Little risk and Big reward for telling lies

The lie is heard . . .the rebuttal is not. With the corporate media owning 85 percent of the airwaves, their candidate can spout any kind of untruth without fear of being called out. It’s a numbers game. The corporate media will not point out the lie. FOX and their affiliates will re-air and promote the lie again and again. If the 15% of independent news or commentary catch it and prove the falsehood, such a small percentage of the people will ever see or hear it. This is why the conservatives have so much sway and can frame the issues in their favor and put the liberals on the defensive. Millions see or hear the lie while a few hundred thousand will see or hear the truth. Example: McCain’s latest ad states that Obama supported a program that would have comprehensive sexual education taught to kindergartners. The truth is he supported a program that stated if a school already includes sex-ed in their curriculum it would add sexual transmitted disease education. Secondly the program helps protect children as young as kindergarten from sexual predators, by educating them on inappropriate touch by adults. Encouraging them to tell someone the trust about the inappropriate touching. This is why it is so very important to keep blogging and supporting the independent media.

This is the world we live in. Since the advent of television coverage of candidates, the issues no longer matter. Those who get elected are the ones who look most like us, the voter. They don't have to be knowledgeable on the issues they just need to seem like somebody you can have a beer with (see the last 8 years). The Republican party seems to have mastered this "personality" contest. They can spew acid with a smile and evoke sympathy when that same acid blows onto their face. When someone like Obama points out this ridiculousness it falls on deaf ears. So much of our country wants WWE politics instead thought provoking discussion of the issues.

My son and I have debated whether or not the Dems should learn from the Repubs and lower their level of discourse to that of the Repubs. I say they should. He says they shouldn't. I don't believe the high road will garner enough votes to get elected. Therefore change will never come. He believes that the end doesn't justify the means. I'm not sure which of us is right.

With the debates right around the corner I thought you might like to know a little something about the process and the entire lack of spontaneity: The Commission on Presidential Debates was formed in 1987 to replace the non-partisan League of Women Voters, which included independent candidate John Anderson in the first 1980 presidential debate and prohibited the major party candidates from selecting the debate panelists in 1984. Frank Fahrenkopf, then chairman of the Republican National Committee and now the leading lobbyist for the gambling industry, and Paul Kirk, then chairman of the Democratic National Committee and now a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, created The Commission on Presidential Debates.
Since they have taken it over, all questions have been pre-screened even to the extent of who gets to ask the question. The candidates are full aware of what they will be asked or the debate will not take place. In 1988 the League of women voters no longer sponsored the debates. The press release read: The league refuses to “help perpetrate a fraud” and withdraws support of the Presidential debate.
Some notable quotes about the commission:
"I'm trying to forget the whole damn experience of those debates. 'Cause I think it's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates. They're rehearsed appearances." Former President George Bush

"The debate commission is a corrupt duopoly." Steve Forbes

“They should be charged with sabotaging the electoral process." Walter Cronkite

DaG out