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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 11:45:30 [Permalink]
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Kil.....
| Also, Bill, last night the convention trotted out a 9/11 film to demonstrate how the republicans have made us safe from attack. And they will continue to play that card because it got Bush reelected. Fear is the name of their game, and it works |
I believe you have illustrated the most salient point of this election - the fear factor. The reason I see a dead heat ending in a tiny margin for McPalin is precisely that.
Gut, primal emotion trumps rationality every time. And the Commander-in-Chief issue is the strongest weapon in McCain's arsenal. But it is a treacherous, double-edged blade, capable of seriously wounding it's wielder. The utter inexperience of the Ice Princess in anything other than murdering helpless Moose certainly can be used with devastating effect against McPalin, particularly considering the age, and cancerous fragility of Jailbird John.
Obama, and Biden, must use devastating finesse and insidious implication in portraying the McPalin ticket as as ticking time-bomb with the potential of placing a hocky-puck mom with far fewer qualifications than Barbie in the position of our Commander in Chief!
If they would but take a page from the rancid Rovian repertoire, and get cunningly cutthroat in emphasizing Old John's vulnerable venerability - in this sense, literally killing him with kindness; they could instill a sense of fragility about him and demonstrate the probability of Palin succeeding him early in term.
Combine this with a demonstration of insouciant Sarah's callow ignorance and some serious doubts of the wisdom of this McPalin governence can be engendered. His "wealth" of experience and brass-busting militaristic credentials can be enormously tarnished by a clever portrayal of him as a sick old man likely to die and push a totally inexperienced neophyte into the most powerful power seat in the world.
Obama's scruples may well place him above such scurrilious politics. If so, he has gone to a gun fight packing a Swiss Army knife.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 09/05/2008 : 12:49:40 [Permalink]
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The political high road is for AFTER you win.
But hell, the dems have been losing the spin game to republicans for 28 years. Why stop now?
Cheap straw-man arguments work in politics because most of the people voting have never heard the phrase "informal fallacy". Credit 20 of the last 28 years, and the corresponding republican presidents, for dumbing down US education.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 12:56:34 [Permalink]
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A comment on these "daily tracking polls":
In US federal elections we use an electoral college. Each state's electors are all assigned to the candidate who wins that state.
The daily tracking polls have no correlation to who is actually winning an election unless they are done state by state and the electoral votes are projected.
The media fucking LOVES them some daily tracking poll though! It adds drama and suspense! It creates a false sense of neck to neck competition! Just how the rednecks like their NASCAR is how they like politics on TV, wrecks, explosions, and a photo-finish at the line.
So that is what our news channels strive to bring their audience.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 13:07:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Just how the rednecks like their NASCAR is how they like politics on TV, wrecks, explosions, and a photo-finish at the line.
So that is what our news channels strive to bring their audience.
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Dude.....it's been a while since I've spent much time here....but you appear to be even more cynical than I remember. Not that I blame you.....I think I'm joining you.
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I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 13:39:15 [Permalink]
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Dude......
| What dems need to do is use the same rhetorical methods that have been used against them. |
Dude, much as I hate being in the same sandbox with you, what you have said is dead-on!
Obama is showing signs of coming down from his ivory pedestal and wafting a little dust towards McPalin to counter the ever-increasing Niagara of stercoraceous slime pouring out of the Rove Central Cesspool.
But if Barack and his virtuous advisors don't comprehend the real essence of Republican politics and begin responding in kind, only more subliminally, they are going to lose this election!
Under Rove's direction, McCain is willing to do or say anything, as long as it works. Fuck the ethics, the morality, the truth, or any of it. IF IT WORKS, do it and the devil take the hindmost.
Let's face it. Much of the electorate has an IQ hovering around 98. Many aren't bright enough to peel a banana, much less differentiate between circumlocution and certitude. They will pretty much believe anything that is told to them with emotion and minor histrionics. Blatant lies become gospel if oft repeated to the ignorant with conviction and sincerity. Watch any preacher in action!
And it works magnificently with the conservative base! But to persuade the somewhat more perceptive Independents, who see themselves as discriminatory, somewhat more subtlety is required!
I am not suggesting that the Obama camp needs to lie to the point where there is media intervention; merely manipulate facts sufficiently to shade every issue negatively for McPalin.
It's the Faux News way, it's Limbaugh's modus operandi, O'Reilly's oratory, Hannity's rant, Rovian rhetoric.
But it must be done a little more sub-rosa, tangential, indirect, suggestive, subliminal even! A constant mantra of negative insinuation that is too subtle to be denounced openly but is constantly in the background.
Like the background racial drumbeat that has been constantly pounding out of the boomboxes of the Republican "Big Tent" ever since they put up the tentpoles and pounded in the stakes!
Obama is a nig...black! It works! Rove knows!
Obama needs to get just as down and filthy dirty, but in a nuanced sort of way!
Negative politics are really the only kind that bring results! |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 13:40:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
A comment on these "daily tracking polls":
In US federal elections we use an electoral college. Each state's electors are all assigned to the candidate who wins that state.
The daily tracking polls have no correlation to who is actually winning an election unless they are done state by state and the electoral votes are projected.
The media fucking LOVES them some daily tracking poll though! It adds drama and suspense! It creates a false sense of neck to neck competition! Just how the rednecks like their NASCAR is how they like politics on TV, wrecks, explosions, and a photo-finish at the line.
So that is what our news channels strive to bring their audience.
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Well, it does show general trends. But if you go to the site and look, there is also a breakdown of battleground states. Depending on how into it you want to get, if you have the inclination, you can monitor those states.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 14:06:16 [Permalink]
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Bill:
Obama's scruples may well place him above such scurrilious politics. If so, he has gone to a gun fight packing a Swiss Army knife. |
While I suspect Obama's scruples are a taste above Bill Clintons, here is a guy with a powerful ambition. He is also a politician who has rubbed the right people in the right way to get where he is as I understand it. But really, I could have stopped at "he is a politician."
I have, however, always preferred our liars to their liars. Why? Because I believe that at their core, the elected representatives of the Democratic party really do care more about the well being of the people they are making nearly impossible promises to. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 14:47:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
[quote]Bill:
I have, however, always preferred our liars to their liars. Why? Because I believe that at their core, the elected representatives of the Democratic party really do care more about the well being of the people they are making nearly impossible promises to.
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That's a great statement! |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 15:14:40 [Permalink]
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astropin said:
| Dude.....it's been a while since I've spent much time here....but you appear to be even more cynical than I remember. Not that I blame you.....I think I'm joining you. |
I'm deeply offended by the blatant stupidity of US politics and the media bottomfeeders who play to the lowest common denominator (facts be damned) in the competition for ratings. Am I cynical about it? Yep, you bet. I also hold a sliver of optimism for the long term... maybe. It depends on the dems. If they screw it up this time it could very well destroy any glimmer of hope I hold for the future of US politics.
bng said:
But if Barack and his virtuous advisors don't comprehend the real essence of Republican politics and begin responding in kind, only more subliminally, they are going to lose this election!
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They need to do this: (you have to scroll down to the "RNC Tuesday" clip)
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=180275
This:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/04/jon-stewart-hits-karl-rov_n_123852.html
And this:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/03/opinion/oe-harris3
EVERY DAY.
They need to do it to McCain every time he opens his jaw on a policy, to every McCain lackey who bashes Obama or an Obama policy.
And they need to engage the straw-man. They need to take McCain's positions and spin them subtly so that McCain's base is presented with an interpretation of McCain's words that they do not like. That is what the republicans have been doing to dems for ever, and they will (IMO) continue to win unless dems fight back with the same weapon.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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| Edited by - Dude on 09/05/2008 15:19:07 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 15:15:54 [Permalink]
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I agree.
I expect quite a bit of spin next week for 9/11.
But, this is also fair game for our side.
Ben Laden is still running and terrorism is as strong as ever, gaining grounds, once again, in Afganistan.
I am expecting the democrats to insist how the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary; how it distracted the US from the real target. Maybe even how it favoured terrorism (bad as he was, Saddam kept both Iran and the religious extremists at bay) and costs America many of its allies. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 18:40:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
...But if Barack and his virtuous advisors don't comprehend the real essence of Republican politics and begin responding in kind, only more subliminally, they are going to lose this election!... |
Probably true. You want down and dirty? Among many thing, the Democrats need to also point to the fact that the Republicans used 9/11 as political leverage as well as an excuse to invade Iraq for oil after first going into Afghanistan, (which is now slipping back into Taliban violence.) Democrats have to imply that Republicans using 9/11 for political gain is tantamount to tacet treason. (Low information McCain-Palin voters won't understand the concept of "tacet" or silent politically opportunistic treason without direct, blatant aid to our enemies so the Democrats will have to be blunt in continuously implying that a Republican administration is in collaboration with the terrorists. The NeoCons want this country to be attacked. If they're in office, they'll leverage it toward attacking Iran or ?. If the Democrats are in, they'll say we were attacked because Barack is in office.
Remember the paper "Bin Laden Determined to Attack America"? ignored by Condoleezza Rice and George Bush. (but probably read with glee by Dick Cheney, who is currently off somewhere orchestrating an October surprise.) |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 20:43:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by astropin
Originally posted by astropin
She's a creationist.....and that is certainly all I needed to know.
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Scratch the above statement....I can find no support for it. It appears Sam Harris jumped the gun on that one....which is not good. She supports teaching both, which is almost as bad....almost. Supporting the teaching of creationism along with evolution is a different kind of ignorant than believing the earth is literally 6000 years old. Still it does not speak well of her ability to think critically. But that fact alone does very little to separate her from 90% of the other politicians on the planet.
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Not really either. Here is her quote
| “I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum,” Palin told the Anchorage Daily News in a 2006 interview. |
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Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 21:11:33 [Permalink]
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And here is another quote:
Sarah Palin:
"Teach both," she said in a 2006 gubernatorial debate. "You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools." Asked her own personal view, she said, "I believe we have a creator," but wouldn't elaborate. |
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A263865
Teach both? Side by side? Where? |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 21:19:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Robb
Not really either. Here is her quote| “I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum,” Palin told the Anchorage Daily News in a 2006 interview. |
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That was her second quote, at least. Here is a previous quote:Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. The linked article basically says that she wants to have creationism taught, but won't break her campaign promise to not push for it. Now, of course, she's in a different campaign, and hasn't made any such promise to national voters.
And along those lines, the end of the article is vastly important:Neither have Palin's socially conservative personal views on issues like abortion and gay marriage been translated into policies during her 20 months as Alaska's chief executive. It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans.
"She has basically ignored social issues, period," said Gregg Erickson, an economist and columnist for the Alaska Budget Report. She has throngs of supporters (more every day) who think that because she's as religious as they are, that she will work to turn her religious views into policy. She hasn't said one word in the last few days to dissuade them. If she does govern religiously, then she's dangerous to secular Constitutional ideals. If she doesn't (following her history), then she's lying (by omission) for votes from the radical right, and setting a precedent not as a maverick but as a loose cannon.
Either way, she represents an immediate threat to rational, transparent governance.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 23:23:28 [Permalink]
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This might explain the origin of Sarah Palin. (In a Fritz Lang sort of way.)
(Though I don't think she'll succeed in drawing women and Hillary supporters en masse away from Obama. Hopefully, the Republican mad scientists have misread the people.) |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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No surprise in St. Paul
