[extropy-chat] Re: the "cancel the election" media ploy
Randy Smith
cryofan at mylinuxisp.com
Wed Jul 14 20:58:12 UTC 2004
>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....
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