RE: Lead em and weep

my bunny-tending ass is in agreement - i dont know how they rect(um)ify the media problem - but as long as faux exists, a dem win seems near impossible. its been well documented that the rightwingers have invested billions in message infrastructure over decades - with scaife and bozell and rupert and the rest of it - and their position seems almost insurmountable. the longterm 'answer' seems to suggest that we need a similar infrastructure - how long that will take, and whether it will be successful are still unknowns. in the short term, looking forward, they need to be more aware of the rightwing machine's willingness and capacity to deliver false messages, and the dems need to get ahead of each lie and try to ensure that such falsehoods dont get traction - in advance. its no good trying to unwind people's false knowledge in a campaign - they need to fight to ensure that these falsehoods dont take hold in the beginning.

like i said - its certainly not an easy task - but its the only one that matters - and therefore any other response to the latest loss (get a better candidate, get a southern candidate, move right, move left, be tougher on defence/security, 'get' religion/values, burn fags) is simply misguided. and doomed to failure. and will do major damage to the non-right movement in the meantime.

the sad reality is that given the media infrastructure, the dems could run with a carbon copy of the repugs (ie exact same platform, with 43's twin, and karls twin, and cheneys twin etc etc) and still lose convincingly, repeatedly. in fact some would argue that we've just witnessed virtually that scenario... which is kinda why nixon looks like an out and out liberal leftie.

the amazing thing about the rightwing media machine is how effective they were at destroying an incumbent (clinton), and then they were immediately also majorly effective at using incumbency to their advantage. and thats a real problem...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Adam
To:
Subject: RE: Lead em and weep
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 12:15:02 -0500

>
> I completely agree with you on the true cause of the loss in the
> election...but how do you combat ignorance and stupidity? Honestly, the
> only news these people get is from Fox (if they watch the news at all),
> and they're not exactly jumping all over to correct these
> misperceptions.
>
> Can you imagine the headlines had Clinton taken us to war on false
> premises? Bet your bunny-tending ass that every hick on both sides of
> the Mississippi would know about WMDgate.
>
> Whoever controls the media controls the masses...and right now the Dems
> are losing that war pathetically...
>
--------------
>
> * since the election ive been ranting about how the *only* thing the
> dems need to fix is the truth gap - not in the historical sense of the
> generalised (i assume) 'uneducated voter', but in the specific sense of
> important, verifiable and important issues - cf saddam911wmd and i
> outlandishly suggested it was worth a 20 point swing to jonk. there was
> an outstanding issue about whether the 51% would have voted for bush
> regardless - here are some numbers that partially complete that picture:
> "This election, their truth was of a misinformed cadre of Bush
> supporters. Days before the election, 72 percent of Bush supporters
> surveyed still believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
> Despite the 9/11 Commission's findings to the contrary, 75 percent
> believed Iraq was providing substantial support for al-Qaida.
> Fifty-eight percent said we should not have gone to war if no such
> weapons existed and if Iraq was not supporting al-Qaida." 2 obvious
> interesting questions are 'would it change yer vote?' and 'didja know
> that the cadmin lied about these things?' but to keep it simpler, lets
> put aside the lying issue for the mo. and lets assume that theres a
> pretty heavy overlap between the 72% and the 75% (!) - its not difficult
> to imagine 15% of them changing their mind and voting for the other guy
> - giving jonk a 20 point swing. in fact, theres a temporal element as
> well - cos if those 75% of bushpeople knew from way back when it was
> orginally generally 'knowable' that neither of these things were true,
> then all the media consumed in the interim takes on a completely
> different flavour as people recognise that he is trying to link these
> events when we, and he, knows that its untrue. theres probably a genuine
> base of say 25% who would vote for him regardless, but the truth gap
> issue still seems to be the most significant by orders of magnitude. and
> hence all of the other inevitable advice thats being thrown around is
> near meaningless. my advice is brilliant. everyone else is stupid. but
> seriously, am i right? (ignoring the votefraud issue for the mo) im
> certainly not saying that the dems are doing everything right - far from
> it - but this issue seems to trump all others - and as far as i can
> tell, thats where their attention needs to be - cos itll happen again. i
> dont know what the answer is - but until they solve it, they wont ever
> win another election.
> http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1111-25.htm
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________
> Four more years. Seriously.
> wotisitgood4.blogspot.com
>
>



________________________________________________________________________________
Four more years. Seriously.
wotisitgood4.blogspot.com