Who's this Guy?
Welcome to my Blog
posted by Denny Hastert @ 10:09am (10/27/05)
This is Denny Hastert and welcome to my blog. This is new to me. I can’t say I’m much of a techie. I guess you could say my office is teaching the old guy new tricks. But I’m excited. This is the future. And it is a new way for us to get our message out.
Most of you know me as a coach by nature so I hope this gives you some inside access to the Republican playbook.
The internet is changing the way we share information. My office has been talking a lot about some of the conversations going on in blogosphere. So I thought, hey, I should start one and give you unfiltered updates on Capitol Hill.
Let me start by first saying that we need to keep our thoughts and prayers with the victims of Hurricane Wilma. There has been a lot of damage. It’s in the billions of dollars I’m told. But we were better prepared this time so the loss of life and property damage was not as bad as it could have been.
You know, we’ve had a rough hurricane season. All of our hurricanes have dealt a serious economic blow to the U.S. And that means we’re going to have to do some belt-tightening – throughout the federal government.
There have been reports that paying for Hurricane Katrina may cost upwards of $250 billion. I can assure you that we're not going to spend $250 billion - it's not going to cost that much. Congress has already passed legislation that provided $62.5 billion worth of immediate relief to help the Gulf Coast get back on its feet. Part of that money to made sure that kids have a school to go to, they're fed, they have power and clean water to drink -- basic necessities that we all take for granted. What we don't need to do is to spend more money now and worry about how to pay for it later. In the House, we're working on a plan that will include off-sets to pay for any additional spending, eliminate wasteful and inefficient government programs and cuts mandatory spending. But it will keep tax relief in place so that we can create jobs and continue to grow the economy.
Speaking of the Hurricane season, renewed attention has been brought to the way we refine gasoline in this country. Today, energy companies started reporting their 3rd quarter earnings, and while Americans paying were record prices at the pump, energy companies were making record profits.
This is America. And Republicans don’t believe in punishing success. But what are these oil companies doing to bring down the cost of oil and natural gas? They haven't built a refinery here in America since the 1970's. They've built refineries overseas, but nothing here at home.
We want some answers and you folks out there in the blogosphere do too. When are new refineries going to be built here in America? When is the Alaska pipeline deal going to be signed so we can get natural gas to consumers quicker? Conoco Phillips has reached an agreement with the state of Alaska on the pipeline. Exxon Mobil and BP need to do the same. These companies need to invest in America’s energy infrastructure and resources. Until they do, we're going to be asking some tough questions.
Well, there you have it folks. I’ve outlined some of our priorities: fiscal responsibility and energy. I’m going to keep updating this from time to time. It’s not that bad.
Looks like this old guy can still learn a thing or two. Until next time . .
posted by Mike Hu @ 10:04 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Here is the URL for the preceding blog:
http://www.speaker.gov/journal/051027_firstblog.shtml
Notice how much better and authentic real people sound than the mainstream media journalists? The reason is that language as well as the media has evolved -- while broadcast media is still living in its heyday of the 1950's.
Blogging favors Republicans -- because the mainstream media is biased towards the Democrats, who have become dependent upon the media doing its propaganda for them. Because of that co-dependency, Democrats have not honed their skills to communicate directly with the people.
Democrat blogs are basically unreadable -- anti-this, anti-that, with no vision beyond the knee jerk opposition for they-don't-know-what-reason anymore.
So there is no intellectual and moral foundation except the personal attacks allowed in the newspapers against the Republicans but suppressed against the Democrats.
So when the movement is towards blogs, Democrat blogs have no value. The blog-reader is the most discriminating reader -- and probably an excellent writer themselves. They know what is good and what is bad, distortion, manipulation, etc.
Because of the reading demands imposed by the challenges of being a discriminating reader on the Internet, what most people have failed to consider is that it caused a rapid evolution in reading ability and comprehension that was not considered necessary in the old publishing world.
As a result, the ability to read with comprehension, greatly outstripped most writer's ability to lead the reader -- and so those techniques of persuasion and propaganda became readily apparent to the best readers.
Nothing fails so badly, as when manipulative techniques (as taught in most mass communication curricula), are readily seen through -- and thus, the only thing that can work anymore, is legitimate authenticity.
As one reader remarked, "The ultimate gimmick is that their is no gimmick."
By comparison, reading the editorial pages, and even the front pages of most newspapers now, seems extremely heavy-handed in distortion, manipulation and omission -- and why there is this tremendous rebellion among its best, most discriminating readers.
The newspapers and mass media liked to act as the middleman, go-between for the elected officials and the public -- fostering the notion that that was the approved channel, and not that both could address the other directly, more productively.
The media, as the middleman, is no longer necessary, but is reluctant to give up that central role in society -- and why they've become the major defenders of the status quo. The distractions are merely to reassert their importance, that they ARE the news.
Once a trend becomes apparent, the speed at which it unfolds, can be amazingly swift.
The decline of the newspapers seems like the Perfect Storm. It's not a world kind to control freaks.
The new language being evolved is talking to/with another -- rather than the soliloquy style of the Associated Press and academic style -- which doesn’t recognize and involve the reader in the communication. In a sense, there is no communication going on but rather a one-sided lecture, or dump. The whole objective of that exercise is to display one’s superiority and dominance over the other -- rather than engage the other as a peer, and co-creator of that interaction. In other words, the writer doesn’t just write -- and reader be damned if they don’t understand it. What is centrally important is the shared understanding that should emerge from that interaction/communication.
It has profound implications for other venues such as the schools and universities. Many teachers think their job is to teach -- and the job of the student is to learn, but that it is not an interaction by which a shared understanding is emerging. The old model is just for the superior to insist that the inferior learn his point of view -- as though the student has nothing to contribute to the learning process. The student is simply acted upon by the instructor -- and both roles are reaffirmed. The student acknowledges his inferiority to the superior “master.”
In the new model of 21st century life, every individual plays all the roles, as it is appropriate for him to do so; at times he is the instructor and at others, he is the student. There is no struggle for superiority and dominance that is the justification for that interaction/communication. The tone of that communication tells as much or more than the actual words and arguments -- whether that relationship and regard is exploitative or not. An exploitative relationship seeks to establish that dominance. In a relationship between peers and equals, there is no energy wasted in that struggle -- as is common in much of the animal kingdom. Virtually all their communication and interactions is to establish and maintain that pecking order -- of who is more powerful than the other, on down.
Intelligent people realize such actions and activities are non- and counterproductive. So the object of language is not primarily to establish the superiority and dominance but to empower both. This is the language of the 21st century -- unlike that of the 20th century, dominated by the broadcast media, which gave rise to powerful propaganda campaigns because of this one-sided control of information and communications. That was the horror and abuse of media George Orwell, himself a journalist, warned the world about in his classics, Animal Farm and 1984.
When 1984 actually came around, the media proclaimed, “There is no danger here, everything is fine, we are in control.”
If this guy ever gives up politics, he defintely has a future in the blogosphere:
http://www.speaker.gov/journal/051102_househappenings.shtml
House Happenings This Week
posted by Denny Hastert @ 9:19am (11/2/05) | Section: Speaker’s Posts
Hi to all you out there.
Welcome back to my blog. I hope everyone had a safe Halloween. And I would like to offer my condolences again to the family of Rosa Parks. She gave a lot to our nation and her legacy lives on.
There has been a lot going on since I last checked in. Democrats are busy saying no to every proposal out there. Those of us in the House GOP are busy in another way. We’re passing legislation. We’re getting work done.
Today we’re taking up the Online Freedom of Speech Act. It’s a good bill. Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate are supporting it.
This bill is about all the folks out in the blogosphere. It’s going to protect what you say. It keeps the hand of the Federal government out of Internet speech.
Listen, I know that some of you out there may not agree with me on everything. That’s okay. But if you want the freedom to keep blogging and saying whatever you’re saying without government intervention, this is the bill to support.
There’s nothing wrong with political dialogue online. It’s public debate.
The fact of the matter is we’re going to continue to see new technologies. And that’s good. They’re helping people stay in touch with government – and become more involved with government. When I first started in the House, we got handwritten letters and phone calls from constituents. Now we’ve got email. And blogs.
There’s no reason to let the FEC load down political online messages with a bunch of bureaucracy and rules. I say, let the people debate online if they want to.
One more thing before I go: We’re taking up a bill dealing with eminent domain this week. This is big folks. It’s important stuff. I’m not sure how many of you followed this but in a Supreme Court decision earlier this year, there was a severe blow to the rights of property owners. In this ruling – it’s the Kelo case– the Supreme Court said that local governments can take property for economic development.
You can see things wrong with this ruling a mile away! This is saying that the city can come in and say ‘hey, we think we have a plan to build and raise tax revenues. Give us your home.’ I’m sorry. I just don’t think property owners shouldn’t be at the whims of the city government when it comes to keeping their homes. There’s something wrong with that. Our legislation will protect the rights of these property owners. It’s the right thing to do and I’m urging all of our House members to support it.
I’ve got to get back to work. Until next time. . .
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