:
If you don’t get it, look at it for a moment. It will come to you…
Got it yet?
Thought so.
And the fact of the matter is, it’s easy to miss big things. Let’s, for example, talk about Cognitive Dissonance. There are two words I’m going to explain here– many of you understand them, but some don’t, and better safe than sorry.
Cognitive comes from the same root word as “cognition.” It pertains to the process of thought. I think most of us understand that term.
Dissonance is a musical term. It’s two root words– “dis” / “dys” meaning badly formed or structured, such as in dysfunctional or dystopia (opposite of “utopia”) and “sonnance” which refers to sounds (as in “sonics”) come together to imply two notes which don’t sound right together.
Cognitive Dissonance is the same concept applied not to music but to thought. Cognitive Dissonance is produced when we can’t make clear sense out of what we’re perceiving or doing.
The classic cognitive dissonance experiment involves giving people an incredibly boring task and then telling them that as part of the experiment they have to lie to other people and tell them it was very exciting.
The lie, for most people, produces a certain level of dissonance. However, here’s where it gets really interesting: we don’t just lie. We either want to convince ourselves that we didn’t lie, or we want to feel justified in having lied.
So what happens later when you’re asked to evaluate the incredibly boring task yourself?
If you don’t have any reason for having lied to other people about it, you actually convince yourself that it’s less boring than it was. You actually claim that it was kind of fun, which is exactly the lie you’ve been telling other people.
In other words, you’ve lied so much to other people that you have to lie to yourself to justify that lie.
IF… on the other hand, you were paid money to lie… you don’t adjust your own beliefs about the task. You are more comfortable having lied because you had a reason to lie. You were paid to lie so you’re okay with it and your own beliefs don’t shift.
At this point, you might be thinking “hey, what about that crazy video I watched? That kind of freaked me out!”
Well, cognitive dissonance needs resolution– when our brains can’t make sense out of things, we find ways to cope. One way is to lie. Another way is for the brain to simply ignore that which does not suit it. This is why Lea Delaria, as she notes, had to keep coming out to her parents. Delaria describes how she came out to her parents and then came over for dinner a few months later and there was a man she didn’t know there. Turns out they were trying to fix her up with “Steve.” This, by the way, is Lea Delaria (there are some gratuitous lesbian sexual references, but if those bother you, they’ll probably go right over your head):
So back to this dissonance. You can only ignore this dissonance for so long– there’s generally a breaking point if it pushes too much. Think of it like a rubber band being stretched out– on one hand there’s what you think, and the other side is what you do or see. When you stretch far enough either one side or the other has to slide towards the one that’s harder to move. If you stretch it too far, it breaks and the illusion you’ve created for yourself collapses.
What’s interesting is that it’s often easier for us to, at least to a point, change our attitudes than change our behavior. I’ve written a bit here about internalized racism and my own struggles with it– I don’t think what I’ve discussed is uncommon, except in the sense that I’ve studied enough about psychology to have some conscious sense about these things that are largely unconscious to most of us.
But for a lot of people, when they say something racist, and are called on it, their first response is defensive and/or justifying. That’s because the idea “I’m not racist” combined with the behavior “I just used the phrase ‘jew ’em down’ ” doesn’t fit. So instead, we often try to find ways to move them closer. Since we’ve already made the statement, that’s fixed and immobile, so instead our beliefs budge. We try one of several approaches:
we insist that the person making the accusation of racism is ignorant, hostile, or “other.” (i.e., belittle the idea that there’s anything wrong with what we did);
we insist that the incident of racism doesn’t mean what it does;
we claim that we were just joking;
we pretend like we never said it in the first place.
Similarly, when you are fans of a show (or public figure) which urges violence against public figures, it’s easy to dismiss that talk of violence as just rhetoric, not serious, done in jest, etc. It’s easy to claim that those who object to it are paranoid or delusional. It’s easy to mock an cajole in response. This all is in the interest of resolving cognitive dissonance. I’m a good person, so I would never urge violence against other people, but I like this show which urges violence against other people. So this show must not really urge violence against other people. When he says “shoot them in the head” he must be talking metaphorically.
Or… alternately… if your grasp on reality is a little more tenuous, you may find yourself thinking “this man is right. I need to go shoot these people in the head. I have to do it or they’ll shoot me in the head first.” That response, of course, is extremely rare, and may not even exist.
But when you’ve been promoting this sort of language, this argument for justifiable homicide, and someone does get shot in the head, once again this places the strain of cognitive dissonance on your psyche. You have to make choices, and they’re not fun choices.
You can choose to convince yourself that it’s all unrelated, that everything happens in a vacuum and that there is no problem with a media figure urging violence against others and that couldn’t possibly influence everyone.
You can choose to convince yourself that there might be a connection somewhere but that it’s not that big a deal anyway and that everyone gets threats from time to time and it’s just part of being in politics so don’t worry yourself about it.
You can choose to convince yourself that these threats are the fault of the politicians who are trying to do bad things or that they clearly didn’t take the threats seriously because they didn’t have security follow them everywhere.
And you can choose to convince yourself that these politicians deserve what they got.
Put more succinctly:
The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his
deception, the one who lies with sincerity.
–Andre Gide, “Journal of the Counterfiters”
…or…
I meant to do that.
–Pee Wee Herman
I’m writing this because it’s my belief that we need to find better ways to communicate with the people whose cognitive dissonance leaves them open to having it challenged. I’m talking about the people who think that what happened to Giffords was just horrible, but how is that possibly Glenn Beck’s fault? I’m talking about the people who believe in civil unions, but not same sex marriage. I’m talking about the people who are against racism but think it’s largely a thing of the past. I’m talking about the people who don’t want any government takeover of their medicare. I’m talking about the people who make barely enough money to sustain themselves yet object to more taxes for the rich.
When we engage people, understanding psychology and understanding the way our minds work is a crucial step to effecting change. Given what I’ve just told you about cognitive dissonance, I’m going to give a one question quiz:
You are part of a project designed to influence people to become more energy efficient. Which of these approaches will be more effective?
Scenario A: You give homeowners a quiz about their belief in energy efficiency and a list of ways they can improve it.
Scenario B: You give homeowners a quiz about their belief in energy efficiency and, for those who indicate support for efficiency, tell them how their energy usage may differ from their claimed support for it
Top story on the BFP website today: “Faith in Vermont State Government Declines.” First sentence:
Vermonters have relatively little faith in their state government, and significantly less than five years earlier, a new survey finds.
Wow, “significantly less.” That is big news, I guess. But exactly how far has Vermonters’ faith in state government fallen?
Only 15 percent of survey respondents possessed a great deal of confidence in state government, 4 percentage points lower than in a 2005 survey.
Oh. Four percent. A decline roughly the same as the poll’s margin of error, which happened over a five-year period. So even if the poll’s margin of error was zero, this is a decline of less than one percent per year.
Now, having only 15 percent expressing a lot of confidence isn’t exactly a healthy situation. It’d be nice to see more faith in government — and maybe we will, now that the guy who oversaw this “significant” decline is out of office. But this story is a prime example of editorial laziness: taking a statistically insignificant poll result, and splattering it all over the front page.
The following excerpt was found within Montpelier City Manager Bill Fraser‘s January 21, 2011 report to members of the city council concerning how they had decided to proceed regarding the request to purchase Tasers (here; via PDF version, Adobe Acrobat Reader required):
[…]
Tasers:
I will draft a proposed charge for a committee based on your comments and on the e-mail that the Mayor sent out. I assume we could discuss the charge at the next meeting and seek to appoint the committee right after town meeting.
[…]
Thus, anyone wanting to consider participating with any Taser community discussion committee that could potentially be formed, for if and when the city council decides the parameters for doing so, should let one’s city councilors, the Mayor and the city manager know as soon as possible.
The more interest expressed by members of the community for making this happen, the sooner things can begin to proceed.
View archived video of the Montpelier City Council’s Thursday, January 20, 2011 Taser policy discussion continuation (agenda item 5, actual discussion begins at 3:53 mark and ends at 1:13:51 mark; includes agenda; then later, during discussion on the proposed 2012 budget – agenda item 6, funding for the Tasers was brought up and discussed beginning at the 2:50:48 mark), here. Archived meeting agenda, here.
Read a brief report shared by Zack Hughes, here, as well as a longer one of mine, here.
View archived video of the Wednesday, January 12, 2011 Taser Policy Discussion (actual discussion begins at 5:32 mark and lasts for nearly 3 hours; includes agenda and attached related documents), here. Archived meeting agenda with attached related documents (agenda item 8), here.
This morning’s Rutland Herald contains an article about John McLaughry’s Ethan Allen Institute’s newsletter in which an anonymous source ponders the murder of an anti-Vermont Yankee lobbyist. McLaughry is quoted making light of the threat, suggesting if anyone is upset they should talk it over with a psychiatrist. McLaughry is the one who should be talking to a psychiatrist. The article ends by saying the newsletter announces McLaughry’s retirement, but he will continue to write columns.
I will be writing to the news outlets that routinely publish John McLaughry’s commentaries and ask them to please stop giving him ink. While I hardly ever agree with him, I value the right to free speech and like to hear alternative viewpoints, so my stance is not to try and censor him. But he has shown poor judgment at a time that our society cannot afford to make light of threats to people’s lives. I hope you will join me in asking news outlets to drop him.
Ethan Allen Institute’s popular monthly newsletter features a quote that is raising eyebrows and law enforcement officers are looking at it according to the Vermont Press Bureau. Here is the quote referred to from the Ethan Allen newsletter online;
Debate report: In a December 1 cable TV debate with EAI's Energy Education Project team (Meredith Angwin and Howard Shaffer), VPIRG energy spokesperson James Moore emphatically declared that the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant "hasn't killed anyone YET".
One unnamed viewer observed that "I also haven't killed anyone YET,but I am thinking of James Moore as a candidate.”[added emphasis]
Vice President of Ethan Allen Institute John McClaughry reacted with surprisingly little sensitivity to this given the recent shootings in Arizona. Showing little consideration that this quote might be troublesome to others.“Lighten up, fellas, Talk it over with your shrink is what I say.”
A far cry from his faux-folksy “Thanks for listening” which is McClaughry’s trade mark signoff on his VPR commentaries.
Tension and emotions must be running high with the pro VY crowd. Earlier this month in a Vermont pro-nuclear blog, Meredith Angwin’s YesVY, the author recommends a new blog supporting nuclear power whose argument claims to demolish the "views" of an anti-nuclear writer. She recommends, oddly, that the pro-nuclear blog be read and followed to their source with a gun and a camera.
Read Charles Barton's posts. Follow Barton with gun and camera, as he tracks Jacobson's errors to their source.
Ugh. I read the headline story in the Times-Argus today. It’s behind a paywall, but if you have the ability to get there, the headline is “Reform Now, Pay Later” and it’s pretty much Shumlin saying “I don’t care about how we pay for it, we’ll look at that later, lets just pass a universal health care bill”.
To which I think you’d have to figure that either:
a) “passing single payer” is nothing more than a politically shrill move by Shumlin, who doesn’t really care about it or making it really work, but rather, just “getting a bill passed” in order to get it passed and hold the left in his pocket for election season and support for whatever (decidedly un-left) things he wants to do
b) he’s got no political common sense whatsoever and is completely unaware of how the message of “we should pass a massive, currently illegal (by Federal law) social program the likes of which has never been done in the history of the country and we don’t even care how we’ll pay for it” plays to the tired Republican story of “tax and spend liberals” (by the way- isn’t that the definition of government? do Republicans not “tax” people and then “spend” the money they collected (and more)?). One of the best arguments for single payer health care is the financial savings, why not talk about the funding?
c) whoever crafts his messaging is a complete idiot. Biggest trouble with this possibility is that it still kinda requires option ‘b’ to be true; cause if a staff person told the guv “just get a Bill out their and tell em’ ‘lets not even look at the funding’ lets just pass the thing” Shumlin, if he had any political common sense whatsoever, should have said “are you nuts! we can’t promise all this without making clear how it would fund itself (or save the state money)!”
d) I’m totally missing something. I mean, I’m up on the reports that were just issued, and understand the basics of the options, and frankly, the choices seem fairly straight forward; obviously there are important decisions to be made, but unless I was a coffee shy of coherency when I read this morning’s paper, seems like there are real plans on the table and debating them and deciding on one is the next step- not just passing some kind of vague “lets do it and figure the money out later” Bill. That Bill was already passed and it’s what funded the the study that brought the options.
e) OK, there’s also “e”- Shumlin is a political genius and the “add massive State program without thought about cost” message is going to somehow turn out to facilitate all sorts of great things.
