I have to ask the Arabophobs IF you hate us Arabs so much why do not you ask for the return of the draft so your sons and daughters can come to the middle east to fight for hundred years like the crusaders, under the leadership of the old fool Mac-theplumber*. No you are chicken-hawks like Bush-Chaney et. al who rather send the poor latino and blacks and white people to die in their Imperial adventures for world hegemony.
*read the real history of the Make-believe maverick on the rolling stone web site October 16,08 or commondreams.org; a remarkable story about any thing but carriage and any thing but country first. It is written by Tim Dickinson and contain first hand stories from McCain Owen fellow veterans from the burning ship to Vietnam and the holes of congress. read and figure

The negative campaigning is certainly scaling new heights of folly. On the other hand, it doesn’t appear to be working very well. If we assume that polls are at least mostly accurate and look at how Obama’s numbers have gone up during the flurry of negative ads, etc. from McCain we’re left with an anomaly that needs explaining.

As recently as the last presidential election cycle YouTube didn’t exist, nor were blogs as ever present…and they certainly didn’t get quoted in staid news journals like The Economist.

Today people have a fairly easy way to check out the statements of politicians and get opinions that would never make the Sunday morning bobblehead shows. It’s a whole different campaign landscape, and neither Clinton nor McCain seem to have grasped that the landscape shifted beneath their feet.

The sniper fire in Bosnia story would have been a minor gaffe (if one at all) four years ago. Joe the Plumber probably would have worked like a dream four years ago. Sarah Palin would probably have maintained the initial enthusiasm for herself four years ago.

And credit has to be given to the Obama campaign. They understood the shift from day one and used it to their advantage…of course, it helps that likely Obama supporters are also likely to be plugged into the full range of modern media.

The internet is also a good tool for spreading negative campaign material, but that material is liable to be called out publicly. Furthermore, it’s easy to debunk and return to sender…something that my girlfriend regularly does with emails arriving from her mother and step-father.

Election ‘08 is not just a battle of political ideals, but also a historical fissure moment of how campaigns are waged.

It seems very important that rationality and good sense rule the day.  exredstater posted a link to digg that is very questionable.  There is too much hysteria going on as it is in the political ads that the civil people who post on Truthdig regardless of their political positions don’t need to be invited to such drivel.  I’m amazed this was even listed here.  Seems like sites such as digg will allow anything whether genuine or not, authentic or not, ethical or not to be printed there.  Having taken a look in all good faith that it was worthwhile, I have to say it was an insult once there to see what it was about as I usually take the links posted on Truthdig seriously.

With the mounting bad news for their campaign, McCain/Palin will have no choice but to go increasingly negative in their attacks. Anybody else see this leaked 527 spot?

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Leaked_Pro_McCain_527_Negative_Ad_Small_Town_Fear_Itself/

Haven’t owned a TV for 14 years and no home phone for 10.  Blessedly I miss it all; but not the devices.

Having gotten banks around the world to “drink the koolaid” of these “toxic securities,” is it any wonder the U.S. politicians so beholden to the financiers are working so hard to make-sure everybody else is forced to choke-down a lethal dose.  If that means further poisoning of an already besmogged political environment, then, as Madelaine Albright proclaimed about the massive “collateral damage” inflicted on Iraq’s children by the sanctions, that isn’t too high a price to pay.

Maybe these “communication scholars” could better use their time and talents letting some fresh-air into people’s semantic breathing spaces.  Just more complaining about how foul it’s getting in there doesn’t seem to be helping much.

Of course, you gotta go outside the “gas” chamber to find something like fresh-air, and it’s hard to do that when you’re convinced nothing really exists beyond those essentially “interior” walls.  Domesticated people are constantly misled to believe us primitive Savages have all been either wiped-out, “civilized,” or at least confined to shrinking pockets of jungle and rain forest, miserably poverty-stricken and really dying for “a taste of the good-life.”  What a load of crap! 

The “doomsday machine” has long been a staple of literature and (more recently) movies and TV.  The very prototype and mega-monster of death-dealing contraptions, Sisters and Brothers, is your idolized “civiliztion” itself….and it’s eating you all alive. 

Come on out and Play and Sing and Dance with us, instead, why don’t you? 

HokaHey!

Shen, good one!  I have no idea how old you are, but if you’re fifty or older, don’t you think things were really better back then??

I bet some of the kids I played with probably visualized those three stacked cans as being some SOB’s balls as they sent them toward Mars.  I never did.

Ran across these recently - Way-Back-Whens: 

T. Jefferson called his opponent, J. Adams, “a hideous hermaphroditical character.”  Congressman Davy Crockett accused opponent, Martin Van Buren, of having a fetish for women’s clothing (“He is laced up in corsets.”) In 1876, Rutherford Hayes accused Sam Tilden of having picked up syphilis from a prostitute; in turn, Hayes was accused of shooting his mother after a night of boozing. 

Political careers suffered little, interestingly, from those scurrilous attacks (since some of the players eventually went on to become presidents.)

It’s probably true that mud-slinging is only effective if the person who hears it wants to believe it.

Now it seems, Dr. Dr., the game is to “go kick someone in the balls.”

Big B

Why don’t businesses and ad cos. just buy the reception media for people who want ads and place it/them in their homes and leave the rest of us alone?

I seem to recall that the reason people signed on to cable/pay TV was because there were no ads.  Now, we buy the frikken TV, pay for the frikken electricity, and sign our lives away for twenty-four months @ 50-100 a month to a cable or dish co. mostly so that advertisers have a portal to our vicarious needs/wants.  Same with the frikken phone.  Now, if our government were really on our side, why do they allow this?  To create employment and stumulate our consumer-based economy?  BS. 

Entertainment is a drug many of us older ones never knew about.  If we got bored our mothers said “go clean you room or go out and play.”  Ever play “kick the can?” Could go on an hour or more—without commercials.

But we digress.

It is quite unbelievable to what lengths the Republicans are going to denigrate their opposition.  The ads they are allowing to be spoken in their name and party is the worst in the history of this country.  The word ethics has lost its meaning entirely.  There is no dialogue available in our language that can dissipate the indisputable ugliness that has emerged.  This only shows the lowest of the low that human beings can sink to. 

It is no wonder that McCain/Palin are so far behind in the polls that they are having to eat the dirt they are dishing out.  I can only hope they deservedly choke to death on it.  I know I will never raise one degree of respect for them or their party from the zero position I now have.  I do not want such vile caricatures to represent me or my country.

Bkling what you say is true to a measure, but it is deplorable and with utter sorrow that we would have to have a policing board, a censorship bureau to do what principled minds ought to be able to do.  That there are such unprincipled individuals allowed to represent what might be good oppositional dialogue, which Republicans could offer if they could get beyond their hubris and “dirty-trick” mentality.  It is a totalitarian mindset that is difficult if not impossible to root out.

Dr knowitall

I was once told by a friend of mine who worked in TV ad sales that the wet dream of madison ave is TV stations that show only commercials, 24/7. With the blatant product placement in what few actual shows are left, you can see this metamorphisis taking place place as we speak. Nearly half the shows on TV are news and reality based(game shows) so no longer do they even need actors to pay.

I have a satellite dish, so if I wanted to, I could find any number of “infomercials” any time during the day.

Is this what our founding fathers had in mind?

@Hulk2008

Funny, I had just been thinking about the phone, and even TV, cable, especially because it’s pay TV and how, even though you PAY for those services, intruders on your privacy use them as a portal to your privacy.

There’s something inherently wrong in this.  I know this has been talked about a lot but, except for the “Do not call” list, limited as it is, there’s nothing to stop this.

The door-to-door salesman has pretty much gone the way of the dinosauers.  Marketers and surveyers using media you pay for to gain access to you is little more than door-to-door without the walkway and the hinges.

I called a phone marketer on this last week and he said, “Well, I have to make a living, too.”  I said “Right, but not at my unwanted expense.”

One more thing, We own the FCC airways, supposedly, and yet, as Barbara Walters recently said, she used to have to prepare 45 minutes of material for a one-hour program; not it’s 30.  So the FCC, or whomever, has assumed the authority to increase, over the years, by 50%, the amount of time Madison Ave. can access you, as a consumer.  I realize that, in most cases, the ads are better TV than TV.

I don’t believe “Don’t answer” or “Turn it off” is a fair response to the person paying for those services when that allows the abuse to go on.

I’m glad you called them on it.

“Persons of wisdom and integrity let many things pass without being duped.”  Again the I Ching offers something from the Chinese People’s much longer experience within this contraption, on how to reduce some of its degenerative effects on Humans caught in its toils.  The dirtiness of the campaign is intended-to, on the one hand, outrage those supportive of its targets, and on the other provide some cheap thrills to those allied with the perpetrators….whatever “side” they’re on.

All involved are degraded, and that feeling is the common subtext of most of the comments here.  Us surviving primitive Savages are careful not to compound the actual physical injury our tormentors inflict on us by in-effect “validating” the insults that invariably accompany their assaults.  It all is much more revealing of the fatal flaws their own nature and character than it is of ours.

By now the political “atmosphere” in america is so polluted no one with any sense will venture into it at all, absent some kind of “protection.”  Even those who usually pretend to be thriving in it are lately showing signs of “respiratory” distress. 

Many will feel obliged to hold their nose and “vote” anyhow, despite misgivings about anything truly worthwhile coming out of that exercise.  All will be well-served by otherwise standing aside from the cloud of toxic nastiness presently drifting hither and thither around Turtle Island, as members of the wannabe “ruling” class once again try to gas us all into keeping them company in their own self-inflicted misery.

“It’s only castles burning….,” tame two-legged Sisters and Brothers.

HokaHey!

BKling,

Sounds like a great idea bipartisan anything, I believe bipartisanism is really not wanted, for that could lead to a third party.  We do have fact check on the web, but what do the MSM have, what they are told?  Since they are part of the problem, they may not want facts and real truths, MSNBC seems to be more truthful, but am I being partisan, because they say what I feel are truths?

Issues, get lost in the mud slinging, for that is the grand plan.  Real issues must remain obscurer for the grand plan to work like it has, status quo has worked for the special interests quite well until now. Bipartisan is just a cover for more of the same, differences are choreographed enabling the illusion of choosing.
 

Ignorance is the foundation of our system. Some people accepting what I cannot even fantom;  voting for Palin/McCain, they offer only lies and divisiveness as their platform.  Again, many do not agree with my opinion.

Status quo and blind faith,  can only return me to Plato’s Cave.

I ask you, aren’t we drowning in lies from every segment of our lives?  Lies and distortions, half-truths and misrepresentations.

Look at congress. 

Look at Madison Avenue.

Look MSM.

Look at accounting.

Look at our judicial system.

It is my hope that, once these distinguished professors get campaigning straightened out, they’ll start on one of the other areas of lying in our society.

I always believed that the most learned, most highly certified people in our country would sooner or later come to our rescue, and, lo and behold, here they come.

Let’s end this toxic trend towards out right lies and innuendo’s on the Campaign trial…By charging those who perpetuate it with dissemination of Propaganda.
McCain has been jumping out ahead of his Own Revelations….Jumps on Wright to deflect Hagee endorsement, Jumps on Ayers to deflect his involvement in aiding the Fledgling AQ in the ‘80’s, and Timmons lobbying efforts for Saddam, Jumps on Socialist “redistribution of Wealth’ to deflect his Caste system (Feudalism) Economic plan.
Mac’s not only the Pot he’s also the Kettle.
He is able to Claim it is Obama who is responsible for the Economic meltdown, while employing every Economic Terrorist this country has ever been attacked by over the last 30 Yrs!
We must put Legal Deterents on such Lies when used to sway the voters in this FREE DEMOCRACY. When used as a tool to misrepresent reality it is LYING To the American Public about something that holds National ramifications. It is a High Crime in a Democracy.It undermines our most basic tennent, that the Masses will determine the course of the country..If you LIE to them to win an election, you are participating in UnAmerican Activites.

Why don’t we have a non-partisan panel that must vet all proposed campaign materials for truth and accuracy?  It is incomprehensible to me that our society allows people to blatantly lie about facts.  It is one thing to get lost in the gray zone of assertions or interpretations, but there are some topics, as highlighted in this article, which are black and white, simple facts which are either true or false.

It is disappointing that in the supposedly enlightened era of the internet and other mass media, that most americans still make no effort to research the people that they are thinking about voting for.

Here in the western PA area, a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Gene Collier, Wrote an article a few years ago that is rerun before every election. It puts forth the propositions that first, if you are still undecided a week before the election, do us all a favor and don’t vote. Second, if you cannot tell the stances that the candidiate you plan to vote for has on at least the major issues, don’t vote! While an informed electorate is very important to the process, an ignorant electorate can destroy it. This may be where we are now.

an exercise in futility since those who are susceptible to these tactics will perceive the protest letter as coming from a biased democratic elite.

According to a recent study, changing someone’s political perceptions, once formed, is a nearly insurmountable obstacle:

http://www.duke.edu/~bjn3/nyhan-reifler.pdf

Apparently, the subject engages in a little something called motivated reasoning, which averts cognitive dissonance by dismissing contradictory facts and amplifying corroborative evidence. The republicans seem to know this instinctively, and have used this phenomenon to their advantage many times in the past. One need only remind oneself that a significant segment of the population persists in the conviction that Sadam Hussein was involved in the 911 attacks.

The irony of course, is that McCain himself was a victim of Karl Rove’s use of the same methods in the 2004 republican primaries, when robocalls went out with the bald-faced lie that McCain had an illegitimate child with a black woman.

These national elections tear me up. Part of me is amused by the carnivalesque, jagged-up phoniness of it all, and the other part is disheartened by the shocking effectiveness of so much political shake and shimmy.

Finally, someone with the courage to speak out regarding the prevarications and misrepresentations that have plagued this election cycle.
Yes, both campaigns have used the mass media to batter the reputations of those of the other side, and yes the surrogates of both campaigns have committed egregious acts of what can only be termed as slander.
Yet the mass, main stream media seems to thrive on the idea of such horrid discourse and still reports the prevarications as if they were truth.
The most egregious acts of prevarication are abetted by the Television Media.  This form of media seems to thrive on sound bites and prevarications, the worse that can be slung the better for the ratings.
In many ways, I have stopped watching the television,  it just seems that the shows are all the same and the worst part is the election cycles, they bring out the worst of the offenses and show the discourse as it should not be.
Should there be a reform of the television industry, I would still be skeptical of the motives of the owners of this form of mass media. For they have not at heart the good of the people or the will of the people but one thing and one thing only, MONEY!
Whatever tragedy, horrific act, war, and arguments between two sides of an idea, they will bring on the money for they win and the people lose out on the true candidates of any election.
I am truly appalled at this election cycle, for no one is winning in this way of thinking and acting. It seems strange to me, but as I think of yesteryear, I can remember the true debates that took place, where ideas were exchanged and logic and reason played a part in the elections. Nowadays, this is long gone and replaced by 30 second sound bites that are meaningless, if not outright lies regarding the “other” candidate. And the television stations rake in the money, without regard to the truth or even if someone is lying through their teeth to get elected. Just as long as they have the money to afford “face time,” the television stations will take their money regardless of what they say. This is not the America I grew up in and with, times have certainly changed when there is no one such as a William F. Buckley Jr. on the tv, or anyone for that matter that will challenge the opposition to a sound reasonable and intellectual discussion. America has lost something in the cable age, an honest and truthful, reasonable and logical discourse between opposing points of view.
How sad for this country.  How sad for the candidates, who have to shell out millions upon millions of dollars for the right to “face time,” when it should be free and fact-checked.

That’s like telling Bush not to invade any more countries… I’m not holding my breath.

That’s what they (republicans) have always done. I always hoped that someone on the left would just make up a whole bunch of shit about MaCain/Palin and keep repeating it over and over it just to make them look bad - Oh wait, they don’t have too make anything up this time!