Stay the Course Advertisement

[michaeledward]

Many media outlets have played for free, under the guise of discussion, the Republican National Committee's ad staring Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri called 'These are the Stakes'. As others have more eloquently put it, if that's their ad, it must be election time.

There has also been quite a bit of the 'Playboy' add in the Tennessee Senate race on the 'Liberal Media', although, not a lot of 'Kicking the Dog'.

In Massachusetts, Lt. Governor Healey benefited from her 'stalker in the parking garage' getting much free play on local radio. But, no such airing of the candidate Patrick's responses.

It seems the 'Liberal Media', just loves to air and talk about the 'Swift Boat' ads.

I am waiting to see if those news organizations offer the same treatment to this advertisement. Somehow, I don't think that will be the case.

Presidential Spokesman Tony Snow reported earlier that there were only eight instances of the President using the phrase .... Please see Keith Olbermann's television show. The phrase has been used by every Republican on the planet - Even Joe Lieberman (see NY Times).

Watch, and weep - for America

 

[Ping898]

ok michael, maybe I am just dense....but what is your point, cause I missed it and I read what you wrote like 3 or 4 times....

 

[michaeledward]

ok michael, maybe I am just dense....but what is your point, cause I missed it and I read what you wrote like 3 or 4 times....

Watch the commercial. Everyone, watch the commercial. If you don't get the point, watch the commercial again.

It's OK if you don't get the point, as long as you are seeing the commercial.

 

[Carol]

.

In Massachusetts, Lt. Governor Healey benefited from her 'stalker in the parking garage' getting much free play on local radio. But, no such airing of the candidate Patrick's responses.

Benefitted in what way?

WHDH-TV/Suffolk University survey released Tuesday showed Patrick with 53 percent of voters compared to just 26 percent for Healey, a 27 percent gap. Trailing far behind were independent candidate Christy Mihos with 9 percent and Green-Rainbow Party candidate Grace Ross with 2 percent.

 

[Ping898]

Watch the commercial. Everyone, watch the commercial. If you don't get the point, watch the commercial again.

It's OK if you don't get the point, as long as you are seeing the commercial.

Ok I get the point of the commercial....I don't get the point of your original post, was it just to share the commercial or was there something else?

 

[michaeledward]

Benefitted in what way?

WTKK's radio station repeatedly aired the ad for discussion purposes, at no charge.

Mike Barnicle's program
Eagan and Brawdie
Jay Severin (the liar)
Michael Graham.

All had extensive discussion about how the thrust of the ad was that if you vote for Patrick, your white daughter or wife will be raped by a black man. Now, the discussions were such that the spokespersons were saying the ad was unfair, dirty tricks, and in poor taste ... but, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The opinions of these spokespersons, and the tone of the ad certainly match the allegations of subtext racism in many other RNC advertisements. ('The Google' Tennessee, Playboy).

Quoting polling statistics is not an accurate way to measure the effect of all that free publicity, because you can not demonstrate causality. Healey's numbers could be in the tank because she's a horrible candidate. You need to add that metric into the survey to measure accuracy.

The Swift Boat Veterens for Truth, in the 2004 campaign played on that same probability. Buy ad time in a small market for a slanderous, libelous advertisment, and the "News" programs all rebroadcast it. The claims in the ad were false and probably so, but by repeated airings on Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, the odor got into the electorate. If you don't think something is stinking in this election cycle, I refer you to the Rush Limbaugh, Michael J Fox discusson (use 'The Google').

When Reagan eliminated the 'Fairness Doctrine', it allowed partisan broadcasters to freely air advertisements from one side, without having to counter balance the discussion with an opposing point of view. This has allowed the huge growth of 'Right Wing' talk radio - which would not have been possible before such a repeal.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

glad to see some things don't change.

feels like the republicans are grasping at straws these days. of course i felt that way in '04 and look what happened....

personally, i'm tired of the polarized attitude. its dems/reps or 'conservative/liberal'. like all other things, it's not so simple.

some liberal/democrat ideas are smart: our health care system aspires to someday be good enough to described as terrible

some conservative/republican ideas are smart: capitalism appears to be working (at least better than the other systems we've tried so far)

some conservative/republican ideas are dumb: let's not worry about a war killing thousands but get really upset about what consenting, same sex adults do in their own homes

some liberal/democrat ideas are dumb: solve american poverty by handing out money without responsibility.

and both sides keep on focusing on how the other side is evil, rather than on how their agenda is superior. both sides stoop to the lowest, dirtiest tricks. both sides judge ideas not on their merit, but on what side produced the idea.

arrrgh.

 

[michaeledward]

some liberal/democrat ideas are dumb: solve american poverty by handing out money without responsibility.

I wonder who is selling that idea?

I've been pretty liberal for a long time. Don't recall that being the case. But I'll listen.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

oversimplification of a complicated issue, i know. i'm talking about how welfare turned the good ideas inherent in the WPA and similar into a system of entitlements. there are exceptions, but it can and does contribute to multigenerational poverty....

like i said. liberals can have dumb ideas, too....

 

[heretic888]

some conservative/republican ideas are smart: capitalism appears to be working (at least better than the other systems we've tried so far)

Exactly what other economic systems have we "tried so far"??

Also, "capitalism" --- or, at least, the brand of capitalism that exists in the country presently --- doesn't seem to be working that well at all. Corporate profits are at an all-time high, while worker wages have remained stagnant for nearly four decades.

Furthermore, under the lax laws we have now, thousands of jobs are shipped overseas every year and thousands more are "downsized" as a result. Then, of course, there's the law business laws we have concerning environmental standards....

I would personally like to see a call back to the "Trust-busting" days of old, when society held companies and corporations accountable for their misdeeds.

Laterz.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

well, so far humanity has tried (among many, many others) feudalism, collectivism, communism....

i'm not saying capitalism is perfect. but compared to every other economic system practiced in human history, it has provided the best quality of life for the largest percentage of the popultion in the shortest amount of time.

it's true that it has its problems, and as practiced in the usa right now is experiencing more and more abuses than it had since the 1920s. we need stronger labor organization (the unions no longer serve us), harsher consequences for ceos who fail their people, less protection for the already privileged....

but really it beats the everlovin' stuffin' out of the other current choices.

all that said, you show me somethin' better and i'll be the first to sign up.

 

[heretic888]

all that said, you show me somethin' better and i'll be the first to sign up.

Oh, I think capitalism works fine. I just think that, like everything else, it needs its share of regulation and oversight. I do not subscribe to the ideology that the "free market" inevitably resolves social ills. Nor do I subscribe to the fantasy that increased profits "trickle down" to the lower classes or that "all tides rise".

American companies outsourcing manual labor jobs in America to 10 year old Malaysian boys paid 10 cents an hour is, in my opinion, completely despicable. I don't give a damn if it is perfectly "legal" and "acceptable" in Malaysia. This is America!!

All I'm suggesting is we have certain standards in business practices. First things first, though --- we need to get business the hell away from politics. Senator McCain started this with his campaign finance reform, but more needs to be done.

Laterz.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

agreed on the outsourcing and the general need for more oversight and accountability in our capitalism.

hard to argue against 'trickle down'/'all tides rise' as a force. it happens. just look at what we call 'poverty', compared to most other parts of the world. now, i'd like to see that trickle turn into more of a river -- but that's a quantitative issue.

i find it ironic that the folks who are pushing to make it easier to export jobs are the same folks who are hollering for us to close the border and keep american jobs safe from immigrants....

 

[heretic888]

hard to argue against 'trickle down'/'all tides rise' as a force. it happens.

Nope. That corporate leaders are raking in record profits has absolutely no correlation at all with how well the lower classes are doing.

In fact, just the opposite. If corporations are raking in record profits, that means the competition in that industry is invariably sparse (or non-existent), which means the lower classes are even worse off when it comes to purchasing goods and services from within that industry. History shows us that when business leaders can get away with charging more, they will.

If you want proof of this, just check the prices on your gas pumps. Reaganomics is, quite simply, a load of self-serving bovine fecal matter.

just look at what we call 'poverty', compared to most other parts of the world.

It does not logically follow that because the standard of living is higher in the United States than in developing nations, it is because of a "trickle down" effect. This is simply an unproven assumption.

i find it ironic that the folks who are pushing to make it easier to export jobs are the same folks who are hollering for us to close the border and keep american jobs safe from immigrants....

Indeed.

Laterz.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

trouble is you appear to be confusing two issues.

yes, the top 1% is eating up a huge amount of the resources. yes, there should be changes to the system that force them to share a larger slice of the pie.

but, capitalist nations enjoy a better quality of life than non-capitalist nations. long-term capitalist nations enjoy a better quality of life than those only recently adopting capitalism.

that's the frustrating thing about capitalism. we're doing better than any society, ever. and we're doing it off of table scraps.

we shouldn't lose sight of how good we've got it.

and we should also never forget that we're still eating scraps. imagine what this society would be like if we moved even a little in that direction...

 

[Xue Sheng]

Democrats... Republicans....

Republicans.... Democrats....

Stay the course…. Don’t stay the course

Capitalism or not

I all make a good argument to.... move somewhere else... trouble is you just can’t get far enough away.

 

[michaeledward]

Democrats... Republicans....

Republicans.... Democrats....

Stay the course…. Don’t stay the course

Capitalism or not

I all make a good argument to.... move somewhere else... trouble is you just can’t get far enough away.

Strange, I just don't see the blurring between the parties you see. Somehow, I think it is a matter of personal perspective rather than actual similarities.

 

[crushing]

Strange, I just don't see the blurring between the parties you see. Somehow, I think it is a matter of personal perspective rather than actual similarities.

Staunch loyal Republicans won't see the blurring either. There is something to be said about your point on perspective though. For example, when it comes to whether the media leans left or right. This seems to be more of an indicator of the observers position as both sides can find anecdotes that seem to support their claims of media bias.

So actually, claming a biased media is another thing the parties have in common.

 

[michaeledward]

Staunch loyal Republicans won't see the blurring either. There is something to be said about your point on perspective though. For example, when it comes to whether the media leans left or right. This seems to be more of an indicator of the observers position as both sides can find anecdotes that seem to support their claims of media bias.

So actually, claming a biased media is another thing the parties have in common.

What parties claim is irrelevant. What is on the media can be measured. And when the coversation turns to those measurements, the definition of media gets changed.

But, when you point to items like this, you can't get a straight answer.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610260004

In a report on the ad wars of the 2006 midterm elections, co-anchor Terry Moran reported on the October 25 broadcast of ABC's Nightline that "both sides are playing a serious game of hardball" with "mudslinging" attack ads hitting "below the belt." Moran wondered, "How low can they go?" Despite Moran's insistence that the "low punches" were being thrown by both Democrats and Republicans, the entire Nightline report focused on a handful of controversial Republican commercials -- including ads being aired in Tennessee, Massachusetts, and New York -- that have garnered wide media attention and been broadly condemned, both for their inaccuracies and their ugly personal attacks. Moran's report provided no examples of Democratic-sponsored attack ads being aired that match the level of distortion and personal attack found in the Republican commercials.

Please note ... the article premised on both sides slinging mud provided no examples of Democratic sponsored attack ads?

So, go ahead, point me to the YouTube of those Democratic sponsored attack ads.

 

[heretic888]

trouble is you appear to be confusing two issues.

Actually, no. I'm not.

The citizens of capitalist societies tend to do well because these are industrialized nations that require a large portion of the workforce to be perform skills that require a rather extensive amount of higher formal education. These people tend to make up the middle class.

This has nothing to do with this "trickle down" idiocy, but has everything to do with the socioeconomic base provided by industrial and postindustrial societies.

As I said before, when the wealthy get wealthier they "fix" the playing field so that they stay in wealth and make it harder for others to achieve such wealth. This is what we see now with the record corporate profits, it a matter of a handful of powerful corporations essentially dominating a number of markets. It's called a monopoly.

The "free market" doesn't help anybody but those that already have a shot at using it in the first place. The tides are not rising.

Laterz.