M. Appeal (Mass Appeal)

The questions go unanswered. The hard hitting ones go unasked. By most, the debates even go un-noted. This is the sad reality of political debate in today’s America. Everyone knows it, and many are ready for change. Some have made complaints, and others, suggestions. But why exactly then is it that political candidates are the ones so resistant to changing the format of debate?

Perhaps it’s because politicians are salesmen, pitching a product as abstract as themselves. It isn’t a stretch to conclude that a salesman selling an abstract product has to be even more slick and sly than one who pitches a concrete one. Regrettably enough, this would explain why candidates are spending millions each year on campaign managers and PR personnel. Each member of the campaign team is a salesman, from the politician down to the lowliest intern. The thing about pitching a product is that it’s all about control.

Whether candidiates like it or not, times are changing, and people are clamoring to be spoken to, instead of spoken at, as YouTube shaker James Kotecki put it in his recent visit to our Dissident Media class. In today’s world, information control is no longer limited to a select few. The advancement of the Internet has excused nothing from the realm of public discussion, and true, public political discussion is exactly what’s being called for. While the recent Democratic ‘YouTube’ debates are a baby step in the right direction, the format of debate has largely gone unchanged since the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate. If tomorrow’s political hopefuls want to be taken seriously and, maybe more importantly, sincerely, they’d do well to do away with the thirty second sound bytes and to embrace, however reluctantly, the changing face of political debate that is incontestably headed their way.

Hey all,

Blogger is a very easy tool for blogging. The tools are very simple. Simply write whatever you like and use the font tools on the top left to spice things up again (like color, font, font size, etc). You can also very easily link anything you’d like into the blog using the link icon (which looks like a chain link over a picture of the globe). The centering aspects are the exact same as in word, and should not be too hard. To embed a picture simply click on the landscape icon next to the spellcheck button. It is just as easy to embed a video by clicking the film icon. Hopefully everything works out well for all of you. Have fun.

As I approached this first blog entry, I was unsure as to where to go with it. Candidate positions on press issues, debate issues, democratic discourse issues, comments on media? It seems so general, so many things one could say about them. Yet, what to say? I wanted to see if any of the 2008 candidates had any response to Newt Gingrich’s demand for meaningful political debates, the social cause of our blog.
So I went to Google and typed in ________(insert politicians name) meaningful political debates and was shocked to find that most of the results I got from Google were of other blogs reporting on how candidates performed in debates or how they thought the debates should be changed to become more meaningful. There were hits for blogs at abcnews.com, cbsnews.com, usatoday.com, mainstream media websites, as well as hundreds of other lesser-known and alternative form of media publications. I did find one article on the first page when I searched for “obama meaningful political debates” that wasn’t just a blog posting. It was an article from cbsnews.com from August 20th that reported on how Obama would be decreasing the amount of debate appearances he would be making after a busy summer, “saying the demand is just too great. If they agreed to accept every such invitation, the campaign said, there would simply be no time left over for the important things, like, you know, actual campaigning” (Ververs). Here’s a link to the article.

Super! Looks like we have one marketing-related issue out of the way: this green looks like somebody ate a hefty portion of moss and promptly vomited. So naturally, we must now search deep within ourselves to come up with the perfect color scheme. It might be fun and/or helpful to consider this in terms of epithets, e.g.:

• Soothing– think reverting back to your carefree childhood, chamomile tea, warm milk, Mommy, etc. Maybe warm pastels?
• Funky/Wacky!!– for some reason, the first colors that comes to mind are the borderline-offensive oranges and purples of Bed Bath & Beyond’s line of college furniture, but of course any combination of bold colors would apply here.
• D.C. Professional– black, white, grays…you know, if we want to cater to a lofty, boring older crowd.

Or not. Whichever.

In any case, feel free to leave a comment if you feel particularly passionate about a certain color (personally, I’m pretty fond of seafoam green and teal) and the suggestion will most certainly be taken into account.

Six years and two days ago we witnessed the worst attack on U.S soil. On Tuesday we commemorated that day and for the first time family members did not read off the names of the victims. Instead it was the rescuers who read the names of the people they could not get too. Hundreds of New Yorkers and people from around the globe stood in the drizzly rain to honor the fallen. Some of the participants included former New York mayor George Pataki, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and former New York City major Rudi Giuliani. Several months ago there was a controversy about Giuliani showing up at the ceremonies. Many families believed that he would turn this date of remembrance into a presidential speech. I agreed.
After 9/11 Giuliani became “America’s mayor.” When he spoke everyone listened, everyone was sympathetic, and everyone was on his side. However, now I feel that he was lost his touch. After all this is the candidate that answers 9/11 to every question. In fact he has become worse than President Bush in reminding us that we should live in fear and buy duct tape and gas masks. So I agreed that he should not have spoke at the ceremony. And although, he did not talk about his candidacy, I believe the main point of the protest was to tell America about his policies. His policies to disregard the American public, build up defense stay the course, and committee more soldiers to uncertain future. It is obvious he has the wrong talking points and if he really wants to talk to us, he needs to stop mentioning 9/11 and start talking about the change he is going to being to the White House.

Politics and I don’t get along anymore. Once a self-proclaimed political junkie, I grew weary of the petty partisanship and idiocy of everyone involved. Political discourse in America is basically non-existent. As I watch the entirety of the political spectrum being devoured by the extremists from both the left and right, finding an independent voice in the media has become an exercise. Whether it’s Ann Coulter’s book on the ‘God-less liberals’ or Michael Moore’s book on social security, all anyone does is insult each other. The only outlet of (semi) intelligent voices is the internet. But with this brand new technology we’re faced with a completely different set of issues. Here there is absolutely no quality control, and no qualifications are necessary. Anyone is able to post their blog, and this is how the truly unbiased and central views can be heard.
The biggest problem we face is reigning in the forces of extremists and promoting the voices of independence beyond the internet to the mainstream news media. Our candidates do little to help this goal. They promote and reinforce the political extremism of the popular culture and, therefore, never focus on the true problems and issues, but on a party and an ideology. Now purely about beating the competition (as opposed to true love of the game) it’s a high-stakes game in which there is nothing but total victory for one side. The conservative domination of the political landscape has found its way into the very ideology and institution of the mainstream media. The networks, newspapers, and personalities of the media elite have chosen their sides and it is up to the American people to take the control out of their hands. The voices on the internet, the informed bloggers, are exactly those who, according to our founding fathers, provide a stable and true Democracy. It is their job to promote an independent voice in our media, and help to ensure (and not expose for the sake of exposure) freedom and lawfulness within our government.

Upon sitting down at my trusty laptop to compose what would be my very first blog entry, I told myself that of all the presidential candidates, the one I would most certainly avoid writing about would be Republican Representative, Ron Paul. I figured there had been too much discussion about Paul in class, and I wanted to dig deeper into the dark depths of the candidate nation. Unfortunately, my big dreams of unearthing a less mainstream contender were squelched when, in my research, I stumbled upon a rather intriguing statement of Paul’s. According to The News Observer, Paul reportedly stated in an interview with ABC news on Tuesday, September 11, “If we as Republicans want to change things, we have to deal with the authority the president was given — we have to remove that — and we have to remove the financing, which we could do.” He continued, “But this tinkering around with how many soldiers are there and whether there’s progress or not — I think it’s kind of missing the whole point.”
If assessing the resulting casualties and the calculated progress of an active conflict is not hugely a part of “the point” in a debate about the necessity of a war, especially the one we find ourselves hopelessly trapped in today, then what is? Clearly there are many facets to consider in determining how successful (or not) a conflict resolution is proving to be. But I think Paul would be hard-pressed to find a following for his notion that the number of troops in Iraq and status of the operation’s success are trivial factors in what has become one of the most heated political debates in our nation’s history, the debate about the proclaimed War on Terror.
The important thing to note about this statement is that it is offensive regardless of one’s opinions about continued action in Iraq. Political parties set aside, comments of this nature not only demean the significance of every life that is at stake (not to mention those that have already been lost), but also seek to bury any doubt or future debate about the war’s progress. I think it’s safe to say we can all agree that the question about the Iraq War’s future is and should remain at the forefront of the presidential debates.

If anyone has any specific ideas on improving how we look, just send an email to Mescalero101er@gmail.com! Thanks!