[extropy-chat] Re: the "cancel the election" media ploy

[Randy Smith]

>Message: 1
>Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 00:18:49 -0700
>From: Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Politics: US talks of suspending elections
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Message-ID: <948b11e040714001862cad178 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
>I don't see why we our society needs to answer this hypothetical
>situation before the fact.  Before the fact planning how to shutdown
>the election and for how many reasons makes people pretty darn
>nervous.  If something that extreme happens we will have to deal with
>it vis a vis the election when it happens.   Too much planning in
>terms of extremely horrendous but very small possibilities results in
>paranoia and temptation to invoke emergency powers all ready to go.
>
>I certainly don't trust an incumbent to decide whether to hold the
>election that could remove him.
>
>  
>


I think that the reason this idea was "floated" this way by Bushco is 
that they know it will generate a lot of controversy among the media 
pundits. The media pundits are people who are knowledgeable about the 
import of such an action. So this is important to them.

But this is not the set of people for whom this idea is being floated.  
It is meant for the average dumbass voter/citizen who is not really all 
that much into poltiics--Joe Sixpack. Joe and his wife mostly just care 
about their kids and their car and house and its value on the market, 
and their bills and what is on the TV and what is for dinner.

By generating so much controversy among the media, Bushco has managed to 
penetrate that dense bone barrier around Joe Sixpack's cranium, and with 
that penetration, bushco has managed to get into their heads a little 
bit of the idea that the USA is still under seige by those bad guys who 
caused so much ruckus in NY a few years ago--911. Joe Sixpack usually 
doesn't read the whole news story--he just reads the headlines, or he 
hears a blurb about it on an MSNBC politics show when he is flippnig 
through the channels on his way from ESPN1 to ESPN2.

Now that Bushco has done that, they can invoke the primal feelings of 
fear, hate, tribal loyalty, etc.,  associated with 911--and with Bush's 
role in the aftermath of 911. It was those same feelings that led to 
bush's 90% favorable rating in opinion polls after 911.  If he can tap 
into those feelings, he can win.

The media and pundits know this, I would reckon. I notice that they are 
not talking about that, though....

So this really has nothing to do with actually cancelling the election. 
It is just media manipulation.  Relax....