Monthly Archives: April 2008

The Foxification Of the News

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged duping the public propaganda on by

I didn’t think it was possible, but the mainstream media has even Foxified its reporting of Bill Moyers’ interview with Reverend Wright. Even Keith Olbermann seems to have been duped by his own network’s reporting.

The mass duping of the of the public over Reverend Wright reminds me of the mass duping of the public in the run up to the Iraq War. If you were not smart enough at the time to realize what was happening, then don’t think that you are smart enough to understand the Reverend Wright story now.

Here is a link to a Buzzflash editorial and discussion that gets to some of the heart of the matter.

Bill Moyers Interviews Jeremiah Wright

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged Media Manipulation on by

I thought I would never write another item about Jeremiah Wright.  However, I just cannot resist posting this link to Bill Moyers’ interview of Wright.

I won’t bore you with how I felt about this interview.  I would dearly love to hear what you got out of this interview.

If you do not want to post your own thoughts on this blog, then send me some email that I can post for you.  Let me know how you want to be identified when I post your comments.

ABC, Enough is Enough

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged Presidential Debates on by

I just received an email from MoveOn.org. They suggested that I send the following to my friends.

If you missed the Democratic presidential debate on ABC Wednesday night, Editor & Publisher called it “perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years.”

Moderators George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson spent the first 50 minutes obsessed with distractions that only political insiders care about–gaffes, polling numbers, the stale Rev. Wright story, and the old-news Bosnia story. And, channeling Karl Rove, they directed a video question to Barack Obama asking if he loves the American flag or not. Seriously!

I just signed a petition to ABC and other media that says: “Debate moderators abuse the public trust every time they ask trivial questions about gaffes and ‘gotchas’ that only political insiders care about. Enough with the distractions–ABC and other networks must focus on issues that affect people’s daily lives.”

Want to sign it too? We need a bunch of signers for ABC to take this concern seriously.
Click here to sign:

http://pol.moveon.org/enoughdistractions/?r_by=12457-7776955-zpLvM0&rc=paste

Winning the Daily Double in Negative Campaigning

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The Karl Rove playbook says that you attack a candidate’s strengths and try to turn them into weakness. If you can take the worst characteristic of yourself and make it look like the other person is the epitome of that characteristic, then you have won the daily double.

What must Clinton and McCain think are Obama’s strengths given their most recent attacks?

It must be Obama’s ability to be in touch with what is driving the voters. No matter what they throw at him, people are still voting for him.

He has been able to describe for the voters the elites’ divide and conquer strategy. These elite 0.1% of the wealthy have been able to grab more and more of the economic pie, and yet turn the rest of us against each other to fight for what is left. Obama has been much too successful getting people to finally realize what is going on.

It is exceedingly clever to accuse Obama of being what his accusers are. Who could know better how to describe an elitist than the elites who are making the accusation? If anyone knows condescension, Hillary Clinton and John McCain would know it best.

What Was Unartful About Obama’s Remarks

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged campaign strategy Obama on by

I have finally come to see what was unartful about Obama’s remarks. It is not that he said that voters were bitter. I don’t doubt that many of them are.

The unartful part was in appearing to some to blame the voters for the success of the Republican divide and conquer strategy.

Follow this link to his 2004 remarks that say what he means in a much better way.

In the 2004 remarks he focuses the blame on previous Democratic campaigns that were unable to counter what the Republicans were doing. These campaigns should have united voters on social and economic issues rather than let the Republicans divide them. This corrective action has been the focus of Obama’s campaign.

Despite this recent gaffe in explaining how the Republicans were distracting voters from very serious issues, I cling to my faith that Obama can recover from this mistake.

If the voters do not understand who are the real dividers and who are the real uniters, then the fault lies with Obama’s communication skills. I think his 2004 remarks demonstrate that he understands this.

What We Could Be Doing In Iraq

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged Iraq War solutions on by

Here is a link to an article written by a native Iraqi.

It gives some ideas of what could be done to save the situation in Iraq. Up to this point I have been pretty doubtful that there was any good path out of Iraq.  This item shows that there may be imaginative alternatives to occupying Iraq forever or “cutting and running”.

It is so important for people to be open minded enough to see solutions to the situation that they may not have been able to imagine by themselves.