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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Billionaires have impoverished our political process

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Twenty-three centuries ago, Aristotle aptly described the means of persuasion, valid to this day. Ethos appealed to credibility, logos to reason and pathos to emotion. Each rhetorical form can be used to demonize and dehumanize, or summon our “better angels” to dignify all as inherent equals. Which wins is the one we feed.

Demagogues, loose with “facts”, pander to prejudice and ignorance. They move away from and against those who are different, exploiting hate, fear and anger for self-serving advantage. Through dignity we appeal to our “better angels” by speaking truth to power in the spirit of cooperation and altruism by moving toward and with others. Social responsibility helps to overcome our worst proclivities. What we feast on we become!

Fox News sponsored the GOP debate to kick off a carnival of campaign rhetoric. Shrill “dog whistles,” code words and deregulated vitriol signaled their real intent by attacking immigrants, minorities, women and the poor to preserve the power of the rich white male system. The billionaire class has turned politics into a trivialized travesty of intolerance and malicious intent by demagogues hired to demean and divide. Racism, xenophobia, sexism and classism are at the core of extreme inequality. Class warfare has destroyed the middle-class leaving in its wake impoverishment as the new normal.

Ethos should give us the courage of character to face the truth. Logos empowers us with reason to dispel all attempts at distraction. Pathos enables us to empathize with those deprived, destitute and degraded. Overturning the policies and practices in our economy that overwhelmingly stack in favor of the few and against the excluded many is the only decent thing to do. We are what we feast on!

Harold Honkola

Tower, Minn.