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The Sound of Silence

The far right, the far left and special interest groups are well-funded, articulate, and exercise their democratic rights to shape public opinion. The rest of us either can't find our voice or can't get heard.
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"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence"

Simon and Garfunkel's 1964 lyrics seem worth revisiting in our 24/7- accessible world where silence seems as quaint as covered bridges and quiet contemplation. Yet amidst all the noise of cable, satellite, Web news, commentary, blogging, and chat, there are voices that are dim at best and unheard at worst. They are the voices of the moderate middle.

Consider just a few statistics from recent national polls on the opinions of Americans. In each case, the figure shown represents the predominant view in the poll:

  • 49% support the need to "build more nuclear power plants"

  • 56% favor "Congress passing new legislation this year to regulate energy output from private companies in an attempt to reduce global warming"
  • 49% favor "a law to ban the sale of assault weapons and semiautomatic rifles"
  • 63% think it is very important, in the coming months, "for Congress to act on legislation to address immigration policy"
  • 78% think that removing "the cap on the Social Security tax so that wage-earners who make more than107,000 a year continue to pay into Social Security" should be considered
  • The chance that any of these measures will be taken up in Congress, much less turned into legislation can be compared roughly to the chance that life will be discovered on the moon. Put simply, there is a disconnect between what the plurality (and often the majority) of Americans are willing to consider and what their legislators are even willing to discuss. Principal reasons, oft-noted, are that national politics is driven by the extremes and those with the most money. The far right, the far left and special interest groups are well-funded, articulate, and exercise their democratic rights to shape public opinion. The rest of us either can't find our voice or can't get heard. We have a vision in our brains, but it is locked in the sound of silence.

    Republican (small "r") government, as designed by the framers, only works to the extent that all voices are heard, that some reasonable compromises get made, and that the most widely shared values and solutions are enfolded in governmental action. When a majority of Americans lack a voice or an audience, government is less likely to be either trusted or effective.

    The "moderate middle" on most issues -- those with views toward the center of the political spectrum -- exists. It can be found among individuals, small and even national associations, and on the Web, but it is hard to hear. In part, its spokespersons are too isolated from each other or too divided by particular agendas. In part, those in the moderate middle have not seen the importance of forming alliances with those who have similar goals but individually lack, as they do, the power to get heard in the marketplace of ideas.

    In part, the moderate middle cannot get attention from national media because of the very fact that it is moderate, while the media seem to thrive on extremes and on conflict. As a case in point, count the media time devoted to recent attacks of the NAACP and the Tea Party on each other over who is the most racist. For the media, a "good" story is one that is strong enough to attract the distracted listener (and "strong" often gets translated as extreme, disturbing, and/or laced with anger). Otherwise, it is no story at all. If the story does not have "good guys vs. bad guys" -- or more usually now "bad guys vs. bad guys" -- it lacks sufficient punch to get on the air. If an issue is complex, that makes it even harder to draw the attention of media who have concluded that their advertisers will only support them if they cater to the audience that is too busy or too uninterested to think through anything presented in detail. Anyone up these days for a one-hour news special on the potential for clean nuclear energy or Social Security reform?

    We cannot leave it to the politicians to solve this problem. On both sides of the aisle, they seem to think they benefit from the current system. Some are so bold as to see no responsibility to even try to find the moderate middle in their own districts. A candidate for Congress in Virginia recently highlighted the problem when he proudly commented after winning his party's primary that he aimed to win the general election so he could "represent the district's conservative voters". He seems to have forgotten that somewhere close to half of those who live in his district will thus go unrepresented.

    The moderate middle is no more "right" on an issue than anyone else, but having their voice is necessary to get things right. As things stand now, in terms that echo Simon and Garfunkel, America has too many people "talking without speaking" and too many others "hearing without listening" and too many ideas encased in the sound of silence.

    "And in the naked light I saw
    Ten thousand people, maybe more
    People talking without speaking
    People hearing without listening
    People writing songs that voices never share
    And no one dared
    Disturb the sound of silence"

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