Opinions: Will Obama create the balanced, non-yes-man atmosphere in his administration that he says he's going for? by chrisisall

Independent studies have shown the media leans to the left...

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist
While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-666
4.aspx

Independent studies have shown that Journalists are large liberals...

Surveys over the past 25 years have consistently found that journalists are much more liberal than rest of America. The Media Research Center has compiled the relevant data on journalist attitudes, as well as polling showing how the American public’s recognition of the media’s liberal bias has grown over the years.

Journalists Vote for Liberals: Between 1964 and 2004, Republicans won the White House seven times compared with four Democratic victories. But if only journalists’ ballots were counted, the Democrats would have won every time.

Journalists Say They Are Liberal: Surveys from 1978 to 2005 show that journalists are far more likely to say they are liberal than conservative, and are far more liberal than the public at large.

Journalists Reject Conservative Positions: None of the surveys have found that news organizations are populated by independent thinkers who mix liberal and conservative positions. Most journalists offer reflexively liberal answers to practically every question a pollster can imagine.

The Public Recognizes the Bias: Nearly nine out of ten Americans believe journalists sometimes or often let their personal views influence the way they report the news, and most say this bias helps liberals. Even a plurality of Democrats agree the press is liberal.

Denials of Liberal Bias. Many journalists continue to deny the liberal bias that taints their profession.

Admissions of Liberal Bias. A number of journalists have admitted that the majority of their brethren approach the news from a liberal angle.

What follows are key data from nearly two dozen surveys about media bias. For additional information, including links to many of the surveys cited here, please visit www.MRC.org and click on “Media Bias Basics.”
http://www.mrc.org/biasbasics/pdf/BiasBasics.pdf

And other studies have shown the media favors Democratic candidates..

Networks Differ In Their Election Coverage
NBC, CBS Most Pro-Democratic; ABC, FOX Most Balanced

Coverage of the presidential election on CBS and NBC strongly favors the Democratic presidential ticket, while the coverage on ABC and FOX is more balanced, according to a new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA). The study finds that the three broadcast networks combined have given twice as much good press to the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates as they have to the Republicans, and only FOX has given better press to the GOP ticket than to the Democrats.
http://www.cmpa.com/media_room_press_10_30_08.htm

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 11:05 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:

5. No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The underlined part is where they lose me with the sobriety checkpoints, automatic guilty findings if you don't take the breathalyzer test, and the latest in the DUI war - taking your blood with or without your consent. Here in Austin, they have a bus posted downtown, and a judge on speed-dial, so they can draw your blood by court-order, whether you have an attorney present or not. Last time I looked, isn't that a form of witnessing against yourself? And don't you have the right to have an attorney present during any questioning?

It's not that I'm worried about getting a DUI. I worry about the precedent it sets for how far you can push search and seizure rules before you break the Constitution.

If I'm pulled over, I'm likely to fail a roadside sobriety test, because I have long-term damage from a motorcycle wreck more than 25 years ago. My back is screwed, so on my best day I tend to walk a bit crabbed. My left leg was mostly destroyed, and my pelvis and right hip were cracked, so walking a straight line, one foot in front of the other, hasn't been an option for me for more than half my life. Now, if you want me to blow into the machine, or you want to draw blood from me, I'll be happy to oblige - once my attorney gets here, that is. And if he's a good attorney at all, he won't show up for ten or twelve hours.

I don't drink and drive - hell, I don't even drink, except for the occasional glass of champagne on New Year's Eve, which I'll be spending safely at home. Still, it's the principle of the thing. I am not legally required to help you find a way to screw me.

Just felt like that was something that needed to be thrown in there, by way of example...

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 12:04 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

FINN, from your cite:

Quote:
Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants — most of them college students — to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Not sure I buy into the metric. Citing a think tank does not equate to supporting it. By that measure, based on the number of times Limbaugh mentioned Hillary he would rank as a top-notch liberal. In fact, when primary coverage was surveyed, Hillary topped the charts because Limbaugh bagged on her so often. (And then right-wingers cited that statistic to "prove" that the media was liberal!)

AFA journalists begin left or right-wing: I'm not sure if it matters much. Journalists don't decide content; that's the editor's job.

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Let's party like its 1929.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 12:05 PM

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My god. Someone as cynical as I am.

But... The Power Players are not a united force. War is good for arms but bad for trade. Stocks gain when interest rates fall. Ones' loss is anothers' gain. It depends which power group in behind the scenes. IMHO the Clintonistas were internationalists.

Agreed, but the disunited forces sometimes have goals aligned in the same direction, if only by coincidence: Bankers, Oil, Zionists, Pro-democracy, anti-islamic groups, christian crusaders, all aligned towards a war in Iraq.

Clintonistas are gangsters, and globalists. They play the globalist game, because that's where the power is, IMHO.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 12:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
FINN, from your cite:
Quote:
Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants — most of them college students — to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.
Not sure I buy into the metric. Citing a think tank does not equate to supporting it. By that measure, based on the number of times Limbaugh mentioned Hillary he would rank as a top-notch liberal. In fact, when primary coverage was surveyed, Hillary topped the charts because Limbaugh bagged on her so often. (And then right-wingers cited that statistic to "prove" that the media was liberal!)

AFA journalists begin left or right-wing: I'm not sure if it matters much. Journalists don't decide content; that's the editor's job.

No one ever expected you to believe it, Sygnym. Nonetheless, the evidence is there. These studies have been repeated for the last 25 years, with pretty much the same result each time.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 12:37 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Nonetheless, the evidence is there.

Media bias can only be assessed by (a) looking at content (not staff) and (b) conistently defining "liberal" and "conservative". I'm not sure that any of that has been done satisfactorily. I think that you agree with the "findings" because you define yourself as a centrist and everyone else's positions to YOUR left and right.

But as a counterargument, I would point out that since corporately-owned media is apparently more liberal than publicly-funded media (and way more liberal than "average"), doesn't the power of the marketplace imply that the "liberal" media is giving people what they want?

Quote:
These studies have been repeated for the last 25 years, with pretty much the same result each time

BTW- repetition doesn't make a truth. For centuries people said that "bad air" caused malaria.

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Let's party like its 1929.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 12:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
Nonetheless, the evidence is there.
Media bias can only be assessed by (a) looking at content (not staff) and (b) conistently defining "liberal" and "conservative". I'm not sure that any of that has been done satisfactorily.

But as a counterargument, I would point out that since corporately-owned media is apparently more liberal than publicly-funded media (and way more liberal than "average"), doesn't the power of the marketplace imply that the "liberal" media is giving people what they want?.

Liberal media is not very profitable. FoxNews for instance consistently out rates most of its more Liberal cable news agencies. Conservative radio is very successful, while the ill-conceived AirAmerica was a bomb from the start, despite huge celebrity support. Studies have also shown that FoxNews, even though it leans to the right, is more fair then much of the media as a whole, this is why it’s so successful. People respond positively to new agencies who attempt to be fair. But in the end, the media is as much ideologically driven as it is market driven. The majority of Left-wing journalists, which compose the majority of the media, don’t consciously or insidiously attempt to bias the news. They believe their being fair, but their personal beliefs will always come through in their reporting. Journalists who appear to intentionally distort the news, don’t last long because of market pressure, but most of the bias is unintentional and subtle, yet still there, as study after study has shown.

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
BTW- repetition doesn't make a truth. For centuries people said that "bad air" caused malaria.

Reproducablity is the central tenet of the scientific method. And yes the fact that this evidence has been reproduced time and time again, carries a LOT of weight to anyone interested in the truth.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 3:25 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Studies have also shown that FoxNews, even though it leans to the right, is more fair then much of the media as a whole,

There's a difference between being "fair"- which implies balancing two sides- and being "accurate". Belaboring the point, balancing 2+2=6 and 2+2=20 by saying 2+2=13 will not get you an accurate answer even though it is "fair".

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People respond positively to new agencies who attempt to be fair

My impression is that peeps like media who reflect their biases and expectations. Truth rarely gets a hearing.

Quote:
Reproducablity is the central tenet of the scientific method. And yes the fact that this evidence has been reproduced time and time again, carries a LOT of weight to anyone interested in the truth.

AFA the scientific method: I can think of lots of examples of reproducible, bogus data. Reproducibility is necessary but not sufficient. A lot of this has to do with "bias" ... both in the scientific and psychological sense. But granted that journalists are more "liberal" than the average person, does this mean they're less accurate in their perceptions than average?

Quote:
But in the end, the media is as much ideologically driven as it is market driven. The majority of Left-wing journalists, which compose the majority of the media, don’t consciously or insidiously attempt to bias the news. They believe their being fair, but their personal beliefs will always come through in their reporting

Why do you suppose journalists are more "liberal" than the average person?

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Let's party like its 1929.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 4:01 PM

Quote:
Why do you suppose journalists are more "liberal" than the average person?

They programmed at the university?
Selective hiring?
Zombies?

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 4:14 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

More education?
Less fear of new things?
More and varied world experience?

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Let's party like its 1929.

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 5:14 PM

Quote:

More education?
Less fear of new things?
More and varied world experience?

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Let's party like its 1929.

While I do like your signature, 29/39 as much as I hated whozits, I have to question: These are the things that brought the broad and high mindedness to the media? I think I'll stay in redneckland.

Education=indoctrination. I've taken a lot of college classes, for a guy who can barely lay claim to a 5th grade education, I found no problem in being ahead of the class to the point where people asked me to fail because I was killing the curve. It's not a superior brain, it's that not being in school had given me an abundance of free time, the most precious commodity of all. If the government squanders everything as badly as it does money, human and military resources, then consider public education as its management of a child's time.

New things aren't always good. We should always be skeptical. I'm not sure about cars. Electricity is okay, but overused. I think the internet is the best invention so far, and I am in favor of stem cells. I'm skeptical of modern medicine, the telephone can be useful, but annoying, and a whole lot of change is just plain bad. Plastic is pretty nifty. Computers in general don't suck. Television in general does.

More travelled? That hasn't been my experience. A lot of right wing rednecks are fairly well travelled, and a lot of liberal intellectuals have never left their city. I've been to every continent except for two, and probably 30-40 countrties, and lived in several. I've never had an above poverty income, and I have no complaints.

I'm not saying the left doesn't have ideas, but there is a danger in some of those ideas circulating through academia like recycled air in and airplane (another invention I don't trust. I'm planning on a boat this spring, sailboat if I can.) The same untested ideas get taught by haughty professors to eager college students, and worse, ideas that have been tested and failed miserably. Think of the millions of lives that could have been saved if the concept of state socialism could have been abandoned after WWII, looking at Russia and Germany as good example. We could have skipped Mao, Pol Pot, and countless african and central american regimes. I'd be willing to go 100 million on that death toll to state socialism as a form of govt. *after* it was a proven disaster, so that's not counting another 100 million or so for all of stalinism plus the nazis. Yet, scan academia today, and you will find countless professors professing that state socialism would save us all from the tyranny of the free market.

So, yes, there are new ideas that are good, that come from the halls of academia, but I would hate to see it in power. Actually, wait, it already is in power. It also runs the media, and look at the result.

smartasa5thgraderisall

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 11:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
There's a difference between being "fair"- which implies balancing two sides- and being "accurate". Belaboring the point, balancing 2+2=6 and 2+2=20 by saying 2+2=13 will not get you an accurate answer even though it is "fair".

Of course, Signym, we all know that only your interpretation of events is “accurate.” That’s an authoritarian view, but I would rather the news not just reflect your opinion.

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
AFA the scientific method: I can think of lots of examples of reproducible, bogus data. Reproducibility is necessary but not sufficient. A lot of this has to do with "bias" ... both in the scientific and psychological sense. But granted that journalists are more "liberal" than the average person, does this mean they're less accurate in their perceptions than average?

Reproducibility is very important. If you can’t reproduce a study, you’re dead in the water. I thought you were a scientist, but perhaps I was wrong; no scientist would question the importance of reproducibility. At the very least, reproducing a study tells you that your on the right track to understanding the truth. My guess, you don’t want to accept the evidence in this case, so you’re creating excuses. But the evidence is there, and I don’t care if you’re unable or unwilling to accept. You can come to terms with the facts, or the ignore them. I don’t care.

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 6:45 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Reproducibility is very important. If you can’t reproduce a study, you’re dead in the water.

I thought I gave a nod to reproducibility by saying that it was necessary. Wasn't that enough?

----------------

Quote:
Of course, Signym, we all know that only your interpretation of events is “accurate.

My tests for accuracy in an area where lab experiments are not possible are: (1) Does it explain all of the data? (2) It is able to accurately predict events? and (3) Can it point out new trends and new areas? So I'm not talking about "my" view of events, I'm talking about the media's ability to suss out and address important issues.

Before 9-11, where was the media on al-Qaida's growing threat?

When Bush wanted to go to war with Iraq, not one MSM outlet raised any serious questions. Why not?

Two years ago, where was the media on the economy? According to them, the economy and the Dow were going up forever! But what about those toxic mortgages ready to re-set? The Federal debt? The historic and growing division between the rich and middle class?

In the last campaign, where was the media on the issues? MSM sadly, and yet again, engaged fully in gotcha journalism and horse-race handicapping. McCain/ Palin bore the brunt IMHO.

So... have you heard anything about Argentina lately? Bolivia? Did you know that along with Russia they are busy re-nationalizing their gas and oil industries? Did you know that Gazprom screwed western bank creditors, is squeezing the Ukraine for $$ and making a nice tidy profit on a monopoly?

This is stuff I predicted. I'm NOT a particularly smart person. But if I can see this, what about those whose ears are plugged into the news-wires day in and day out? And for all of the trends that I can see, what about the trends I CAN'T? Journalists know which stories get spiked. THEY have access that I don't. I expect them to be ahead of me. The world is as it is. But the MSM panders to narrow-minded, comfortable world views, leaving the vast majority wholly unprepared to steer their lives and their government through what is going to be exceptionally turbulent times in the next decade.
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To get back to the topic of this thread: Rue said something (offline) about Obama's REAL agenda: Based on his Cabinet nominations, Obama's MAIN goal is to reverse the politics of exclusion. But my view of peeps in DC is that they are a very "exclusive" little club. I'm not sure that one person can reverse a whole insular culture of corruption and "going along to get along". There are very few principled statesmen in DC: Ron Paul, Russ Feingold, a few others. If that is Obama's goal I wish him well, but I don't think it's gonna work.
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Let's party like its 1929.

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 8:09 AM

SignyM

1. You're spot on about the few good people: This is how our govt. works. A few good people on both sides are outnumbered by corrupticians, and thus lose forever.

2. The issue with the media is scarier than that: They had all the information but chose not to tell us.

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 9:55 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

DT: Indeed.

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Let's party like its 1929.

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 11:57 AM

Thinkin on this, one reason he seems to have drawn from the (gag,hack) Clintonista pool is that he's gonna need an awfully big cohesive "stick" if he plans to undo much of the damage our soon to be former administration has left us, especially given they'll do what the Republicans did up here in Michigan (re: Engler) and fight tooth and claw to not only keep the disaster, but somehow try to shift the blame for it onto the Democrats. (re: Budget Crisis)

The problem however, is that those folk, especially from the globalist/clinton/smiling-liars-clan, have their *own* agendas and desire to fulfill them, not to mention the political payback and bloodprice enlisting them comes with, like getting stuck with that lunatic Rahm, for example.

The concern is then that the political "price" of those folks assistance, which they will likely drag their feet on (re: Pelosi, Reid, Frank) is going to be higher, and more damaging, than any good they will be toward setting things a-right, if things get set a-right at all.

I am still of the mind that we oughta use this interlude to finish off and put paid to the crippled and weakened Republican party while we got the chance, and then parlay folks annoyance at the inevitable heavy-handed and unilateral policies of the Democrats in light of very little actual opposition into deposing them, but for this to work we really need to get on the ball and push third parties into getting their shit together cause we're running out of time as that window closes.

There's also the problem of some of these so-called third parties deciding it's too much like work and trying to grab onto the coattails of one of the corrupted existing parties, the Libertarians, particularly with foisting Barr and their complete and foolish hostility to non-conservatives, have spiked their own movement by appearing as GOP-Lite, something that's left a bit of a foul taste even in the mouth of diehard supporters - let's face it folks, Barr has to go.

The other side of the equation isn't much better, what with Naders immense personal arrogance isolating him from his base and a lack of anything even vaguely resembling cohesion amongst the more liberal end of the spectrum due to the ever present stupidity of trying to address too many issues at once and losing focus on them all.

I don't have much faith in Obama's administration and have worked avidly to assist in various set-piece political and legal roadblocks to any further incursions on our rights, but that's just a mere time-buying measure for us to clobber together either a functional third party or a coalition of them, which we BADLY need for this concept to work.

To summarise.

1. Finish off crippled and weakened Republican Party.
2. Wait for the inevitable usurpations and abuses by the Democrats without that opposition, to piss off the general public.
3. Depose the Democrats by installing third party.
4. Finish off crippled and weakened Democrat Party.

Now, that ain't gonna fix things, not by a longshot, but what it WILL do, is clean house of much of the entrenched, corrupted career politicos who're in political "debt" so deep that they are naught more than yes-men to whatever agenda is financing their campaign at the moment.

You can't really reverse the downhill slide in our current system, it'd be like pushing wet spaghetti up a hill - but you can by this measure slow it down and buy a window of time to make corrections to a system that at this time is pretty badly broken.

I just don't think folks are gonna do it - they've dumped Bush and gotten Obama in the door, and being wage-slaved half to death to the point where they barely *care* about anything but makin the payments at "the company store" (re: inflation/usurious debt) they're just gonna breathe a sigh of relief as if it's over, roll over and go back to sleep.

You got any better answers, I'd sure like to hear em, cause imma fresh out.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 2:43 PM

Frem,

I agree with your analysis, but not course of action. I think we should take over the republican party the same way the christians did it: Storm it.

We need to amass a very large number of people, and then just outnumber them.

Getting rid of the two parties is a quixotic plan that a lot of third partiers I worked with were hell bent on, and I was for a while, but the duopoly controls everything, it's like the communists in China. The ability of the duopoly to break in and screw with third parties is phenomenal. Eventually, we formed what we called a coalition of the level headed, and came up with a plan. Prying liberal libertarians from the grip of the democratic party will be hard. Hope is a dangerous and powerful thing.

Again, we agree on the problems, and the end solutions, but there are sticky strategic points in between here and there. If you can prove to me that your plan can work, I'll jump on board, but our efforts in the reform movement were hopeless.

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 3:54 PM

You mean outright take it from them ?

That does indeed bear a hard second thought, especially with a guy like Ron Paul in place that can eventually be shoved forward as proof that they're not all fanatic bigots in nice suits.

One hard part of that is gonna be getting past the perceptions of folk like my ex, who plainly stated that if the messiah came back to earth, she *still* wouldn't support his ass if it had an (R) next to him.

That one's gonna be tricky, as to change that perception would need heavy media coverage and much bru-ha and fanfare.

But it's not a bad plan, not at all...

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 4:37 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

1. Finish off crippled and weakened Republican Party.
2. Wait for the inevitable usurpations and abuses by the Democrats without that opposition, to piss off the general public.
3. Depose the Democrats by installing third party.
4. Finish off crippled and weakened Democrat Party.

*applauds*isall

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 5:39 PM

Quote:
You mean outright take it from them?

Yes, that's what I mean. It's happened before, frequently to minor parties, and occassionally to major ones. I read a few years back some right wing bloggers theory on how the Neocons got in, and his basic take was that it was watergate. That watergate wasn't a crime committed by nixon, nixon was always swerving across legal lines, but so was johnson. The case itself was orchestrated for a change of the guard, to steal the party.

Quote:
That does indeed bear a hard second thought, especially with a guy like Ron Paul in place that can eventually be shoved forward as proof that they're not all fanatic bigots in nice suits.

Ahem. But thanks :)

Quote:
One hard part of that is gonna be getting past the perceptions of folk like my ex, who plainly stated that if the messiah came back to earth, she *still* wouldn't support his ass if it had an (R) next to him.

Oh, you don't need these people. I call them "glued to the blue lever." The reason you don't need them is that they are counterbalanced by a force called "glued to the red lever." This is the unthinking majority. Whatever you tell them the GOP stands for, they'll buy it, and vote for it. After all, look at Bush. There's almost nothing conservative about him at all, and whether or not he won an election, he certainly got 1/2 the country behind him.

Quote:
That one's gonna be tricky, as to change that perception would need heavy media coverage and much bru-ha and fanfare.

But it's not a bad plan, not at all...

-Frem

Thanks Frem. Or is that Senator Frem to you :)

It will be very tricky, and require allying with other groups who have a mutual interest, strange bedfellows. We would need to lay out our goals, and then see who might coincide with those.

I am going to revisit one point here though:

Quote:
to change that perception would need heavy media coverage and much bru-ha and fanfare.

I don't think so. I think that heavy media coverage, etc. would actually be bad. I want to stay under the radar, and on the internet, I think we can do it. We can create a large scale network that will know what its doing, and won't care about mass media appeal or image. Think about the size of Ron Paul's following, and where it came from. I knew a lot of Ron Paul supporters, people from all walks of the political perspective, and age groups. Okay, they were all rural, but there was a remarkable swath of people, including some liberal peacenik types, rugged hunter types, a lot of college students, some hippies, musicians, and even some business people.

One thing that I noticed was heavy was that there was a large group of Ron Paul supporters who were pro-drug legalization, so I polled them, and I asked "Okay, if Paul dropped legalization, and Obama or McCain picked it up, who would you vote for?" and all of them said they would still vote for Ron Paul. So the message did get through. It was loud and clear on the NWO, on the Federal Reserve, and the constitution.

A little side story of stupidity:

MoveOn.org when it first started up soared to a community of 20 million registered voters. That's far from the webs largest community, but it's still big, very big. They then proceeded to ask these people for money, send them spam, and then tell them to support the democratic nominee in 2004 regardless of who it would be. That's vapidity in action.

Okay, it's obvious what's wrong with that, but think about it in detail. One, they violate all the rules of communication, asking for money, because they wanted money, to pay for TV ads. They never asked members what they, the voters, wanted. MoveOn just told them what MoveOn wanted, and demanded it. Next MoveOn annoyed them to death with information. Then they started barking orders, still not having asked people what they wanted.

But here's the worst part: If you had 20 million voters, in this case, all democrats, in 2004, you could have chosen the candidate. As a voting block, they would have outnumbered any competition. They would have outnumbered the entire primary voting population. They could have made Jimmy Carter the candidate if they wanted to.

But it would have been tricky. They would have had to do a lot of things:

1. Listen to their members, and find out what they wanted, and then try to deliver it.
2. Not annoy them, but organize them, and do so with a good record of how many votes they had, but without well publicizing it (John Kerry had a billion dollars to spend, he could have created a large organization in response, might not have won, but no reason to waken that dragon.)
3. Present the united platform and candidates. Note the "s." for office.

A lot of revolutionary movements in politics focus only on president, as if that were the end all be all, and ignore the rest of the political system. Every 2 years, all of congress gets kicked out, to say nothing of Comptrollers and Assemblymen and all of this.

I've worked for just about every party in this country, and I know a fair amount about how this works. All politics is state politics. I have some other people who are disaffected third party heads, who think that their method will never effect change.

Real alliance means real compromise, but it's possible, if it's chaotic and unpredictable, it could work. I've really surpassed what I want to say about this on an open forum, but a real alliance can't be formed in the total dark.

And okay, maybe it won't work, but trust me, I've tried the third party route for years, and have colleagues who have done so for many more. The duopoly rules the FEC. The only attack they will fall for is the one they never see coming.

I think the first thing that we should do is set up a platform that as many browncoats as possible can sign on to.

I think this might require its own thread, so I'm going to launch one right now, and post. I'm calling it "If Browncoats ruled the land"

This is a place for us to post ideas on a Browncoats hypothetical platform. It's worth a shot, and sure, I say, don't shout it from the rooftops, but remember, Vaclav Havel plotted the downfall of communism in open meetings in the most popular place in town. He took the godfather table too.

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Thursday, January 1, 2009 10:54 PM

Quote:
MoveOn.org when it first started up soared to a community of 20 million registered voters. That's far from the webs largest community, but it's still big, very big. They then proceeded to ask these people for money, send them spam, and then tell them to support the democratic nominee in 2004 regardless of who it would be. That's vapidity in action.

Them, the NRA, you name it - it seems a pattern of how NOT to get the job done while pissing off everyone, and if the very first thing someone gets after signing up with a movement is constantly spammed and hounded for money, unless your enlistees are downright morons, soon you will not HAVE a movement.

The JFPO has never asked me for money, only for support, and when possible I've helped them locate office equipment and supplies, as I know some folk who by policy must make unwarranteed equipment "go away" and I can get it hauled off by folks who need it cheaper than disposal charges.

And after the City Council fiasco, no one in their right MIND would vote me into another political office, leastways I hope not!
Although I've gotten an interesting visit from *this* podunk towns council rep recently...

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Friday, January 2, 2009 4:52 AM

Frem,

No one ever said I was in my right mind. We have a plan here to stage a coup in our own town. The town govt is elected by 17 people each year, who elect themselves. They do this by not telling anyone when election day is, and making it on a random day. For instance it might by March 25th one year, and Jan 14th the next. No one but them knows. So they persist. We've been thinking if we have enough people, and one leak to get the date from, and make sure that leak thinks there's only one other person who wants in, we can just organize 50 people and storm it.

A lot easier than storming the GOP, but still, an effort worth doing.

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Friday, January 2, 2009 1:53 PM

My advice ?

Bug their office - use a high sensitivity wireless mic/transmitter unit and place it behind a convenient electrical outlet so you can tap the antenna into the buildings ground line.

It's easy enough to do, amazing what a set of coveralls, toolbelt and laminated "ID" will let you get away with.

Then port the reciever to a voice activated recorder with large storage capacity, and review at leisure.

What you're looking for, the key bit to laying down the strongarm, is where the second set of books is kept - the election date would be useful to you, sure, but those alternate books ?
That is the trump card, you get THAT, their ass is yours.

Oh, and depending on your local and state law, there's often little or no potential penalty for bugging a venue that's intended to be "public", but doublecheck if you have concerns.

That's exactly the technique I used in my own ambuscade, and expounded on later when I had those offices to myself for two days - see, I had a pile of junked units that did *not* work, returns and defects from when I used to sell that stuff on the side... and once they cottoned onto the fact that they were maybe bugged and started looking...
ROFLMAO

I figure, they're never gonna be sure *enough* that they got em all, and that'll raise the difficulty bar of any plotting and planning in those offices for quite a while - and it got rid of that pile of junk, too.

Anyhows, find out where they keep the second set of books, guy - that's the crown jewels, right there, for local level political ambush, seriously.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Friday, January 2, 2009 3:52 PM