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Pastimes : Where the GIT's are going -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (196274)	7/4/2010 11:00:18 AM
From: ManyMoose	4 Recommendations Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 225578

"The Overton Window" is Glenn Beck's book. He provided the energy and the ideas, and got a ghostwriter. It's quite well-written and hard to put down. About 25 years ago I learned the following concept and used it in a presentation: Everybody has a 'belief window.' You can't NOT have a belief window because if you believe you don't have one then your belief window is that you don't have a belief window. Everything that you do, say, accept, reject, or act on is controlled by your belief window. The Overton Window is a 'belief window' that represents the collective view. It slides along a scale that ranges from the most to the least of something. For example, freedom. The least amount of freedom is tyranny, where everything is controlled by the people with the most power. The most amount of freedom is anarchy, where everybody can do pretty much what they want. Neither is an acceptable state in the collective view. The point of Beck's book is that the Overton Window can be manipulated by those who understand it. That is, if people can be persuaded to give up little bits of their point of view by creating or taking advantage of an event that they can't ignore. Who was it that recently said "Never let a good crisis go to waste"? Acting on a crisis can cause people to move their Overton Window one way or the other. The BP oil spill is a classic example. Nobody, even the most callous, can ignore the BP oil spill. Some people want to stop oil drilling everywhere and move to windmills. Others say "see what you environmentalists did when you blocked shallow water drilling? You forced us into deep water and now this happens." EVERYBODY's point of view changed. Those in power were as clueless as to what to do about the Overton Window as they were about the environmental damage caused by the BP spill. Now suppose somebody wanted to set up a scenario that would move the Overton Window on something. I'll use Gun Control as an example because I have a point of view on that. These people in my example want to move the Overton Window toward more gun control. They could do that by orchestrating a massacre that was so egregious even people like me would start saying "repeal the Second Amendment," or at the very least, be more passive in defending the Second Amendment. They could justify the killings to themselves because they would say "See, we got rid of the scourge of guns and saved all the lives that would be lost in the future because of guns!" I do recommend that you read Beck's book. It is very contemporary, exciting, and filled with "could have" happened action as well as "did happen" action. If you read it, you will understand how we are constantly manipulated by people who know how to do it.