Herr Dean goes ballistic. Good for a giggle.

So now we're going to re-direct this thread into anti-Bush rhetoric?

 

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Why not? It would seem to me that anti-Bush was part of the Dean explosion. After all, 364 days and counting until Inauguration Day.

 

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Why not let Dean have his own thread? He deserves one dedicated to him following his inspiring Mel Gibson doing William Wallace in Braveheart 'concession' speech. And after all, Bush already has dozens of anti posts decaded to him on Sciforums.

 

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The notion that Dean sounded angry and menacing during that speech has go to be one of the best spins on any event I have ever seen, and the worst responses. The guy was grinning and shaking hands whilst his supporters applauded. He had lost in a vote that almost everyone thought he'd win. He felt a need to rejuvenate his supporters. If one listens to the speech, one notes a slight hesitation before he says DC, and increases the pitch even more. He was playing the crowd. He got more confident as he went on, and the crowd's reaction confirmed this confidence.

People are asking that a presidential candidate not show exuberance? I fear for the democratic party if this spin cannot be countered.

 

Sure, Dean was a bit excited, and sure he looked a little crazy. I was watching the speech live; I think it was after the Gephardt disaster. He went a bit on the wild child side of the spectrum I must concede, I was actually laughing at the Dean Performance but really at least what he said was understandable, unlike Bushie. He at least can name all those states (in quick succession), albeit he named Michigan twice. I don’t think Dean will win now, he has shown that virulent Anti-Bushism is good for the base, but not for mainstream America. Frankly Americans like being fed lies…either republican or democrat.

 

There should be nothing "fun" about politics - especially these days. Dean behaving like that was absolutely inappropriate. The only answer I would have accepted was “I behaved like an idiot and I’m sorry”. Unfortunately politicians can’t admit making any mistakes (whether it’s acting silly at a party or going to war against a country for non or unjustified reasons). Anyone admitting a mistake would be crushed by the opponents, the media, and the so called "law". This is what’s wrong with America (and most of the west). Just the fact that Dean felt he had to put on a “show” to rally supporters is disgusting. What’s wrong with sitting down and talking seriously? -- Too boring for the American public?

- and another thing, are they wearing makeup? Dean seems like he has a pound of foundation on his face. Why should any candidate or politician have to wear makeup?

 

My Unioun backed Dick Gephardt, and I won't be voting for Gephardt. Dean was actually my favorite of the democrats. If he doesn't win the position, then I won't be voting democrat at all this year. I don't like the other canidates.

To pull in important votes from the KISS and WWE fans.

I disagree. If a canidate can make me laugh, like how Dean did, then he will most likely get my vote and keep my interest. Politics aren't fun, if they were then you would get more voters at the booth. Imagine all the untapped resources that this country doesn't use - it's people. Above all, there are talented people out there meant for politics. They stay out of it though, because they consider it boring.

 

Ask Nixon, specifically after the drubbing he took from Kennedy in the first-ever televised debate.

 

I wish I could gain access to a press conference microphone to ask "why do you have to always be serious?
"Wha?
"Answer the question..
"OK, OK I'll rephrase it for you: .. Why are you completely full of shit?"

 

so are you happy with Baby Bush as president? the direction he & his cronies have led our country in?

 

I haven't been happy with Bush, particularly his cronies, since before March of last year. And you?

Just because I can't help but notice every other thread on Sciforums seemingly gets threadjacked at some point into a Bush-bash doesn't mean I'm a Bush fan. You can't swing a dead cat in this room without hitting an anti-Bush thread. I think we all get the picture already.

 

Spyke

I'm just curious ... is it Randolfo's post that you reacted to about the anti-Bush spin?

Because I really do think it's fair game. Dean takes all sorts of heat for his "teapot" temper, and now for this speech--essentially for being a politician with passion, though how he expresses himself is still his own choice--so I think it's absolutely fair to consider the "anger" aspect. Dean is running the angry insurgency--I think the "anger" aspect is fair.

Have you ever been walking along with someone and then yanked them back out of the street because they were about to do something really stupid like walk in front of a moving bus? I've gotten the, "What the f@#% did you do that for?" from people, but I've seen someone get slapped for actually saving someone else's life.

The point is that the offended party who did the slapping literally did not see the bus. She was looking the other way, got snagged by the sleeve and turned so that the bus she didn't see was constantly at her back. Add to that a mild buzz from a couple drinks and by the time it was explained to her that she was almost killed by a bus in terms she could understand, she didn't believe it because she couldn't see any bus anywhere in the area.

Quite literally, she thought her friend was angry at her. Apparently she'd said something to him at the bar earlier, and they were having a bad moment between them. She thought she was being manhandled.

That's an approximately accurate allegory of the punditry surrounding the Dean speech at the core of this topic, in addition to being a true story.

Just as her priorities defined the situation in her perception and thus guided her reaction, so, too, does the hypercritical punditry define the situation according to conflicts that are entirely their own.

The anger aspect is fair, and as much as I'd enjoy popping a Rumsfeld joke just for the heck of it, we must remember that ultimate responsibility for the issues motivating the "anger" aspect is President Bush's.

Given the fact that any consideration of the issues in a realistic light these days is considered Bush-bashing, where are you getting all the dead cats?

 

Looking back through the thread, yes, it was Randolpho who subverted the thread.

Then again, if hype is accurate in his defense of Dean's Iowa concession speech, and that it was, as Dean himself said, somewhat contrived, his giving something to those young people who are helped in his campaign, the 'anger' may merely be part of a greater campaign tactic.

 

Dean is now effectively rebutting corporate media that had already smugly painted him as all washed up immediately after the Iowa pep rally. Now Dean has an opportunity to expose highly subjective media smearing before the largest of audiences. While now carefully remaining Presidentially Correct, Dean is demonstrating (as ever) more eloquence than President Smirk, and less prickliness than Secretary Rumsfeld (yes, Rumsfeld is not running, but he's part of the neocon package).

Election races always hold surprises. These may include not only a reckoning with disastrously irresponsible neoconservatives, but also with a self-assured infotainment industry that, like dirty sunglasses, begins with a gradual realization that suddenly becomes intolerable, and you clean them. Major media that attempts to pigeonhole the public too early in this campaign could meet with something of a revolt. I prefer Wesley Clark for the Presidency (probably latent Republican tendencies). However, I cheer each time I witness a public figure keeping both feet planted, putting his finger on the spin, and bringing it to a quick halt.

Look closely in these moments, if you are lucky enough to catch an honest man directly confronting and dismissing the bullshit now acceptable as an "interview". Look into the eyes of a charlatan "journalist" like Wolf Blitzer when the Bluff is called- Have you seen it? A hesitation, then a quick left-right dart of the eyes. In the glorious instant between confronting unexpected honesty and courage, and returning to now-standard mindlessness, posturing, and spin, there's something to take heart in, briefly flickering in Wolf's beady eyes: Fear.

 

I think the media is doing their job; exaggeration is the name of the game. Let's take a for instance, a mom and pop pizza place makes really good pizza, and you can get a medium for $15.99, then comes this big huge pizza chain who makes markedly less quality pizza, but you can get a large for $9.99! The mom and pop eventually goes out of business even though they make some damn good pizza. Same with journalism, sure you could have really objective and really good media reporting. But you have to then sacrifice time, and expend a lot effort to do it. Things that mega media corporations are wiling to do (not that they can't). Sadly the way things works is "who controls the media, controls the world." If the media says Dean is dead or dying he is dead and dying. The media is crucial to any election campaign and for Dean the latest troubles will last and linger.

 

I demand better Pizza. I avoid the food franchises, Walmart, CNN, etc. all I can. Simple choices have influence in big economies, and even CNN is responsive, with much lag, to the direction of the consumer herd. There is no conspiratorially bad pizza or news reporting, but there is always gradual entropy toward crap, until a majority just won't eat it any more, and alternatives suddenly flourish again.

Bad Pizza creates a market for deliciousness, like a Dark Age creates the environment for a Renaissance.

 

I demand better Pizza.

As do I Hype, but the thing is this. Who cares what we want? The Demand out there is not for in-depth, logical, and concise reporting, of course anyone with a brain would want to be told the truth, or the closest one can get to it. But the commercial from the 80's said it all "Where's the Beef" and in that commercial they wanted more, not less. More sports, more weather, and less and less real news. This is not an American phenomenon; I have seen news from Brazil to Japan. It's all the same, more crap and less substance. The general population simply doesn't care enough about serious issues to contemplate bad reporting effects them. Along with Globalization, everything is to be consumed, and we will eventually live in a world I call "Monotomia".

 

Bad analogy. The really good independently owned pizza shops are still alive and thriving, and always will. It is the lower quality 'chain' pizza parlors that must use the gimmicks to compete, such as 'all you can eat' and so-called 'free' delivery. Go to any of those 'mom and pop' shops at any given time of the day there are open, and any day of the week, and they are packed.

 

The only good “pizza parlors” (media) left though are not private; they are usually publicly funded news programs. Sure in Canada we have the excellent CBC, and in the UK you have the BBC, in Germany the DW, and in France TV5. But in the US you really lack any mainstream publicly funded media organs. NPR is on the radio, and it's always being bashed for being to left leaning. Of course my analogy has its exceptions, but my analogy applies more times then not. Sure if a mom and pops is like a neighborhood icon, and it will not go away, but you see they have to have established a base of operations. So in some rare instances you are right, but the vast majority of the time the mom and pop ignored, and are left to die. Media is like any other industry, the conglomerates compete with cutthroat tactics, and we are the ones who are left to suffer.

 

"Along with Globalization, everything is to be consumed, and we will eventually live in a world I call "Monotomia"."

That's one real possibility- but not an inevitability while we still have choices. There are many choices remaining that will determine the character of our obviously inevitable globalization. It's still premature to predict a species that has thrived against such improbable odds by virtue not of strength but ingenuity, will fumble some last chance at life worth living.

Among these choices are the decision to swallow blatant propaganda or not. Although the media chains are synthesizing their product all over the planet, there has never been so diverse and instant a flow of information as is now only beginning to emerge. Global situational awareness is becoming more possible and popularly available than it has been ever before in history. Even with such change underway in global human education and awareness, there is no instant enlightenment.

In the present American experience, especially in the nationalist swing we have recently experienced, corporate media has pandered to its masters, but clumsily. It was easy for them to catch the swing as the flags and bunting came out, but the pendulum of opinion is moving back with more subtlety. As audiences tune into more diverse sources of information, major media will become anachronistic, and then will adapt or decline.

When Governor Dean was recently and audaciously smeared, not many people picked up on the fact that a "scandal" was created in the midst of far more important issues in play. Not many people noticed when the media revealed an astounding capacity for insincerity and sensationalism, and for cynical obscuration of America's political debate. The Dean Scream did not hit close enough to home to reveal its deception to most Americans, but the titanic distortion the US media has floated so magnificently have encountered hard, cold reality and are now taking on water. When the waves start lapping the rails, everyone will be looking for other craft.

I don't know if this election will be a breaking point or not, but eventually our most dangerous assumptions about media and leadership are going to become sufficiently apparent that Americans will learn better critical thinking. I expect that if a change does not come during this election, it will have to wait until some very hard times. These have a way of penetrating the entire society sufficiently to finally get the attention of the complacent. America leads the way, sometimes in ignorance. But don't write us off yet.