catsittingstill

:-7 I think you're right.

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wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com

Sadly, I think many Republicans have decided that the end (of getting elected and having the power to run the country) justifies whatever means they feel is required. Lying about their own record; lying about their opponents; letting their friends smear their opponents; opposing (or at least refusing to pass) laws that would let us recount electronic ballots; demanding ID for voters (which amounts to a poll tax if the ID is not free); naming legislation that allows more pollution the "Clean Air Act"; etc. etc. etc.

I see a lot less of this on the Democrats' side; more honest mistakes, less deliberate lies.

As to the lies themselves, I think they figure some people will believe whatever they hear enough times, and as to the rest, they can make most Americans take it all as a "he said she said" that has no factual basis, so they will ignore it.

After all, who paid much attention to Michael Moore's piece on W? (I had someone sitting next to me saying "I remember that, I remember that, why didn't he use this other example" throughout the movie...but a lot of people's reactions ranged from "wow, I missed all that" to "that can't all be true.")

Unfortunately, our news media isn't invested in correcting our politicians' lies.

All in all, I agree: )-:

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mbumby.livejournal.com

And more unfortunately, I think they are right. Not we-talking-in-this-post, but we-as-the-voting-public.

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admnaismith.livejournal.com

I think they don't care a ripe turd what informed voters think. They hate and despise us, and intend to get a majority from other sources.

I met my generation's equivalent of John McCain in elementary school. He used to beat up smaller kids because "I TOLD you to quit breathing my air!"

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:-(

I don't know about John McCain being a bully--I just used to respect him, dammit, and I feel like he's disdaining that.

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admnaismith.livejournal.com

Him and Colin Powell. A lot of my rage at those two stems from the feeling that they conned me and America into once thinking they were among the good guys.

In my more charitable moments, I consider the possibility that maybe they actually used to be decent, and that Bush just squeezed all the decent out of them, took a leak on it, and dumped it down the sewer, along with everything else decent that he ever got his hands on.

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judifilksign.livejournal.com

Colin Powell believed the BS fed him, and repeated it, giving W. credibility. Powell was furious his honor and trustworthiness, earned so hard in the first Gulf War, was used to further the Iraq agenda. He resigned from office so it would never happen again. I still respect him, and think he's still decent.

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admnaismith.livejournal.com

So Powell says.

Since he lied to the entire United Nations with a straight face, he's probably willing to lie just as baldly to the American people.

I'll never trust that phony general again. Anyone who does is a fool.

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I tend to lean toward believing this myself.

But given that he was fooled into lending his credibility to bolster a lie, I'll certainly take anything else he says with a grain of salt.

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judifilksign.livejournal.com

And I think it well to be noted how - silent - he is during this election. He's not lending his credibility or endorsements to *anyone* that I've heard of.

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mbumby.livejournal.com

I still respect Powell, think he's a good man, and agree with your comment on his fury. However I'm not completely convinced that her really did believe the BS. Listening to his voice as he was testifying, I thought I noticed ... something. Something uncomfortable? Trying to convince himself? Don't know -- just something "off". I think what I believe is that he was tricked into testifying.

Will you tell Congress what we know about the Middle East?

     Sure.

Cool -- here's what we know.

     But I don't believe that...
     But the boss says it's true...
     And I did say I'd testify...
     And what if I'm wrong...
     ... after all he _does_ have "intelligence" supporting it ...
     And I did say I'd testify, and he does tell me it's true, and he is the boss...

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I dunno. I think Colin Powell was okay--I think he was fooled into using his credibility to back Bush's lies, but I think he believed the lies at the time.

But I don't trust him anymore, because, well, if Bush could fool him I need to take into account that anyone coming down the pike could fool him.

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mbumby.livejournal.com

I did too... and with some of his about-faces, he's squandered it.

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I don't see the problem?

Some people will be against them anyway, and will ignore this.
Some people will be for them anyway, and will ignore this.
Some people will have heard a different version, and will ignore this.
Some people will have heard a different version but will be persuaded by their insistence, and may be influenced in their favour.
Some people will not have heard a different version, and may be influenced in their favour.
Some people will have heard a different version, will be disgusted by their lies, and may be influenced against them.

Unless they calculate that the effect of last one may be greater than the effect of the previous two (which I would expect to be unlikely) it's advantageous to them to lie.

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I'm not sure I understand you right. It looks like, behind the breakdown, you are saying "they lie because it works, and that's not a problem."

But that doesn't make sense. 1) it's not okay that they lie to gain an advantage. I mean, McCain was supposed to be all about integrity, right? It's not okay for people in general to cheat the American people, and surely it's not okay for someone who has always made a big deal about being honest to cheat the American people?

2) it's not *okay* that lying works. It's not okay that most people aren't paying attention to the job interview to run the country; it's evidence that American society is ill. And it's not okay that most people paying attention don't care if the interviewee is caught in a lie, looks them in the eye, and continues to lie--that's further evidence that American society is ill.

Like I said, what I perceive as your argument doesn't make sense to me, so I think maybe I didn't understand what you were trying to say.

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For them, it's not a problem. Because it works. The winner is the one who gets the most votes, regardless of morality, ethics, truth, whatever.

Most certainly it's not OK. Most certainly it does horrible damage to American society. Just like plunging the country into gigantic debt damaged it.

But it doesn't seem to be about that any more, it's about winning.

Look at the profits Bush's allies made out of trashing the country. When that kind of money is involved, integrity doesn't have much chance.

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Ah, I think I understand now--you were saying "they lie because it works--and that's okay with *them*."

To which I say, it's okay with them but it shouldn't be okay with the rest of us, and it isn't okay in the larger sense of "the right thing to do."

That's all.

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Unfortunately, at the end of the day the winner is the one who wins, not the one who plays fair. And that winner gets to set the rules for the next time.

Unless there's something else enforcing ethical behaviour the system will tend towards cheating, because cheating is rewarded and fair play is penalised.

It definitely needs fixing, but that is not an easy job.

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Which is why I think it's not okay. Not okay that they're lying, not okay that lying helps them.

Unfortunately I don't know what to do about it.

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It was hoped that the internet would help, by increasing communication. But it seems to just add to the noise level, and people still only listen to and believe what they already want to hear.

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vesta-aurelia.livejournal.com

They do this because Karl Rove made it work for previous elections.

That's all. :P

ETA: The North Vietnamese couldn't break John McCain's honor. It took the GOP to do that.

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:-(

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Or why I keep a separate political blog. No idea if anyone's reading it, though.

McCain and Palin, for somewhat different reasons, are ethically broken. McCain broke under torture while he was a prisoner--made some tapes for the North Vietnamese. I don't think he's ever recovered. Palin seems to lie because she's power hungry and has a very limited range of empathy. There's a substantial portion of the public who don't treat figures on the television like they're quite real; they don't ask what it would really be like to have a beer with W. Bush (he'd get you high enough to talk you into something stupid, and when the cops came along, he'd be nowhere to be seen), or gossip with Sarah Palin (your reputation would be mud within 24 hours). Instead, this group hears their prejudices reinforced, and doesn't ask, "Does this make sense?" Especially, this group knows their own ability to experience shame, and figures that McCain and Palin must have a similar limitation.

In a healthy media environment, McCain and Palin would have been slammed for this; in fact, W. Bush would have been slammed for this, and we'd never have come to this pass. As things are, Palin seems to have finally scared the press, and they are starting to cover the story. Unfortunately a huge fraction of the public has already been persuaded that there is no risk and that the radical right are actually their protectors, and we have 50 days to change enough minds.

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I wouldn't go as far as you have here--I'm sure being a POW was a horrible experience but as far as I could tell, McCain really was a maverick, doing what he thought was right, as recently as 2000. (I may not have agreed with him about what was right, but that's a different issue.)

I myself would trace his departure from ethics to when he started sucking up to the religious right at the beginning of this election cycle.

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I think you are to some extent right: age and stress have weakened him. It comes through quite clearly in his public appearances; he's only a good speaker on things long in the past, and very poor on current issues. Even so, though, McCain was one of the Keating Five. One of the problems we've had is that these people keep getting second and third and fourth chances--no-one's every discredited, let alone censured or even jailed, and they just keep on coming back and doing more harm.

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I had forgotten about the Keating Five.

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Sigh... I really, really, really would like to go back to a world where I could limit my thinking about politics to deciding how to vote.

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It seems that one of the BNB (big name bloggers), Teresa Nielsen Hayden, also picked this morning to focus on this issue. This morning, while she's recovering from a heart attack.

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deborah_c

I think the idea is that if they keep repeating it, the media will get bored with repeatedly saying "but that's a lie", and it'll get through to uninformed voters. Actually, it's almost miraculous that "but that's a lie" is getting mentioned, I think, at least in the mainstream media.

Unfortunately, this seems to work. "Pipelines don't affect caribou", for example, seems to pass as "there's a source for this, it must be true"; the source was George H.W. Bush, who put it in a speech - as far as anyone seems to know, he made it up.

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