(11-18-2016, 04:16 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN is covering Obama's visit to Berlin, Despite reassurance, Obama warns Europe of a 'meaner world'
One paragraph in particular raises some of the same themes we've been discussing here.
Obama Wrote:In an age of social media where so many people are getting their information in sound bites and snippets off their phones, if we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems," he said. "If people, whether they're conservative, liberal, left or right, are unwilling to compromise and engage in the democratic process and are taking absolutist views and demonizing opponents, then democracy will break down.
Now, is he talking about this forum specifically, or the world in general? That's my problem with extreme partisans in a nutshell.
Basically, Stresemann meets Hoover. Nice talk, but now largely irrelevant.
This forum is something of a microcosm, if somewhat selective in its left-right composition.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.