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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
You and Salon are not at all terrified and fightened of a McCain Palin victory are you? So congratulations on being able to muster up enough empathy to report these poor fools demented fears of catastrophe if the other candidate wins.
They are not at all like you and the other Salon writers at all, are they?
(I am being sarcastic - not that you numbnuts know the meaning of the word.)
By raising the fear level, media ratings rise (more web clicks, remote control clicks, etc) and so do the advertising related sales, but eventually it all comes crashing back to earth.
You can blame the media for spreading most of this ignorance. When people are afraid, they seek relief. In American life, this is assuaged by purchasing merchandise.
This is a well known (in some quarters, anyway) psychological phenomenon - some call it "retail therapy".
Of course, this does not work in the long run, and has many bad side effects.
Like, eating too much and dying from coronary disease, mortgaging your home to the hilt and losing it in foreclosure, stressing out over having what the Joneses have that you don't and going broke keeping up, fighting for position at work and feeling forever inadequate, and voting for whoever tells you what you want to hear so they can fuck you over after they are elected (see Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and McCain).
Does anyone else see the irony of political parties paying the media billions of dollars for advertising during an election cycle, and the electorate actually expecting truth from media reporting which benefits from the parties' largesse?
You can, of course, choose to receive information from more reliable sources, and enlighten yourself.
I feel sad for those people who are so "afraid" of Senator Obama.
For those afraid of Palin, not so much. She's ignorant like a fox....
Meant "afraid" in previous post. Wearing glasses helps!
guess you never saw a photo of the Kennedy family....
We Americans treasure our freedoms; freedom of speech;freedom of religion;and for some, the freedom to be a fool.
At least Sarah has exposed the bottom of the Republican party for what it really is. It is a very scary and paranoid place and hopefully the Republican party will start pushing these cultish people into the background of American politics where they belong and put the people in their party with talent and accomplishments front and center.
I can't wrap my mind around how everyone got the same turnip every day.
The loony paranoid right is a perennial noxious weed of American politics and society. It'll be chopped back down in a few days, hence their hysteria, and if as seems likely Palin has become their new savior they're likely to stay down for quite a while. How will the non-loonies in the Republican party (what few remain) wrest the 2012 nomination from Palin? McCain's toxic gift that will keep on giving.
Sorry--I was being facetious. I just find it amusing how so many people act as if no politician has ever had children until this election.
The politics of fear have been with us for some time now. Remember Willie Horton?
It should come as no surprise that the Republicans are using it again.
But for all the hullabaloo over Marxism in this election, i wonder if any of our pundits remember who it was that perfected fear and terror as a political tool to power? Anybody???
As a 20-year resident of the central PA region, these ill-informed voters are a sad fact of life here.
It never ceases to amaze me how willfully ignorant our neighbors can be. Their greatest fear is that someone might actually make them think about (and take responsibility for) the real problems facing our nation and not the false wedge issues about which they rant obsessively: God, guns, gays, etc.
What is encouraging, however, is that pockets of blue voters are appearing as the economic downturn hits home for formerly red voters. When your bank account is empty, it gets harder to ignore the reality of the failed Republican fiscal policies -- and people are beginning to understand that they've been voting against their own self-interests.
Having a plain-spoken, progressive and popular Governor (Ed Rendell) has helped wake up some voters, too. I'm fairly certain Pennsylvania will go for Obama on Tuesday, despite the McCain camp's huge following in many parts of the state.
1. Husband (fought in Burma as young man ) and wife im Florida - reason: afraid of capital gains and other taxes under Obama. I guess their income is above $250,000.
2. Gay white male, retired comptroller in New Hampshire - unspoken reason which I suspect, Obama is black.
3. While male, retired music teacher in Florida - spoken reason, Obama is black.
All 4 persons are between age 58 - 70.
Where they all talk about how Obama is going to turn this country into a socialist nation. This little tidbit got fed to them within the last two weeks and it's all they talk about. Are they that foolish? Do they really believe his administration would take such radical steps? The ignorance of this concept confounds me.
I think much of it is actually a deep seated fear of change, and a fear of having someone different than themselves (omg! he's black!) in the White House. It's exhausting and every time I see it, I can't stop watching. Like a train wreck.
They spout the McCain whisper campaign verbatim. Why bother thinking?
But there's a subtle difference between our fear and theirs... I hope it won't be too subtle for you to understand.
We are afraid of the continuation of almost eight years of the most dictatorial, dishonest, carefully-hidden, constitutionally ignorant (in both senses of the words), vile, evil, destructive government in the history of the US. Our fears are based on demonstrable reality and recent historical facts.
Without any verifiable evidence, "they" are afraid Obama/Biden is trying to work some kind of destructive subterfuge in and on our nation on behalf of some massive-but-undefinable evil force.
We are justifiably afraid because there is a great deal of evidence that McCain will really just be McSame and we see ample evidence of what the results of that will be.
They are afraid of the boogey man.
Do you see the difference?
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
