After the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords, and its associated deaths and woundings, there was a common call for a return to civility in political discourse.

To date there seems to have been very little attention paid to what the term “Civil Discourse” might mean. The term cries out for attention by philosophers and linguistic analysts.

On the face of it civil discourse would appear to imply an exchange between two, or two groups of,  individuals with some degree of commitment to the truth and a willingness to change in the face of argument.

One or both of these conditions seems to be lacking in the current budget discussions, where neither side is paying real attention to the other… but doing it with the greatest possible courtesy.

Forget about writing letters to your members of congress or your state legislators, it’s time for some good old-fashioned labor action. Want corporations to pay a fairer share of taxes? Angry at Bank of America? Maybe it’s time for a sit-in. Sweet reason doesn’t seem to get the attention of our corporate masters.

Learn more about what’s planned and how you can participate  at US Uncut.

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 7th, 2011 at 8:52 am and is filed under Economics, Politics. Tags for this post: Balanced Budget, Civil Discourse, corporate taxes, Government Shut-down, Protest Action, Sit-Ins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.