104th Madeira Consorcio Meeting 16.1.2019

Feb 17, 2019 at 12:35 pm | Posted in Posts | Leave a comment
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We met in a new venue the RESTOCK workshop room in Armazém do Mercado and I think it went very well!

The owners did a great job in providing and managing the technology  and we enjoyed the videos and then ensuing discussion.

The videos were:

  1. A Talk by Leon Berg about the art of listening with the “Council” way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iDMuB6NjNA

  1. Julian Treasure: 5 way to listen better:

https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better

The art of listening is under threat by the influx of media information we are receiving. C. said that we need to deliberately speak to persons who are not of our opinion, and try to understand them.

This, almost automatically, lead to Donald Trump, who does not display great talent in this area.

Cl. volunteered to portray Trump, and he did a great job in arguing from this standpoint, we had a lot of fun with that!!  Trump’s arguments for a wall to Mexico and a trade war were the main points.

There was the argument that the success Trump and other such political personalities have, is based on fear-mongering. Drugs are not coming across the US Mexican border, they are coming in planes and trucks, and M. knows somebody “inside” who told him that even the CIA is involved in the flourishing drug trade to the US today, as they were back in Vietnam and Laos. There is a movie about the events back then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(film)

So a wall wouldn’t help to solve this problem.

The trade war: our “Trump” argued that as China has grown disproportionally, the old trade deals are unfair and must be revoked.

The argument went that Trump is just a façade for the people who are really in charge (Have a look at Noam Chomsky: “Donald Trump is a Distraction” on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uQvig0KvUaE)

D. said that 1% of the world population, the rich, are really managing the USA. Democracy is not supposed to work like this.

G said that the people who are really in power, manipulate the legislation to be in their favour and they will not be voted or kicked out of office like Trump. They will remain in power, and we have no way of identifying them and des-empowering them.

Do. said that Trump is a perfect actor for this kind if disguise, and that he will be even more powerful once he is out of office, he will remain a big “influencer” for years to come.

We also spoke about the fact that less and less people are voting. Cl. – as Himself – pointed out that most of the first-time voters in the 2016 election in the US voted for Trump so he managed to get out the vote. (Voting in the US takes place on a Tuesday, instead of on the weekend.)

Fact checking websites can be found here:

https://researchguides.library.syr.edu/c.php?g=258130&p=1725901

If any team member comes across an info, listing the Portuguese party programmes and affiliations for the European elections in May, please let U.know, this can be distributed to the whole group so that we know what we are voting for.

Other info:u!

One upcoming topic might be a discussion about the speed in which we are being fed news, and if we shouldn’t deliberately slow down our intake.

 

 

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