Any americans watch the debate last night?

[DGMacphee]

Bspeers: Aye, I acknowledged in one of my previous posts that not everyone was influenced. Though, after re-reading my original post on agenda-setting, I should mention I didn't actualy say the entire audience is influenced. I just said there's a potential to influence more people in terms of biases. That's not to say they watch a FOX News broadcast and immediately become biased, as if it were something like magic. It does take time.

There's an old adage in politics: If you repeat the message over and over, people will start to agree with it. (Case in point: "John Kerry flip-flops!")

However, I would argue with a minor point:

Recent studies show that viewership is reflexive--it's critical of what they watch, even sarcastic.

I've read studies that show the contrary in regards to conservative viewing i.e. the viewship is mostly complacent. The reason? A lot of people consider conservative viewing as "safe" viewing and thus they feel little need to criticise it. Basically, they just want to sit in front of the TV and not be hassled or challenged in anyway, especially after a hard day at the office.


After reading your post and Anarcho's, it seems all our studies have crossed very similar paths. Hurrah for politcal media studies!

[evenwolf]

Dave Gilbert:

I'd say not responding to the charges that he was weak or a flip-flopper was a very wise move.Ã,  In advertising, acknowledging your weakness to the audience is bad.

Say three out of ten people never heard Bush's campaign saying "Kerry is a flip-flopper."

Then all ten people see the ad that says "I know Bush thinks I'm this, but I'm not. Trust me."Ã,  Now the seven people are conflicted, but they don't necessarily change their minds- and the three newcomers are suspicious of Kerry being a flip-flopper.

Instead, Kerry ignored Bush - he let Bush's advertising focus solely on the flip-flopping.... and now Bush is screwed.Ã,  Kerry appeared stronger and more determined than Bush during the debate.Ã,  "Flip-flop" was Bush's ultimate move but Kerry swept it aside in one hour.Ã,  All that negative campaigning, virtually a waste.


Lost Traveler:

Please stop trolling. Senator Kerry had 90 seconds to make a rebuttal to Bush. One of the points he had to make was that he had a strong backing by the US military.Ã,  He listed the biggest names of those supporters, not his ONLY supporters.Ã, Ã, Kerry had one minute and a half to make counterpoints to Bush- not to list a bunch of names.

You know four generals, that's great.Ã,  List their full names in your reply without typing more than twenty words.Ã, 

You may stop laughing now.

[juncmodule]

I don't think I ever hated Kerry. I just didn't care, or see him as much better than Bush because I hadn't seen anything impressive. A lot of that has to do with the little bit I saw of him in the media during that time. I saw some pretty wacky stuff about him and Vietnam, mainly him talking about Vietnam. Things that kind of made me question him, but not hate him. However he didn't make me think dictator, which Bush does, so that was the only reason I was going to vote for him. Now, after the debate, he has come off as a strong leader. So my reason for voting for him has flip-flopped to actually casting a vote for someone I think is capable of doing the job. It's all a popularity contest and Kerry just hadn't made his entry until the debates. It was a well played hand. He will hopefully be able to ride this brief wave of victory all the way to Nov. 2, which I imagine was the plan. His big sprint at the end of the long race where his opponent is already spent.

Concerning the media: I'm not very well educated on the matter, so excuse me while I talk out of my ass for a moment.

A while back I became interested in Columbia and the FARC. Finding information about this became somewhat difficult. Very few news stories actually appear on events in Columbia. I had to dig to find out about it. Basically this is the case with almost all media coverage. You are told only what you seek out. I read both the BBC news site and CNN. There are always different spins on the same story. However, I rarely find that at the core it is all that different. I feel that the media falls somewhere in between. Not to the left or the right, but not balanced either. I think the whole "Pepsi commercial/Woodstock" thing was a good example of how I feel the media acts. It presents the whole package but, different parts are filtered out by other stories. There is fairly constant coverage of Columbia on CNN.com (virtually none on BBC) but it is buried. Buried under "news" that is barely news, repeated stories, and the latest movie/rock stars wedding. It's all a matter of reading between the lines and paying attention to what is RIGHT in front of you, and the mass of American Society has no desire to do so, which explains why they like Bush so much...At least in my opinion.

later,
-junc

[Dave Gilbert]

Dave Gilbert:

I'd say not responding to the charges that he was weak or a flip-flopper was a very wise move.Ã,  In advertising, acknowledging your weakness to the audience is bad.

Oh you're definitely right about that.  It's like if someone calls you ultra-defensive, and you respond with "No I'm not!"  Kerry did the right thing in not addressing the charges that he was "weak",  but at the same time he never did anything to disprove it either.

Instead, Kerry ignored Bush - he let Bush's advertising focus solely on the flip-flopping.... and now Bush is screwed.Ã,  Kerry appeared stronger and more determined than Bush during the debate.Ã,  "Flip-flop" was Bush's ultimate move but Kerry swept it aside in one hour.Ã,  All that negative campaigning, virtually a waste.

Yeah, NOW Kerry swept it aside.  NOW he comes across as being the strong and intelligent man that he really is.  But how come he didn't show this side of himself five months ago?  Is his recent performance good enough to change peoples' minds in the time we have left?  I really hope so, since George Bush scares the living crap out of me.  I guess we'll see.

[TerranRich]

I had an argument with my dad over dinner last night regarding Bush vs. Kerry. Sadly, he made some (good?) points FOR Bush. Being uneducated about politics, I couldn't argue much against Bush and for Kerry.

When I mentioned Bush's lying and deceit into going into war with Iraq, he basically, in a nutshell, said that the U.N. only wanted more resolutions, more resolutions, and Bush took action when no one else would and took care of a threat. I thought to myself, so a worldwide organization is useless, because you're bloodthirsty? The U.N. is there for a reason. If they decide that war is not the answer, then they must have good reason to tell us not to invade them.

Then, he decided to go on a 10-minute rant, defending the war. Now, I'm not against the REAL reasons for the war. Hussen was a threat, blah blah blah, and my dad basically said that France, Russia, et al were supporting Iraq, giving them supplies for oil. And I had no idea whether this was true or not, so I had to act like it was news to me and just nodded.

After telling my dad that he had wasted his time justifying the war, I pointed out that Bush lied. "Well, what politician doesn't??" That was it. Okay, so it's just fine for a president to lie. He then said that Bush was only going on information sent to him, that Saddam had WMD's and so took action.

But I found myself unable to argue against the France/Russia oil-for-supplies argument and that Bush was only going on what he was told by intelligence reports. I want someone (or more than one) to pretend that I'm my dad (or the "devil's advocate", so to speak) and argue against those points. Not because I side with my dad (I rarely ever have ), but to educate me a little.

[evenwolf]

Well you're gist about the US defying the U.N. is right.Ã,  A nation cannot simply respect the UN when it agrees with you, and then defy it when it doesn't- you have to sign on with a whole package deal.Ã,  Otherwise it doesn't work.

Bush's logic: "Saddam is defying the UN! Attack him!"

Bush's action: Defy the U.N.

This is the point Kerry made about keeping alliances.Ã, 

And France and Russia are irrelevant.Ã,  No matter what their relation to Iraq before Bush "asked them for help" - the given context was to help him exploit 9/11 and carry his own agenda in Iraq.Ã,  Ã, Bush wantd to get the man his father didn't, and the oil, and Why should France or Russia be obligated to that goal?Ã,  They have their own affairs to deal with besides petty wars.

[Andail]

It's a simple and interesting fact that the UN did make some progress in Iraq.
The sanctions had just started to show some effect.
The inspections were running smoothly, gathering great amounts of information, laying great webs of contacts and intelligence.
Saddam had just started destroying some of the illegal missiles. Reluctantly and slowly, but he still did it.
UN acknowledged and offically supported oppositional parties. Possibly, this could eventually have led to a regime change. It would have taken time, but it would have been legitimate, diplomatic and less bloody.

First tell your father that there wasn't a threat. There simply wasn't.
Iraq wasn't in possession of a proper army, much less inter-continential rockets, or wmd:s. They have yet to make a hostile move against USA that is not in self defence.

Yes, France and Russia were involved in the food-for-oil programme. Ask your father what's wrong with that.
USA, on the other hand, was involved in the nothing-for-oil programme, and they wanted more.

Ask your dad what kind of signals he thinks the americans send out to the world, when they unilateraly invade another country, ill-foundedly and pre-emptive. Will it make the world a safer place, or will it encourage other militarist dictatorships to do the same, whenever they see fit, for whatever reason they come up with, without listening to the UN?

[TerranRich]

Oh, my dad also said that Saddam kept refusing to cooperate with the weapons inspectors. Now everybody's saying that he was cooperating the entire time. WHich is it? Tell me my dad's wrong.

[DGMacphee]

When I mentioned Bush's lying and deceit into going into war with Iraq, he basically, in a nutshell, said that the U.N. only wanted more resolutions, more resolutions, and Bush took action when no one else would and took care of a threat.

Threat??

Has your Dad heard of a country called North Korea by any chance?

Here's a map I found on Google, just in case he doesn't know where it is:


I hope this helps him.

[Nacho]

So, a new point for the "not for war!" in Iraq is "Invade North Korea first!"? 

[shbaz]

Or rather, North Korea SAID that they had nukes, while Iraq said that they didn't and proved it through the inspections.. and Bush invaded Iraq. North Korea was on his axis of evil too, so it wasn't like he didn't know about it (nor did anyone else not notice an over-zealous dictator waving around nukes).

I feel Kerry is wrong on North Korean policy though, with tri-part talks.. Bush has a good point about keeping China and Russia in there. If you drop their most powerful bordering countries from the talks, how the hell are you going to pressure them?

[DG at Uni]

No, Farl. Don't misread me. I'm saying that it's hypocritical to say "Iraq was a threat" when it was very minor compared to N.Korea. And the Bush administration hasn't done very much about North Korea's threat either, which makes the hypocrisy behind Iraq all the more evident.

Also, what shbaz said.

[bspeers100]

Yes, but follow the logic.  If pre-emptive war is an unsupportable action then it is unsupportable period.  I don't think the North Korea example is a very good one in general.   The more we use it, the more people will think, "Yeah, they ARE a threat!"

Not that I don't think Bust was hypocritical, I just think that it's dangerous to tell people to invade other countries.  They could easily argue "Yeah, you're right.  North Korea is a bigger threat.  Now that Bush has beat Saddam, he's the only one with the gonads to bomb North Korea"

Of course bombing primarily hurts the people who live in a country and has very rarely had an overall pacifying effect.  The normal effect is to rally enemies together agaisnt the attacker and *strengthen* opposition, while harming innocent people.  Even the bombing of Germany during WWII was largely counter-productive and targetted civilians, but that at least could be partially justified on the grounds that Germany was the agressor.

Anyway, I don't want to get into all the reasons why warfare is not only inhumane, but technologically, environmentally and politically irrational, I just wanted to point out the danger of using North Korea as an anti-war example.  There are many even easier examples of Bush's hypocracy, and many better reasons not to invade.

[shbaz]

Yes, but follow the logic.  If pre-emptive war is an unsupportable action then it is unsupportable period.  I don't think the North Korea example is a very good one in general.   The more we use it, the more people will think, "Yeah, they ARE a threat!"

Not that I don't think Bust was hypocritical, I just think that it's dangerous to tell people to invade other countries.  They could easily argue "Yeah, you're right.  North Korea is a bigger threat.  Now that Bush has beat Saddam, he's the only one with the gonads to bomb North Korea"

N. Korea spends over 30% of its GDP on its military - more than any other country in the world (as a percentage, not as a whole number). They made threats and really do have nukes. They really ARE a threat, whether it's convenient or not. Bush doesn't have the gonads to bomb N. Korea or he would have done it before Iraq, which was clearly the better choice, which is why I don't think it matters. Besides, I'm all for giving him a chance anyway or it wouldn't be a fair comparison. Really though, once you do give him a chance, there IS no comparison, he's done badly at nearly everything he put his hands on.


In other news, did anyone watch the vice-president debate? I didn't, but I think everyone will get a kick out of this.

Cheney Drops a Dot-Bomb in Debate

After Democratic nominee John Edwards raised some nasty allegations about Halliburton Corp., the company Cheney once ran, Cheney angrily responded to the "false" charges. "If you go, for example, to FactCheck.com, an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton," he said.

But when people followed Cheney's instructions, they wound up at a site sponsored by administration antagonist George Soros. "Why we must not re-elect President Bush," the site blared. "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values."

furthermore..

Gradually, people became aware of Cheney's mistake, and the White House transcript of the debate was annotated with the correct address. But, unfortunately for Cheney, FactCheck.org was not much more helpful than Soros in knocking down Edwards's charges.

Cheney "wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton," the Annenberg site wrote in a posting today. "In fact, we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn't profited personally while in office from Halliburton's Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney's responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right."

In your face, Dick!

[DG at uni]

bspeers, you're looking for things in my comments that I don't actually mean. I'm not saying that we should invade North Korea right this minute. I'm just saying that it's hypocritical that the Bush administration would negotiate with North Korea yet invade Iraq. It's much better logic to say (and this is my point) they should have negotiated more with Iraq.

That's why I think North Korea is a prime example for comparison. The US will negotiate with North Korea, but won't negotiate with Iraq even though Iraq was slowly complying with demands. Thus, it wasn't a real threat.

[bspeers11]

DG, I'm not arguing against you, merely against the general use of N. Korea as an argument.  Lots of people *do* use the "what about North Korea" argument, and all you did in your post was show a map of Korea and say "Threat??"  That sounds like saying North Korea is a threat to me.

And as for spending on armourments, Shbaz, N. Korea has not threatened the US.  Merely spending money on armourments is not the same as a threat, unless one considers anyone attempting to outpace the US in any resepct an automatic crime. 

However, I'm not sure how accurate your data is.  According to the 2003 CIA world-fact book, North Korea ranks about 32nd.  South Korea ranks 29th.  Israel rules the roost (by far), followed by Singapore, the US, Brunei, New Caledonia, etc. 

Check out http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_dol_fig_cap/, and also, http://www.nationmaster.com/country/is/Top-Rankings/ --these are my hastily found sources.  Also, in raw dollars, the military budget of South Korea is about 3 times that of North Korea.  (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2067rank.html)

[DGMacphee]

bspeers, yeah, I did only say "Threat??" and just show a map of N. Korea. But I think it was pretty obvious that I was trying to say the threat in Iraq was rather minor rather than "Why aren't we bombing N. Korea?". Especially if you look at the context of the threat and the quote I was replying to.

Anyway, I've elaborated now, so I hope that satisfies.

[shbaz]

B - you're not interpreting what I wrote correctly, I expected that so I typed it out as clearly as I could.. read again.

N. Korea spends over 30% of its GDP on its military - more than any other country in the world (as a percentage, not as a whole number).

GDP stands for gross domestic product.

I don't have time to check to see if Kim Jong Il has actually threatened the US yet (though I'm sure he has) but there is an obvious implied threat in his violation of the nonproliferation treaty and huge military budget for a country of that size. There is a demilitarized zone between North and South Korea that he's just itching to get rid of. Countries that build up the military tend to use the military.. I was saying that to everyone I knew when Bush campaigned on military improvements and a missile wall around the USA. Then we had a suspiciously un-necessary war sometime in 2003...

[Nacho]

No, Farl. Don't misread me. I'm saying that it's hypocritical to say "Iraq was a threat" when it was very minor compared to N.Korea.

Of course, I was joking.  8)

[bspeers1--]

B - you're not interpreting what I wrote correctly, I expected that so I typed it out as clearly as I could.. read again.

N. Korea spends over 30% of its GDP on its military - more than any other country in the world (as a percentage, not as a whole number).

GDP stands for gross domestic product.

Gee, that's funny, because the CIA world factbook also relies on GDP. Ã, In fact, all the statistics I quoted explain their exact source, including GDP, population, etc. Ã, Raw % of GDP is not a reliable method of attaining spending, unless other methods of computation are made.

But, I decided to examine your evidince further. Ã, The CIA world factbook is generally considered a reliable source, even by those opposed to the CIA, but maybe Korea has threatened other countries since the Korean war. Ã, Note that Korea has never attacked attacked an outside country. Ã, During the war, Koreans were fighting against invading Japanese, American troops, and each other. Ã, Since 1994, when Kim Jong Il took power, he has made zero threats to the United States, and only a few veiled statements to Japan. Ã, The following article is from an expert on the region, and you can read his latest book if you like:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=17&ItemID=4992

And while I have no absolute proof, after an exhausting search, I have found no evidence whatsoever that Kim Jong Il has threatened the United States in the last 20 years--which is certainly when the relevant history begins. Ã, He has performed "threatening" actions, but independent observers have questioned the degree to which these are truly unprovoked actions. Ã, If I were a scientist, I would say we had disproved, to the extent that we are able, your hypothesis.