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Wednesday, March 18, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I N I O
N
Rachel
Marsden
American Voices
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone
number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not neces-
sarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters
submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or
returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
To the Editor:
The Nugget article “Truckers take on
‘roundabout rodeo’” (The Nugget, March
4, page 1) presumes that the roundabout is a
done deal.
According to ODOT there is going to be
a public forum this spring in Sisters. I sin-
cerely hope that The Nugget keeps all of us
informed of the dates and times.
Carin Baker
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I read in The Nugget that a mockup of the
proposed Highway 20/Barclay Drive round-
about was tested by professional truck drivers
and they approved of it.
Good, but it got me to thinking: when will
the promised community meeting be held? It
seems that the citizens who will be paying
for this and will have to live with it should
also have some say in this project. Isn’t the
purpose of the meeting to help the commu-
nity learn more and voice their opinions on
having a roundabout or a traffic signal at that
location? City Council, please schedule the
meeting that you promised.
Pat Norman
s
s
s
To The Editor:
I know I’m not alone in saying a BIG
“Yahoo!” to the end of the insane back in
parking. Just another thumbs up to common
sense.
Kelsey Collins
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I believe The Nugget has a done an
See LetterS on page 26
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PARIS — One of the
most alarming things about
Islamic State terrorists
is how effective they’ve
become at creating propa-
ganda — slickly produced
videos depicting violent acts
against their captives, paired
with various denunciations
of Western foreign policy
and related demands. In
some cases these videos fea-
ture recruits from Western
nations attempting to reach
out to vulnerable youth. And
judging by the estimated
hundreds (and counting)
who have been lured from
the comfort of democratic
Western states into battle-
fields in the Middle East, the
recruiting effort seems to be
working. But why?
Propaganda is most effec-
tive when it’s able to skirt
the radar of logic, reason
and self-awareness. It only
loses its power once people
can see the manipulation.
Manipulation detection is a
skill. The underdevelopment
of that skill is why some
people get all misty-eyed
when they see Toyota’s “My
Bold Dad” ad, featuring a
father sending his daugh-
ter off to military service. A
healthier reaction would be
to get annoyed at the blatant
manipulation, with Toyota
playing on your love of fam-
ily and country in order to
sell you a Camry.
And it’s telling that when
the same ad was recently
spoofed in a “Saturday Night
Live” skit, with the dad
sending his daughter off to
join the Islamic State, many
viewers who connected with
the Toyota ad got angry at
“SNL” and defensive of the
original manipulation.
The most brilliant thing
about the “SNL” skit was
that it evoked a public
reaction illustrating pre-
cisely why Western nations
are such fertile recruiting
grounds for the Islamic
State. We have become far
too emotional and far too
vulnerable — to the exclu-
sion of reason and logic.
Critical thinking is the anti-
dote to propagandist subver-
sion, but we live in a culture
that rarely rewards thought
anymore.
Instead, an increasing
number of us are easily
excited by simplistic appeals
to base emotion, like viral
videos of cats, interpersonal
drama depicted on reality
television shows, or even the
idea of a “Bush vs. Clinton”
showdown in the next U.S.
presidential race.
The Islamic State has
access to the same media as
the rest of the world. They
see the so-called leaders
in the U.S. Congress act-
ing like petulant children
over the visit of Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. They see
Republican senators firing
off a letter to Iranian lead-
ers, letting them know that
President Obama is wast-
ing his time on a potential
nuclear agreement. It doesn’t
take a rocket scientist to see
that this kind of insecure
emoting projects a collec-
tive weakness that’s ripe for
exploitation.
So where the West is
showing weakness — aside
from its inability to wipe
out the Islamic State in short
order despite all the high-
powered defense and intel-
ligence resources available
— the Islamic State is using
its videos to project its illu-
sion of strength, primarily
by appealing to emotion.
One might ask how a vio-
lent organization that lops
off people’s heads could suc-
cessfully appeal to anyone
on such an irrational level.
The answer lies in what we
— that is, Western society
— have allowed ourselves
to become over the past few
decades.
As KGB propaganda
expert turned Soviet defector
Yuri Bezmenov explained
during a talk in Los Angeles
in 1983, people become vul-
nerable to subversion when
their education moves away
from science, math, phys-
ics and foreign languages
toward less rigorous studies
like, as Bezmenov enumer-
ated, “history of urban war-
fare, natural foods, home
economics and sexuality.”
We have largely unbur-
dened ourselves from the
rigors of critical thinking in
favor of “feeling.” We have
emotional leaders, emotional
entertainment and emotional
debates. We vote for the nice
guys rather than the smart
ones. The good news is that
it’s reversible — but we have
to first recognize and admit
to having this problem.
© 2015 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.