That Darned Election

1: Acorn.

They have been accused of enthusiastically registering people to vote.  Perhaps too enthusiastically, given that we hear of them registering people multiple times (one homeless guy allegedly 72 times), registering the under-age (as young as seven), businesses (as in the actual building) and the dead.

It's nice that all these groups should be represented in the democratic process, although registering multiple personalities and the inanimate is taking things a bit far.

Not that any of these people could actually have voted.  Or at least one would hope not.  So it's not actually electoral fraud being perpetrated.  Actually, it's just monumental stupidity.  Don't employ Acorn, folks, they couldn't find their corporate arse with both hands, a road map and a satellite imaging.

My feeling is that somewhere down the line we're going to find out that the company was being paid to register voters -per voter-, which is just an opportunity for any qualified scamologist to ply their trade.  Someone will have pocketed the money and be off across the nearest border while the bewildered and somewhat challenged folks now being pilloried on Fox News have had a chance to work out what went wrong.

Voter registration should be really simple.  The IRS knows how many people pay taxes and the DHS knows how many of those people are actual citizens, so why not work out your list of voters from there and mail them a happy little card that says "would you like to vote this year?" along with a return envelope.  It seems to work for Netflix.  Or is that too easy?

And apparently my initial thoughts might be wrong.  Have a look at the accusation from the dear old Guardian that it might be a Neocon Put Up Job

2: Right Wing Media.

It is at once disturbing and comforting to listen to what the various conservative broadcasters are up to.

Robert Anton Wilson, a very smart man who said a lot of interesting things, once suggested that you should always read at least one publication that you disagree with, to see what the other side are thinking.  I think he might have been asking us to test our assumptions and give our prejudices a kick, too.  So I do this by occasionally watching Fox News and listening to KFYI 550.

The current propaganda can be boiled down to:

• Barack Obama consorts with known terrorists.
• His associations with Acorn mean that he is in some way responsible for their behavior.
• He has radical and anti-American friends.
• Journalists are not telling the whole story when they report from Republican rallies.
• Journalists are not telling any story about Democrat rallies, which are filled with hate.
• Sarah Palin is being judged unfairly.
• Obama will raise taxes and make you poor.

They're fearmongering, and stating that their listeners should not trust journalists.

Of course, no one should trust a journalist; journalists don't necessarily tell the utter objective truth all the time, look at Hunter S. Thompson.  However, some journalists are better at producing facts than others, and some are better at suppressing their naturally subjective filters than others.  Our yardstick for which is which generally turns out to be "this voice reaffirms what I was already thinking, therefore I trust it".

But if you know this about journalists, and you know this about people in general, then you can read nearly anyone and draw some measure of truth from what they say.  This is a skill that you learn and have to practice.

The Conservative Broadcasters - they aren't journalists, they're just people with microphones airing an opinion that they then don't have to support with facts - you know, like gradeschool children who have been taught that it's wonderful to just have an opinion and this makes them special and wonderful.

Part of their game is something rather cunning.  They "go to the phone lines" in order to create a sense of Vox Populi.  Typically, the Populi that attempt to Vox are allowed to say how wonderful the host is, and then they are allowed to say something short about the topic of the day. Normally, the host then cuts them off and runs a speil on that same topic, hitting a short list of talking points (generally the same list for each call) and loading up with jingoism.  The effect is quite clever: the host appears to be talking to the country, appears to be engaging with the population and appears to be fielding their questions and comments.  That he appears to be is a piece of craftsmanship on the host's part. Let's not underestimate how good they are at it, either.

Sean, and those like him, are not telling us anything new.  Instead, what they provide is a form of reinforcement.  Listeners and viewers are tuning in because they already agree with what's being said and want to feel OK about it.

This takes nothing away from Sean.  He's still a very effective broadcaster and, to be honest, he's only doing what other media outlets on both sides of the debate are also doing.

Hang on a minute.

This two party system in the USA, and in other parts of the world: thesis and antithesis, really, isn't it?

Where's the synthesis?

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