Cutting Carbon Emissions

First, a rant: most members of Congress are either lawyers or businesspeople. They know what “fiduciary responsibility” is. It means reading and understanding each and every bill that they vote upon.

Congress has not met this duty for a long time. Instead . . .

• They carelessly pass mammoth bills that none of them have read. Sometimes printed copies aren't even available when they vote.


• Often no one knows what these bills contain, or what they really do, or what they will cost.


• Additions and deletions are made at the last minute, often in secrecy.


• They combine unpopular proposals with popular measures that few in Congress want to oppose.

Once these bills are passed, and one of these unpopular proposals comes to light, they pretend to be shocked. “How did that get in there?”

America was founded on the slogan: “No taxation without representation.” It's not as catchy but perhaps we need another slogan: “No legislation without representation.”

Now, for cutting carbon emissions: the legislative process - to debate a strategic issue and negotiate a legal solution - involves fact gathering and discussion. The process includes sifting through biased and often selfish information sources and involves the art of persuasion, creative thinking, and manipulation as well as strength of character, due diligence and altruism.

Cutting carbon emissions - a world-wide issue of momentous magnitude - is a perfect example of how things are supposed to work.

There are thousands of industry groups. The automotive industry is one case in point. The industry has almost one hundred groups representing the various types of labor, parts suppliers, steel makers, the car manufactures, the truckers, shippers and other transportation industries, the sellers and dealerships, the engineers, the computer people, etc. And they each have a different point of view regarding what to do about reducing carbon emissions and how so doing will effect their group.

Each industry group attempts to present their point of view to the congressional committee members that might have influence on the development of a legislative proposal to address the problem. They also lobby staffers and reporters as well. Most such groups hire paid lobbyists to target and approach key legislators and staff members. Many of these paid lobbyists are ex- (or present) political consultants or ex-members or staff of the very Congress they are lobbying. Their very familiarity with the players gives them a bit more access than anyone else.

How does each group make it's point of view known, heard and favorably received? In caustic terms, one might say that cash opens the door and long-term economic promises keep them open for comments and rebuttals. Even if cash were taken out of the equation, it's still in everyone's interest to gather and hear information from every source before negotiating a solution.

Here's where integrity enters the picture. In recent years many committees and committee members have actually let industry groups draft the legislation that is then proposed by the committee.

Where did the due diligence go? The fiduciary responsibility?

Although extremely partisan members of congress might say that no money changed hands, how much does one favor his "friends" versus doing what's right for his country and constituents?

Only a new slate of players - elected officials with ethics, responsibility, and a passion for change - can sift through the partisanship, one sidedness and unfairness to craft a solution to cutting carbon emissions.

Psychology and Politics

"Fear of death has the highest correlation with being conservative" says scholar and author Frank Sulloway.

Many recent studies prove that the fear of death drives people to demonize those who hold different world views or beliefs about life and death. Tragically, most people are willing to sacrifice themselves in war to preserve their nation’s or religion’s particular symbols of immortality in a desperate attempt to achieve a sense of mastery over death. On a lesser scale, people can be – and are – manipulated using pseudo fears that elicit the same psychological reaction(s). Thus the title of this message: Psychology and Politics.

There are many studies, and many government-funded ones after 9/11, that delve into the psychology of politics. Particularly, that identify characteristics which differentiate between liberal and conservative ideologies.

• Three books by George Lakoff: Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think; Metaphors We Live By; and Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives.


• Other books by Jost (Political Psychology: Key Readings (Key Readings in Social Psychology)), Kruglansky (The Psychology of Closed Mindedness (Essays in Socialpsychology)) and Sulloway (Born to Rebel) provide in-depth research useful to identify distinguishing characteristics of conservative and liberal personalities.


• The Origins of Ethic Strife, Mind and Human Interaction, Vol 7, #4, 1996, Robert W. Firestone.


• In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror, Pysczynski, Solomon, Greenberg.

Consider these examples from a NY Times article by Patricia Cohen:

• Most liberals think about morality in terms of two categories: how someone's welfare is affected, and whether it is fair. Conservatives, by contrast, broden that definition to include loyalty, respect for authority, and purity or sanctity.


• There is a whole dimension to human experience best described as divinity or sacredness that conservatives are more attuned to.


• Offices and bedrooms of conservatives tended to be neat and contain cleaning supplies, calendars, postage stamps and sports-related posters; bold-colored, cluttered rooms with art supplies, lots of books, jazz CDs and travel documents tended to belong to Democrats.

Thinking cynically, this is wonderful material for political strategists. Imagine what they could do with a presidential campaign budget and these targeting tidbits. They could slice and dice messages that would inflame religious fervor, patriotism, fear of terrorism, and loyalty to either enlist the conservatives or provoke the liberals (depending on who the consultant was working for). And they could match their voter and cable channel databases against consumer purchasers of jazz CDs, members of book clubs, etc. to further enable accurate demographic targeting.

I wasn't always this cynical. I used to be a believer, particularly in Democrats and their social consciousness. But dirty politics has bred dirty politicians on both sides making them indistinguishable in their infighting and fundraising; only in their positioning are they different -- they are still Democrats and Republicans with major differences in beliefs and wants and an inability to compromise for the common good.

When people are fearful or exasperated, they forget that we're all just like one another. They forget that if other people have different colored skins or religious practices that, nevertheless, they are human and have human desires and aspirations, that they're fragile, hurting, have a limited life span - that they're just like us.

As psychologist Robert Firestone said in his interview with Fred Branfman, "It's madness to be rigid: to define God in your own terms in a way that excludes other people's beliefs. It's madness to think that our way is right and everybody else is wrong. It's even the definition of insanity where you think everybody's wrong and you're right."

Click to see the 5-minute video clip from the interview:

It's time to remember that we're all the same. It's time to teach it in our schools and secondary media (like movies and commentaries) and from our pulpits and bully pulpits. It's time to teach people a world view full of complexities yet that we're all the same, that to be at odds about belief systems and to be defensive is criminal when it leads to destroying other people. This I believe and this I hope will happen when we get a different administration.

Let me introduce myself

For the past six months I've jotted down my thoughts about various political issues, particularly those involving the campaign process. All the while I've hidden my identity and wondered what right I had to put my thoughts out on the Internet, what credibility I had, even what value my ideas and opinions might have, and that it was naive of me to think otherwise. But a few things happened these last six months which have caused me to rethink my situation. In addition to developing a small but regular group of readers, I've come to believe that silence is an endemic problem gripping our society, country and global leadership, and I value my opinions and comments and want them to be heard and read.

So let me introduce myself: Frank Tobe, partner and then owner of the firm Below, Tobe & Associates, Inc., and founder/owner of APT (Applied Political Technologies) Inc. Both developed and segmented political databases somewhat similar to what Karl Rove has done, and both provided political direct mail of all types. Ten years ago I sold or dissolved both.

Vanity Fair's December issue had an article about Rove in which the author described Rove's process of splitting versus lumping -- discriminating versus celebrating inherent similarities -- indicating that Rove was a divider and FDR and Ronald Reagan were lumpers (consolidators).

For 25 years I was in the same business as Rove but never went as far as him in the splitting process because part of his process was to also use his information as a wedge to widen the divisiveness and inflame the fears of that split rather than try to unite around some issue or candidate that could help provide a real solution.

I wanted to differentiate my activities from Rove's and say that my companies and the clients that we worked with, mostly attempted to use niche targeting to get people's attention but then to talk about generic, consolidating, real issues. Although I've been out and away from the business for the last 10 years, I've followed the process and the players with interest and recently, with dismay. Today's extensive national databases and slice-and-dice software are so enabling, and the temptations so great to inflame divisiveness to get the results wanted, that altruism and the pursuit of fairness in politics are almost lost in the process. Although I'm glad I'm no longer part of that business and have no desire to reenter, I think it important to speak out -- because silence is part of the problem and I want to be part of the solution... and to consolidate and unite my friends and readers in the process.

So . . . welcome to my blog.

Manipulation Is Manipulation No Matter How You Spin It

Where do you all those political consultants go when the election cycle is over?

They do commercial work for large corporations. Although they have to moderate their techniques, manipulation is manipulation no matter where or how you spin it.

Consider CEO salaries. During the Clinton years a law was passed attempting to put a ceiling on the disparity between CEO and the average employee salary difference and make salaries more performance-based. It also put the burden of monitoring and officiating on the board of directors. But shortly after the law was passed (1993) so many loopholes were found that, for a paltry $5,000 consulting fee, any tax lawyer or accountant could document how a particular corporation and their board of directors met the requirements of the law (but not the moral implied law that was intended). So the serious disparities have continued undeterred. The anecdotes of seemingly ludicrous CEO pay never stop; every week a fresh batch of fat cats parade as examples of capitalism run amok.

When the head of a company gets $200 million for his severance package but was fired for lack of performance there is a riple effect throughout the corporation and the business world. Loyalties diminish; schisms widen; paranoia increases; profits are wrongly used (in this case $200 million of profits); and hopes for a better life working within that corporation are dashed. By the way, you and I are paying a good portion of that $200 million because it's tax deductible to the corporation.

Call in the spin masters to try and mitigate the damage. Release the information around Christmas time when no one is paying attention; release information slowly and in confusing terms; obfuscate. One form of obfuscation is to commission an economic analysis of how CEO's (and their top-5 team of similar highly paid executives) enhance corporate performance and support their outrageous pay. There are a lot of non-profit economic think tanks and universities that can use the commission money AND, if you don't like what they write, trash it and find another one that reports what you need it to say. Release those studies around the same time as the damaging information is released. Now THAT'S obfuscation!

It's sad and shameful that things aren't improving and that spinmasters are exacerbating the situation by clouding the facts. It's immoral that this year's top paid CEO got $254 million (Forbes). That's 7,000 times greater than the average salary for his corporation! SEVEN THOUSAND TIMES!

I think it naive that the new Democrat Congress will make any inroads in this area but I'm forwarding a copy of this blog to my congresswoman and two senators just in case.