socio-politics

To anybody with the “I don’t care what anybody says, she’s the greatest, I think that it’s what’s on the outside that matters because that must make the inside amazing!” mentality………………..

Well, it doesn’t matter what I say because you’re still going to believe what you believe after you read it, but I just really want to know what kind of person it takes to be that incredibly shallow that they’d take a candidate purely at face value and defend her on that basic principle.  Do you believe that other countries will like us more if she’s in office?  Do you not see many women in your daily life?  Are you sick of having to watch politicians and masturbate at separate times?

And these are a lot of the same people criticizing the media and liberals for being “sexist”………………….

And if what sets her apart to you is how she really speaks to you….what else does she do for you?  If that’s all it takes then over half of the country would have made just great VP candidates because they’d really know how to speak to you also.  I’m sure that any of you that love how she speaks to you so much could have gone on the stage and said the exact same words that she said and come off as just as confident and agreeable as she did, so do you think that you’re prepared to be the vice president?

Really, do you place any value in a vice president that is able to think on their feet and to elaborate on what they say?

……….yet somehow, Olbermann and Matthews are the ones to be thrown under the bus.

All of the heated topics  discussed in our everyday lives are dictated by what the members of the media have deemed important.

Lately, that has meant trying to find the truth about Sarah Palin and her assorted controversies, yet giving no mention to finding the truth behind the lies that she and others told at the convention.  Before that, it was Obama’s convention speech, though instead of discussing his actual points, they  focused upon how he stood up for his self and attacked the republicans.  Back even more, it was “how much air time do you think we can get speculating on who the vice presidential candidates will be,” and all that came of that was the pundits being right on the obvious choice and being completely wrong about Palin.

As much as I may be frustrated with people’s hesitance to think,  this junk  is reducing political debate to a matter of drama.  It is not the bias that is the issue because every single piece concerning politics that you read or view is biased - the only way to avoid the bias is to read every single word that a politician says when they speak to the press, and this would counteract journalism’s objective.   The relevant issues not being addressed on television is the real issue; that and the fact that any individual that speaks purely from an authentic, progress-based stance is made out to be insane or just funny, i.e. Ron Paul.
Speaking of the bias, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann are too obviously just scapegoats  - the bias will not, and can not, go anywhere, though I’m sure that the execs at MSNBC feel like they’ve succeeded in convincing the country.

I do watch Fox News and MSNBC from time to time, though only in short bursts because watching it for any sustained period of time makes me wish I were dead.  Frankly, you get a much better grasp on the issues and on politician’s stances if you actually watch (or read the transcripts from) full speeches or other statements because that bypasses media bias.  These things are all easy to find.  You can also look up voting records for any politician and related statements here.

So far I’ve just seen baseless attacks from people that disagree with anybody that does not support Palin and the other speakers - just look at the comments on the last post I made.

How do republicans actually believe that they tore apart liberals last night? Yes, a bunch of people that agree with each other used the most stereotypical, non-creative statements to attack the left, and now they’re all orgasming over how stupid the liberals must feel.

Really, at least back your points with something concrete and not just petty retorts. There’s no point in talking about politics if people are just stating their views back and forth and not trying to understand what the other side is saying.

In 2006, Sarah Palin stated in regards to Iraq, “I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place”.

And she has a son that has been deployed to Iraq……..

She also has repeatedly deemed the Iraq war to be a war for oil and that it is ridiculous to do this when there is so much domestic oil to be taken advantage of. This oil would be coming from Alaska, and Alaska’s economy is already overwhelmingly based on oil, and should ANWR be drilled into, Alaska would benefit far more than any other state. Her experience is based solely in Alaska, and it is an understatement to call this a limited view.

I know I’m a hypocrite for criticizing the media for being so hyped about Palin in the last post because I am obviously no better.  I  really can not understand the support she is receiving - I’d be far less dumbfounded if people were pushing for a Jeb Bush presidency.  I just want to see how people that support her can respond to the criticisms that I’ve brought up so that I can at least make some sense of it.

The election is in two months, yet somehow, the political world has become obsessed with Palin.

What about McCain vs. Obama?

Yes, McCain’s campaign choosing Palin displays McCain’s values and political strategy, though the conversation regarding Palin has shifted away from her relation to McCain, and towards her as a human.

There is so much talk about how much people either relate or can never relate to Palin, along with plenty of questions about her parenting skills and if she can be a parent and vice president at the same time.

The most irrational thing about this is the desire for people to elect somebody that they can “relate to”. It is very human to have this be high on your list of requirements for a politician, though the politician has to have much more to show for themselves.

The problem is that Sarah Palin has little to publicize about herself that does not involve her relation to the average conservative. While she does have a record of trying to save tax payers money and putting more money into the community, she also has a lot of suspicious activity on her record - there were several controversial firings of people that simply disagreed with her, and an instance of eminent domain being invoked when a plan for increasing the sales tax to build a sports complex did not go nearly as well as she had hoped. This makes it difficult for her to truly cite the specific actions that she has taken because it is too easy for her to be made out to be somebody that is not trustworthy.

She is therefore left to appeal to voters by speaking about her “strong beliefs”. However, her strong beliefs are the same stereotypical beliefs that the overwhelming majority of conservatives follow, and she has little more to show for herself. She did not start her political career until 1992, and she has since ran on a very simple platform. She does have very high approval ratings in Alaska, but Ted Stevens, who was recently indicted for falsely reporting gifts, had won every election since 1972 by an overwhelming majority.Any of the people the people that are drawn to Palin simply because they can relate to her need to consider what is truly important for a politician running for Vice President. She may share most conservatives’ values, but if that warranted support of a candidate, then that would mean that any strongly opinionated American with conservative values could run for office and draw support.

What makes a conservative truly appealing and worthy of support is a strong record of fighting for conservative values and the ability to overpower the liberal agenda, as those are the only facets separating a strong candidate from the common conservative. Palin has had little or no political adversity to overcome, and the multiple firings bring into question her tactics for gaining what she wants.

Her lack of experience naturally warrants the retort concerning Obama’s lack of experience, and that it is far worse since he is running for president. This argument does not hold because Obama has a strong and consistent record that displays his honest core beliefs and his ability to succeed in a variety of political settings. Several times over, he has established his self as a leader that has a genuine interest in fighting for a better nation on a regular basis, and he has succeeded in the face of adversity. Palin has not proven her stances to be anything other than for political purposes, and her daily life has never been fully devoted to politics.I try to avoid taking such strong stances, but it is insane for her to honestly be considered a person that adds to McCain’s chances of getting elected. She adds absolutely nothing that any attractive woman conservative would not add, and she can not be seriously considered to have the ability to fulfill the role of vice president.

I’m not saying that Obama choosing Joe Biden was too adventurous - he is not particularly consistent with Obama’s agenda, but will not further distance any member of any part of the political spectrum. Its just that McCain needed a VP that would create a stir in the media and cause people to forget Obama’s convention speech, and choosing Palin accomplished this (and it was no coincidence that the decision was publicized the morning after Obama’s speech).

Had McCain chosen any of the expected candidates, he would not have had anything to match the uniqueness of Obama’s campaign, and therefore would have trouble attracting new voters, and possibly would not maintain the attention of those that would probably vote for him either way. But his campaign knew how the media would react to the decision, and how it would react to any of the expected candidates, and the choice was clear.

However, what appeals most about Palin are her non-political aspects: she is a young, attractive “hockey mom” that just happens to display the most important conservative values. This may work for her now with all of the media hype, but when the debates come around, she will have a hard time overcoming the immense pressure that will be put upon her to compete with Biden, and Biden will be well aware of how to make her look bad.

Once again, McCain’s campaign is trying to succeed by ignoring the actual issues and simply playing upon emotional appeal.

This clip is being widely used as an excuse to attack Obama for his hatred of America, though more than anything else, it is just exposing many voter’s refusal to question their own views and apparent affinity for political pundits. Obama’s response presents several essential questions for Americans to be asking right now: Why does one believe that America is unquestionably as great as it can be right now? How does our economy, international relations situations, war involvement, pollution output, etc not signify that there are drastic improvements that must be made? What can Americans do to help the situation?

But these are not the questions that are being popularly discussed; the only thing being questioned is Obama’s allegiance to America. People are refusing to consider the United State’s present shortcomings, and for the favor of blindly believing that everything is fine and things could not be any better.  A clear sign of a nation is trouble is when the nation’s citizens stop caring about what they can do to help their nation.

In all fairness, the media is helping to facilitate the problem. Once again, Obama is receiving forced negative press for the sake of inciting controversy. I definitely can’t say that the media dislikes Obama, but it is much easier to fabricate interesting controversy about what he says than it is for McCain because McCain does not generate too much excitement. At no point did Obama say that America is not a great country.

It is much too similar to how the media handled his “bitter” comment several months ago. What he said was very much supportive of those that lived in economically-hurting rural communities, and it is very true that in places like central Pennsylvania, there is nothing being done to help the communities to attract businesses or to create jobs. Instead of there being any kind of discussion of the legitimacy of what he said, he was attacked for it.

This situation is more troubling because, unlike the “bitter” comment, this comment is something that the nation as a whole can relate to. Most of the country is very willing to criticize how much the United States pollutes, or how poor the economy is , or how much gas costs and so forth, yet the same people can be unwilling to consider the fact that the country is not living up to its potential.

I really do not support Obama to any great extent. He is a drastically better candidate than we have seen for the past eight years, and to say that he is a stronger candidate than McCain is an understatement, though the fact that I have yet to see a politician with the publics interest at heart prevents me from getting excited about any candidate.

That being said, the anti-Obama press is out of hand. People comfortably claim that the media is in love with him, yet that is just one of the many baseless fabrications that the anti-Obama sheeple spread amongst each other. The fact of the matter is that people will believe what they are told, regardless of the outcome of any studies done on the topics or of how obvious it is that ludicrously short clips are being unfairly recognized as epitomizing his stances.

When I first went online today, I noticed the expected attacks on Obama that people so excitedly write, but today, the topics seemed centralized on his economic “retarded”-ness. I looked at a few of these pieces and noticed that apparently there is a 22-second clip of Obama that is quickly spreading around of him giving a speech where he mentions properly-inflated tires and tune-ups as having the potential to save a great deal of oil.

I then did a google search of “obama, enery, tires,” which showed page after page of articles, blogs, forums, etc that are citing the clip as an example of Obama’s ineptitude. Even worse is that almost all of the pages from individuals with personal sites simply copied and pasted some or all of their argument from other sites.

I am not saying that Obama’s arguement was especially intelligent are well thought out, though at the same time, I could only find the single 22-second clip, which begins and ends at the same exact point everywhere that I have seen it. I’ve tried searching for a longer clip, or a written summary of what else he said, but I have not been able to find anything. Everybody that is criticizing Obama for his statement has no concern for what the full context of the statement is and is so ready to base their viewpoint off of a carefully edited clip. There is no concern for what his full energy plan is, or for the reasoning behind what he said.

This blind hatred and conscious ignorance towards a candidate and what their plan is accentuates a disturbing problem in society: people have no inclination towards thinking, understanding and ultimately, doing what it takes to actually change the things they dislike about the country.  People are not considering why so many are excited about Obama -  they are using this as a way of criticizing him/making crappy jokes that make the way that he is treated being akin to the coming of the messiah.  He should be attacked on his policy, and not his celebrity because attacking his appeal takes no knowledge whatsoever.  There is no reason to sum Obama’s energy policy up by this short clip, just as there is no reason to explain McCain as simply being Bush’s third term. Genuine interest in politics and in bettering one’s situation is not simply listening to what your are told by heavily biased sources; it is thinking for oneself.

What I really do not understand is that there are so many clips of what John McCain says on a regular basis that make him out to be a fool and insinuate that his policy on many issues is irrational, though when Obama, says one odd thing, he is torn apart for it. Yet everybody says that the media loves Obama…..

One of the biggest arguments that I hear from the right when criticizing leftist thought is that democrats are for social programs that give people something for nothing, and that democrats do not expect these people to work for what they want. By so readily criticizing Obama for this one clip, people are exposing that their own thought is parallel to those that expect something for nothing. Rather than consider anything that they can personally do to help the gas situation, they expect the government to provide for them by drilling.

Again, inflated tires and tuneups obviously will not give us as much oil as drilling in ANWR would. But the refusal to entertain thoughts that could both save money and help the fuel situation shows that there is absolutely not consideration for actions’ consequences or personal responsibility.

I do not know if the 22 seconds can be taken for what it is or not, though I can say for certain that his energy plan involves much more than what the clip says, and that he is a firm believer in people working for what they want, opposed to just childishly demanding their wants without considering how it will happen, or any repercussions. I also believe that the 1002 area of ANWR should be drilled, though only if people are willing to do what it takes to make the oil drawn from it last as long as possible.

This reminds me of Clinton’s amazing 3 am phone call in that both of them just leave you wanting to watch it two or three more times just to make sure it is as absurd as you think that it is.

McCain camp though process:

1) Obama is famous around the world

2) We can’t stop him from being famous………….but we CAN make fame into something pitiful….we think
3) Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are the two first names that come to mind for fame and name chanting and celebrated trips to Berlin, let’s throw their faces in….though we’ll be subtle about it

4) Now that we got the point across, lets just throw in the generic attack on Democrats and try to use the poor economy and oil situation to our advantage.

5) close with campy cell phone commercial music playing to John staring off into the sunset

The odd thing is, this ad would have a chance to be successful if it did not attract so much attention to itself. It incorporates most of the most successful marketing ploys: it connects the hate and pity for Hilton and Spears to Obama, the ten seconds dedicated to anything of actual political substance repeats the same two points and it takes advantage of people’s economic troubles.

However, the ad was far too forward with its message, and when the message can even be seen as absurd by those that hate Obama, there will be problems.

The ad is offensive towards those that support Obama. Associating Obama with a fallen pop start and a woman that is famous for no particular reason shows a poor attempt by McCain’s campaign staff to reduce all credibility from Obama’s name. It equivocates a vote for Obama to a vote for a no-talent pop star, and this is not the right thing to be telling people if you wish to win their votes. It makes the voter out to be a sheep, and suggests that the road to originality is a vote for McCain.

Apparently, since the “maverick” label didn’t make him cool, McCain has decided to make his regular self out to be the cool and original thing………..it’s just pathetic.

This ad is a sign of McCain’s desperation. Much like Hillary Clinton, he has begun to advocate ill-advised attacks upon his opponent. And when that becomes the focus of the campaign, actual substance is shifted to the background, which may have been successful previously, though it will not work against Obama.

So now there’s a group called PUMA (party unity my ass) that refuses to vote for Obama. That’s their choice, but using Hillary Clinton as a reason for doing this is absurd, insane and shows a monumental distance from reality.

These people that claim to be part of PUMA say that they refuse to unite either because the primaries were rigged or because they just hate Obama. They cite the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries and the readiness to declare Obama the nominee as evidence.

As for Michigan -

And as for Florida and Michigan (and RIP Tim Russert)

When it was looking like she would, without a doubt, be the democratic nominee, Clinton had no problem with Florida and Michigan. And when things started to shift towards Obama, she started to say how the DNC plotted against her and how our whole electoral system is ridiculous.

And as for the DNC favoring the “weaker candidate” Obama - you’re insane if you truly believe that the DNC would choose a weaker candidate. They care about winning the election in November, and they know more about the candidates than any of us ever will. They devote their lives to politics, and yes, that involves corruption, but they would not choose a weaker candidate and risk losing the election. The fact is, they know things that we do not.

Hillary Clinton tried to employ dirty politics, though she just is not good at it. She lies nonstop and has no definite agenda because her agenda changes with whatever polls say will be popular for her. The really funny thing about this is when she gets called out about her changes in opinion (I.E. her Iraq vote, her opinion on the FL and MI primaries), she sticks by her old opinion while still trying to maintain her new one (see http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/13/574097.aspx)

And she has the audacity to say that she is one with her supporters, and that they are all in the struggle together. It makes me feel bad for the PUMA members because they must be so desperate for change that they will believe anything that they hear, without incorporating any sort of logic. I’ve had many discussions with people that still support Clinton and, much like how Clinton handles any challenges, they refuse to acknowledge any of her contradictory statements. It is not possible to get them to justify her change of position on MI and FL, yet they still complain about how people were “disenfranchised”. They need the hope that Clinton provided them, though unfortunately, there would be no way that she could have followed through.

So many horrible things have also been exposed about the Clintons throughout this whole process. I do not believe that Bill was an incredible president, though he was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant politicians that we have had - Hillary however is not too intelligent. Bill tried to support her, though when somebody like Hillary has no capacity to justify her own actions, there is nothing that can be done. It wore on Bill, and resulted in some very uncharacteristic statements.

And Chelsea………….how could anybody believe somebody that refuses to answer any questions? It is obvious that she is just told what to say, and does not know enough about the issues/ can not justify what her mom says. And any of the speculation about her getting involved with politics just scares the hell out of me.

PUMA also strongly believes that the media was/is against Clinton. This is another belief that Clinton instilled. In the beginning, the media treated her as if she was entitled to the nomination, though when people actually began to vote and it became obvious that Obama had a strong chance, the media started to get behind Obama more. Clinton quickly stated that the media was sexist and was holding her back, and that they were always talking about Obama. As a result, whenever people heard the name Obama (regardless of the context), an alarm went off, though if they had listened to how many times they heard Clinton’s name mentioned, they would have found it to be equal. It was a smart strategy that was successful to a small extent, though unfortunately, it has had negative repercussions for the democratic party.

Hillary Clinton is a dirty politician that manipulated people’s minds to gain support. She focused on attacks, rather than substance, and avoided anything involving the actual issues. There were only a few topics that she readily talked about, and these were the topics that undeniably sound good i.e. universal health care. The rest of the time, she diverted her attention to attacks on Obama and fabrications about unseen forces preventing her from getting nominated.

As for the Puma members - they have shown themselves to be hypocrites and not knowledgeable on politics. Many say that they will be voting for McCain, and if that is true, then they are the most petty and shallow people in the country. They must not have any real values, because McCain and Hillary have very different ideologies that are not at all compatible. They let these fabricated grudges dictate their actions, and it puts so many questions into play about what Clinton’s intentions were. She may have known that she would be dividing the party like this, just for the sake of her own potential personal gains. Even more depressing is the probability of her taking advantage of the PUMA members so that she can help to pay off her $25 million debt.

I normally would not speak out so strongly about any group of people, though the effect that Clinton had says too many depressing things about the condition of our country and society to be able to reconcile it.

All there is to it is that Clinton was a weak candidate, and she lost. Obama has a definite agenda, and he gained the support of the democratic party. If that means losing the support from the kind of people that are in PUMA then so be it - they obviously do not subscribe to any of the values of liberalism anyway. Liberalism is about questioning what you hear, and initiating a conversation to see all views and to determine what could be best for more people. On the other hand, conservatism relies more on following a specific set of values. From that standpoint, it seems that the PUMA members are all closet conservatives anyway.