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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Do Americans ever hear news about things not American?
I subscribed to Salon.com as a source of free-for-all news, from around the world, from reputable journalists. I thought. But, with all respect to your presidential election, which after umpteen months is now actually underway, pretty much all you have offered is Bush, McCain, Clinton, Obama, Clinton, McCain, Obama.
Does even Salon.com not recognize that other countries on this planet have awful things going on? Things far worse, if it's possible, than Bush and Halliburton?
Defense never wins a war.
Obama's campaign should start to attack McCain personally on all fronts: TV Ads, Radio talk shows, Blogs and newspaper columnists.
Burn the money to buy adspace, and if comcast or other companies refuse, shout out loud about discrimination and inquiry into comcast, etc.
State that McCain was a coward in getting himself be captured when kennedy fought. Similarly question McCain's mental health and battle fatigue in prime-time TV for his irrational changes in policy. Make a psychologist state on TV that sudden anger shows signs of mental instability and he would love to examine McCain.
Periodically state McCain's age as a reason for being senile and how he gets disablement benefits by cheating taxpayers.
In short, make McCain's campaign scramble to defend itself. This will quickly burn out remaining money of McCain and force him to use illegal means to get more money.
This move can again be exploited by Obama to complain and strike McCain off the rolls.
Obama should think Blitzkreig and not zone defense he is playing now.
Attack is the best defense and quantity has its own quality.
100 is the average IQ, meaning that half the population has an IQ below 100. Presumably this is where Republicans come from.
All the American sites I've looked at could bwst be described as "incestuous", inward-looking and downright nasty as Americans get involved in the most pettifogging details of a candidates life. People who I suspect have no neurological qualifications are chortling with delight at the thought of spreading the rumour that John McCain is suffering from Alzheimers Disease and the suggestion that his name is linked to the Biblical Cain shows complete ignorance; it's a Scots Gaelic name whose root is "Cathain" and "Mac" or "Mc" means "son of". There are the less liberal sites also, of course, where the murder last December of the choir master of TUC, a man called Donald Young, a murder being investigated by the Chicago police, is being tenuously associated with Barack Obama. American politics has always been dirty, since the time of Nixon, but now i's absolutely filthy and, apart from Iraq, Americans seem to have no interest in the rest of the world.
The EU is considering lifting sanctions against Cuba, over American objections, imminent civil war seems likely in Zimbabwe as Mugabe refuses to accept the result of the March vote but none of this seems to be exercising the minds of the American public whose picayune concerns involve a candidate's religion, surname, uxoriousness and so on. What a pity that America is still in a state of arrested development and is now best known for lashing out at those who resist its hegemony. It's pretty well accepted that the US is a plutocracy and not "the city on the hill" that it was once claimed to be.
Why be surprised? In a country where millions believe that the earth was created in seven days a few thousand years ago, where almost 50% don't accept evolution as the most likely explanation for the biodiversity on earth, people will believe anything that confirms their prejudices. Deep down, though most would not admit it, many who believe and spread these vicious rumors about Obama are probably racists at heart. Swift boating at work again. Senator McCain and his staff are to be congratulated for not playing this dirty game. May it remain so. Democracy needs a sophisticated electorate to function properly. Are we blessed with one?
This Fox News bimbette Crowley had the audacity of smear yesterday while subbing for Laura Ingraham. In one segment, she asserted that because he dropped the teenage "Barry" moniker for his given name "Barack" that he was actually sending a coded signal that he was really a Muslim. (I dropped my teen name "Denny" when I became an adult - does that make me a Muslim?)
It disgusts me that this racist drivel goes unchecked - liars like Crowley need to be tossed into Guantanamo for the duration of the election cycle.
"100 is the average IQ, meaning that half the population has an IQ below 100. Presumably this is where Republicans come from."
Well, no. Republicans are probably about as intelligent as Democrats (or any other large political party). It's a mistake to assume that because many of them are lying racist closet perverts that they're not capable of thinking rationally. They just have a different world view.
Cognitive psychology, with the force of scientific methodology behind it, finds that merely repeating a rumor strengthens the impression that it is true. Denial turns out to be as good a form of repetition as any.
No surprises here, really, and using this cognitive twist forms the basis of a certain kind of politics.
So here's the question: where does your choice of topic and, absurdly, headline come from? Is it sensationalism, nastiness, or stupidity beyond measure?
Salon's front page is increasingly difficult even to look at.
I am so glad Sen Obama did not take public campaign money because he's going to need twice as much as he used for the primary to combat the raceist stupidity of media outlets like this one. One of my greatest pleasures is giving to Sen Obama's campaign as often as I can.
And just to show support for Obama volunteers who have to deal with the stupidity of media outlets like you and Muslim women who are treated as if they're unAmerican or terrorists, I'll be wearing a headwrap, just like theirs whenever I go to an Obama rally. I want my Muslim sisters to know that I'm one Christian sister that supports them.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
