presidential debates

[Nightingale]

The public will always focus on what is most prominent in the newspapers, regardless of whether they understand the issue or not. It makes them look knowledgeable in front of their friends.

[Morning Glory]

you must be an anarchsit tequila, if you think that the government doesn't have any effect or influence on people's day to day life.

[Tequila Zaire]

you must be an anarchsit tequila, if you think that the government doesn't have any effect or influence on people's day to day life.

Yeah that must be it...guess I can start weaing those silly lil Anarchy patches...

Never said that my friend...all I painted was the picture that the general public cannot and will not be political junkies. That does not make them clueless or uneducated. They have much more complex lives to live...especially if they have families.

[Tequila Zaire]

The public will always focus on what is most prominent in the newspapers, regardless of whether they understand the issue or not. It makes them look knowledgeable in front of their friends.

No they don't...they focus on what they see effecting their income and livelyhood...they tend to focus more on the things papers do NOT cover...plus you're leaving out the digital age and how many young people and their young families get their news via TV and net more than papers.

You can have that cynical short sighted view if you life but to underestimate the public is to have a very limited and naive world view. Plus like it or not you and all here are part of that mass of people.

[Morning Glory]

although, you are right, it really doesn't have any effect on me, because I just do what I want. I may occasionally wonder what the market statics are that make an item of food cost however much, that is before I think who cares? I'm hungry, and walk out of the store with it. The only thing that really concerns me is the people that pay taxes to support the Brute Squad known as the police, and on the numerous occasions when I'm commiting such Illegal acts as walkign down the street and parking my car, In which I am frequently detained and question for,and whether or not it would make them mad if they knew about the fact that I don't pay their salary( or maybe I do give them a job with my radical ideals that the neccesities of life should be free.)and mostly whether they will not bother to realise that they can't arrest me for nothing, this time, or just proceed to shoot me and be done with it.
That's about how much the government is involved in my daily life.

[ForrestBlack]

No they don't...they focus on what they see effecting their income and livelyhood...they tend to focus more on the things papers do NOT cover...

I do think too many people pay attention to NON-news, like BS polls and all that speculative news the networks push these days. It's like having a high school newspaper to report on who is more popular that week. It's total crap, but somehow more effective than real news and real communication of policy. But yeah, people tend to vote based on their money and perceived class affiliations, which I think is a vulnerable place to be really. It allows people to pander to your stereotype instead of communicating real vision.

[Tequila Zaire]

I do think too many people pay attention to NON-news, like BS polls and all that speculative news the networks push these days. It's like having a high school newspaper to report on who is more popular that week. It's total crap, but somehow more effective than real news and real communication of policy. But yeah, people tend to vote based on their money and perceived class affiliations, which I think is a vulnerable place to be really. It allows people to pander to your stereotype instead of communicating real vision.

That's the real frustrating part of politics...because you know the promises made by politicians will only go so far if anywhere at all. One can blame lobbyists, big business, or some secret cabal of men who control the world...but it really comes down to how well the party system plays together...they make issues and political moves with the futures and stability of entire social classes far too many times once the elections are over...the hope people have gets trampled by bickering between party hardliners...and untill someone figures out how to minimize the stranglehold they have on Washington D.C. nothing of real vision and change will occur...their is simply too much opportunism and party affiliation before the country as a whole going on...and no amount of spin can deny that.

Look at the party hardliners...they do not see or talk out of the party bounderies...to me they are not americans...and in the worst cases absolute traitors.

[Caligula]

Any of you consider yourself an 'economic girlie-man'? Or a 'metrosexual'?

The level of debate in the US presidential election continues to promote oratory as an art form.

(I fully expect the next televised exchange to consist of Bush holding his hands over his ears singing 'la la la - I can't hear you' while Cheney tries to get behind Kerry in order to deliver him a mega-wedgie.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselection...319075,00.html

Incidentally, I always thought a metrosexual was someone who enjoyed copulating in small cars...

[Nightingale]

Sidenote...what happned to killing your neighbors dog as a sign to not fuck around with ones kin and property?

Sounds like something which would be suggested on alt.revenge, along with sticking a potato up someone's exhaust pipe.

[Nightingale]

No they don't...they focus on what they see effecting their income and livelyhood...they tend to focus more on the things papers do NOT cover...plus you're leaving out the digital age and how many young people and their young families get their news via TV and net more than papers.

You can have that cynical short sighted view if you life but to underestimate the public is to have a very limited and naive world view. Plus like it or not you and all here are part of that mass of people.

The general public doesn't read news on the net. The younger, internet savvy person may well do, and that's the only way they're going to get hold of papers and information from outside their own country which cast a completely different light on things they've been hearing about in their own home lands.

The people who underestimate the public are predominantly the politicians. We've seen that recently in Germany, the French have seen it to and a certain Prime Minister of a certain country called Spain lost his job through exactly that.

A world view is all well and good, providing one understands that those claiming a world view for betterment of their own land are often distorting the truth to their own ends.