Clever Tactic

Discussion in 'Serious' started by Major, 6 Aug 2008.

  1. Cthippo

    Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

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    Oh, it gets better than that, Gooey. Remember "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth"? Karl Rove, realizing the advantage that Kerry's service gave him created the group to attack Kerry on his war record. The attacks were of course bull, but the American sheeple fell for it and re-elected the shrub.

    Bush did the same thing against John McCain in 2000, starting an unsubstantiated rumor that McCain had fathered an illegetimate black child. The media of course picked up this rumor and repeated it until it became fact in many people's minds.

    An even more egregious example and modern American politics was the campaign against Harold Ford, an African American running for the Senate from Tennessee. I'll let Wiki tell the story...

    The problem here is not so much the ads themselves, but that the people watching them lack the critical thinking skills to realize that they are bull.
     
  2. padrejones2001

    padrejones2001 Puppy Love

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    Well 90% or more of those are from Fox News. Those guys are about as in touch with reality as Bush.
     
  3. Gooey_GUI

    Gooey_GUI Wanted: Red Shirts

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    Fox commentator, Tony Snow, was given the slot of White House press secretary.

     
  4. johnmustrule

    johnmustrule What's a Dremel?

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    Actually considering they lost to him in a majority vote, (though there is that fiddly bit about the punch card polls) then I would have to say they both where probably pretty bad choices too. There's simply no higher insult than losing a poll for leadership against George Bush. George also won the electoral vote :/ and you have to remember that there is also that crazy video Al gore made "An Inconvenient Truth". I would argue that he was the least harmful candidate because people obviously felt he was the best choice not once but two times. I think it's rather silly when polls show him as the least popular president when the same people voted for him in two elections, though I'm not arguing the fact that he's unpopular with the public right now.
     
  5. Prestidigitweeze

    Prestidigitweeze "Oblivion ha-ha" to you, too.

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    Good points, Cthippo. However, the genesis of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth is more clandestine than that. It was Richard Nixon, steeped in the methods of Joe McCarthy, who became galled by a young Vietnam vet named Kerry and created that cadre of catcallers. Kerry had had the arrogance to speak out against a war in which he'd participated actively and won several medals. Nixon, creator of the Pink Lady smear campaign and future engineer of Watergate, responded by ensuring funding for the Swift Boats in exchange for attacking Kerry's credibility. Even today, they're effectively bounty hunters for the right. Search for the debate between Kerry and attorney SVaPOWfT spokesperson, John O'Neill, on a 60s talk show called Dick Cavett and you'll see the result.

    The problem isn't that the majority of American voters are "stupid" -- potentially, they're as intelligent as anyone else -- but that they're systematically misinformed by their media. This is due in part to the consolidation of media ownership in the past twenty years (see the reports of FAIR -- Fairness and Accuracy in Journalism -- and a number of books on the subject, the earliest of which might be Unreliable Sources, published in the 80s). A large part is due, in my opinion, to Reagan's FCC stooge, Mark Fowler, who was the first person in government to repeal parts of the Fairness Doctrine: by 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was abolished entirely. Without it, the media are free to misrepresent and opine on either side of any issue. Old American newsmen will tell you that, in the 50s and 60s, they couldn't report a political scandal without having two credible witnesses. Today, they can report the whisper of a rumor.

    Another odd phenomenon: The shifting of the terms right and left in the American vocabulary under the influence of Fox News and other right wing media. Shouting heads now refer to democrat loyalists as the "far left," and many Americans parrot this incorrect terminology. They also call candidates like McCain and Bush "centrists." This amounts to brainwashing by hyperbole, the same sort that once had Rush Limbaugh calling feminists "feminazis" and illiterates like Jonah Goldman using the oxymoron "liberal fascist" seriously. (By the way: Goldberg claims George Orwell's writings suggested that idea. I'd love to know what Orwell would say about that.)
     
    Last edited: 11 Aug 2008
  6. I'm_Not_A_Monster

    I'm_Not_A_Monster Hey, eat this...

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    heeey, thats my country here folks. we keep bringing up the past because we think we can live in it indefinitely.

    i got a question for the Europeans here, i saw pictures of the speech Obama did in Berlin, and i saw people waving the American flag. except for 9/11 i haven't seen that happen for a long time unless the flag was on fire. Do you guys that follow American politics really feel this way about Obama? I would love to have a president that managed to create some goodwill from the rest of the world.

    I already got it planned out with my friends, if we ever travel outside the country, we're canadian. Maybe with a little respect for our real country we won't have to lie?
     
  7. C-Sniper

    C-Sniper Stop Trolling this space Ądmins!

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    Yey for having a tri-citizenship:p (US, Canadaian, UK)

    I have been doing some research on the candidates and i prefer Obama's ideas over McCains. He[Obama] seems to want to promote a better outlook of America to the rest of the world. Which is a great thing considering that we have become an isolationist state ever since Bush and Chertoff took office. With them we have been more interested in keeping people out of the country.
     
  8. Mother-Goose

    Mother-Goose 5 o'clock somewhere

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    One of the lines was "he was mimising the sacrifices of John McCain", no he bloody wasn't, he was saying that those aren't credentials to base a presidency on, which is common sense surely!? And putting 'Disses' on the news, oh come on, KIDS!!!



    I'm not sure if I speak for the rest of the europe here or not, but my personal feelings are that Obama would be much better for international relations, he seems like a guy we'd like to be in charge of a superpower, he talks more sense, and, more importantly, so do his supporters.

    The flags could be ex-pats though so don't worry too much lol
     
  9. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    don't even think of voting on the other guys, if Obama looses the election i will personally label every USA tourist i see here as an idiot.:grr:
    edit: i will also kick them in the ass.


    BTW, Bush won the first time because of a court order, if Al Gore was president at the time we would not be in this sticky bloody mess!
     
  10. Prestidigitweeze

    Prestidigitweeze "Oblivion ha-ha" to you, too.

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    I hope you're being ironic, since you must have noticed that many of the people who posted here are Americans. I happen to have American citizenship as well; my mother lives in the US. Deep dissatisfaction with the US government's international and domestic policy, and the deliberate failure of the media to inform American voters, is not antithetical to being an American.

    I do, however, consider the suppression of dissent -- whether by economic pressure, underreporting or social ostracism -- to be profoundly un-American. In terms of individual freedom, civil rights mean nothing without social equality.

    Though I'm able to claim dual citizenship in checkpoint situations, I predict that international travel will be far less painful for all Americans if Obama wins. I predict that an Obaman presidency will help to repair Bush's damage to our international reputation no matter what Obama's international policy turns out to be.

    No election's outcome represents the position of "every American." If McCain does get elected, you might be "kicking the asses" of individuals who did everything in their power to prevent another four years of right-wing policy. In which case, the same people you'd be kicking are kicked by the right every day, which would effectively put you on the same side as Bush and McCain.
     
    Last edited: 11 Aug 2008
  11. Gooey_GUI

    Gooey_GUI Wanted: Red Shirts

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    Americans not stupid

    "An Inconvenient Truth" has no place in a discussion about politics. This is true especially when you consider that Gore didn't come out with it until many years later, and he has pretty much stood away from politics ever since the 2000 election.

    In the 2004 election, John Kerry lost Ohio by less than 100,000 votes and that was tie breaker state. Bush still did not have a strong national mandate.
     
  12. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    change of plans:

    ask who they voted for, then kick them in the ass and call them idiots if they voted on McCain, or, buy them a beer if they voted on Obama.

    happy now?:thumb:
     
  13. Gooey_GUI

    Gooey_GUI Wanted: Red Shirts

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    If they answer that they voted for McCain then ask if they voted for Bush. If they say yes then ask how many times. This would give you a chance to kick them in the ass three times.

    :clap:
     
  14. I'm_Not_A_Monster

    I'm_Not_A_Monster Hey, eat this...

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    bit-tech.net is the leading independent hardware review and PC modification site in the UK.

    so yes, pres, there might be a lot of americans, but not every website is based in the US
     
  15. Cthippo

    Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

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    And furthermore, most of the Americans on the site agree that many of their fellow americans were ****tards for voting republican!
     
  16. johnmustrule

    johnmustrule What's a Dremel?

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    I'm not saying Americans are stupid, that would be helplessly ironic for a kansan and fellow citizen. I read your other post "Americans aren't stupid" which is very nicely done, but it's probably less relevant than the inconvenient truth point I made. You may want to blame Gore's failure on Clintons idiocrity, but in the end his relation to the man was not very substantial in the view of the American public. Much like the Obama/Rev connection that's being over done right now which is easily more substantial than the Clinton/Gore relationship. Why? because Clinton wasn't telling Gore he committed adultery, unlike the opened face sharing of ideals between Obama and his reverend. On the other hand there are the polls, which as ****ed up as the punch card one's where, they only served to offset California's obvious bias, the votes of that region which were quite ridiculous.

    http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm Observe the bias

    On top of that Bush lost the majority vote by less than 1% which is basically saying they were equally popular, except on the west coast where people think they're better educated for some reason.

    My point about "an inconvenient truth" was that a person who went on after a failed go at presidency and created that load of horse **** should have never been president. My point being in the end, that even though Bush might have had a shady win or questionable favorability, he did in fact win and legally did so. And 100,000 votes is not a small number even in the elections.
     
  17. Firehed

    Firehed Why not? I own a domain to match.

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    Yup. I've been perpetually dissatisfied with my country and most of its inhabitants for at least the last half-decade.
     
  18. Gooey_GUI

    Gooey_GUI Wanted: Red Shirts

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    Comparing Gore/Clinton and Obama/Rev is really far from the mark. By Clinton's actions he negated his ability to provide substantial support during the 2000 campaign.

    This was not about Bush getting elected or not. Because he was elected that is obvious. My point is he was not elected out of stupidity.

    119,000 votes looks pretty small if you look at the numbers. He didn't have a very clear mandate in Ohio or it wouldn't have been that close.

    George W. Bush of Texas Richard Cheney of Wyoming Republican 2,858,727 50.82%
    John Kerry of Massachusetts John Edwards of North Carolina Democrat 2,739,952 48.70%
     
  19. Mother-Goose

    Mother-Goose 5 o'clock somewhere

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    But back to the main point of this article, there wasn't any belitteling of McCains 5 years as a POW, the point being made was "how does being a POW mean you are going to be a good presidential candidate", which is a very good point, how does it? The other point, commanding a non-combat air unit, again, a good point, and he's not said Obama has had the experience, he's simply stated that these two events don't actually add up to having political experience, and therefore the ability to run a country.

    I am so surprised at the media's reaction to it, taking it well out of context and blowing it out of all proportion. He's not attacking McCains military record is he, he's attacking his qualifications to be president, which is surely what the opposition in a presidential race is suppose to do?
     
  20. padrejones2001

    padrejones2001 Puppy Love

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    Couldn't agree more.
     

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