This article was first published in 2013 however I’m republishing it because of the first paragraph. I do plan to do a complete article on this individual next week.

BEFORE I get into this week’s particularly vexing topic, I want to spare a moment on something far more positive – Malala Yousafzai (my Hero)The name itself might not trigger anything because for most of us it is a difficult one to remember. What people do remember is her story, that of a young Pakistani girl who was shot in the head last year for speaking out against the oppression and

barbarism of Taliban rule in her community, including the restriction against young women being able to attend school. Instead of silencing her, the attack

turned her into an international celebrity and attracted attention and support for the very cause she was championing. This year, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace. She did not win, but was recently invited to the White House to spend time with US President Barack Obama and his family. She will win next year.
In a statement she issued after meeting with Obama, himself a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, she was as tactful as she was direct:
“I thanked President Obama for the United States’ work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees. I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.”
Simply delivered, with a clarity of message, in a country that right now seems in dire need of such skill in the management of its public affairs. It is amazing to me, and I am an avid follower of the American political system, that one of the major crises in the history of US administration has been negotiated not on nuanced, principled and flexible arguments, but essentially on static talking points, particularly from the Republican side, which are beginning to sound increasingly hollow in the aftermath of the government shutdown.
But what is a talking point? In terms of the US political system, a talking point is usually an encapsulation of a key aspect of a more complex issue. For example, if the larger topic is abortion legislation reform, one talking point could be about “the moment of conception”, since this is a particular emotive issue.
I understand the temptation of sticking to talking points as a means of communicating a particularly complex policy position to people who might not otherwise understand the issues at hand. However, what is particularly vexing to me is that in the recent conflict between the Republican Party and the Democratically-led White House, the larger issue of healthcare reform seems to have completely disappeared and replaced entirely replaced by the talking points.
For example, when former advisor to the White House, Van Jones, recently confronted Ted Cruz – the Republican who has led effort to defund Obamacare, and who engineered the shutdown as a means of trying to force the government’s hand – about his recommendations to replace Obamacare, Cruz’s response was a repetition of the talking point that millions of Americans are hurting because of Obamacare.
The thing is, the Republican Party has carried on with these talking points even as the shutdown has rebounded to damage them politically, with absolutely no gains to show for it.
Another dimension to this is what can only be considered the complicity of the media in propagating these talking points. Without the media reporting on them, talking points would largely remain notes on some politician’s notepad. It is the media coverage that gives these talking points life, that seems them spreading from person to person in any meaningful way.
Ted Cruz and his vocal minority have been handed the level of leverage that they enjoyed in the lead-up to the shutdown largely because an uncritical media have reported what they have to say as fact, which in turn resulted in the deliberate or miseducation of a large enough section of the populace, a demographic that was then used as a weapon against the rest of a political party more interested in staying in office than in confronting an issue with the sort of consideration and room for manouevre that it needed.
Here is what I am afraid of – while it is clear that Cruz’ star is on the decline, it may well be that the people behind him (the Koch brothers and the Tea Party extremists), might have just refined a formula for disruption in the most influential democracy in the world. All they have to do is come up with a set of talking points, however flawed, on any issue; give it to a shameless politician to adopt as their personal crusade; ensure that it is fed to an unquestioning media which then reports it as gospel to a population that increasingly prefers its information in bullet points; and then turn that population against progressive initiatives designed to benefit it.
Don’t Worry, The Opposition in Guyana also has its talking points for example Around Corruption.

CONGRATULATIONS MALALA!

(By Keith Burrowes)