The cruelest manipulation of the Public began in Nov 1998.

[salin]

The gop in congress lost seats. newt resigned. livingston resigned before he took position. The Gop lost california gov (which it had held for 16 years). There was a growing backlash against the Congressional GOP for their anti-clinton antics. Folks like Burton, shooting watermelons to prove that foster was murdered - were starting to look like a freak show.

Suddenly the talking heads started spewing a few things... the GOP in californa was to be dead unless the national party found a leader who was moderate and could appeal multi-culturally... and there was the person - this "moderate" Texan, now twice elected, who had great multicultural appeal. For a year this talk continued.

Quietly rivals were talked out of running (Dole - (Eliz) - bowed out... "they had already raised too much money" was the excuse)... others bowed out. And that other Texan - the noisy one - was suddenly quiet.

The public was sold an image of a moderate. The new term "Compassionate Conservative" was marketed - as it did so well with various focus groups. Until McCain stepped in towards the end of the pre-primary period - that moderate bush image sold.

It was briefly pierced during the primaries - when the ugly antics in SC threatened to lay bare to the face behind the mask - and the wizard (supporters) behind the curtain. But McCain got knocked out, and the image was further spun.

There is no way, that the election would have been close enough to pick off in Florida (with the Supreme Court's intervention) - had the true neocon militarist, social darwinian economist, and corporate cronyist was acknowledged as the candidate.

The deception began long before the Iraq war, and long before 911. Until the public recognizes this - the public will be subject to the level of orwellian manipulation again and again.

It isn't often discussed - but the man who became president in late January 2001, was not the man marketed to the public during the campaign. He didn't campaign on the issues that became his hallmark. And those issues became clear in the months after the election and months BEFORE 911 - so it can not be said that the attacks changed him. First things done - kill Kyoto (though he campaigned upon it - as an "environmentalist who just wanted some balance between ecological and business interests)... strangle the west coast economy (that some say really accelerated the recession) by enabling the energy companies to manipulate and keep manipulating the market (escalating costs of living and doing business by more than 100% in some cases).

Why is this important? So folks become more savvy. So they get to know the candidates more than just in 30 second soundbites. So they LOOK to see if things are simply staged/canned which makes it likely that it is all madison avenue (marketing) packaged sales hoaxes.

Then they will see each policy push from bushco for what it is. Begin to disbelieve each word as it is uttered - rather than waiting for months or years later to get the reality of what was done.

The pattern of bushco started long before the 2000 election. Buyer/voter beware is now the rule - but many of the buyers/voters do not yet realize the extent to which the rule is now in place. (EG the orwellian point to where words uttered from the GOP have no real meaning - as they often cover for the exact opposite actions.)

[dbt]

1. Brilliant post.

Recommended and thank you!

[undergroundpanther]

3. Kick and reccomend

Here is something I wrote about this..

Elections and the nature of shit
http://www.unknownnews.net/040810a-upits.html

Abusive fathers In Heaven on Earth
http://www.unknownnews.net/041022a-upits.html

[salin]

5. If more people sat and reflected as you have done

in these posts... about the disconnected nature between most voters and politicians - and what that means when doing the voting and what it means about our system.... I think we would start to see some efforts to change the status quo... and there would be more demands on representatives - local and state and even federal - to be more accessible - to spend as much energy/effort/stafftime/etc dealing with constituents as is spent on corporate lobbyists. More time at home in districts and less time writing laws with the real items being in the riders to the laws (as you point out in the first post).

But before any change - there has to be a change in the public sentiment - and that isn't a shift left vs right... it is a shift of responsibility... responsibility for govt by becoming informed and active... responsibility to get a massive groundswell of people who are informed and active... a shift towards active involvement in civics rather than fewer than half of the population ever showing up to vote (and fewer yet in off-year elections.)

[FreedomAngel82]

38. Exactly

Earlier this week I had a conversation with someone and we talked about various things. Even though we're on opposite sides of the isle we agreed a lot more then we disagreed. I was pretty surprised. I encouraged them to vote smart and look at the canidates and their past and how they are. Are they being truthful or is it just an act? If it's someone who's running as a governor try to talk to people who live in the state and get opinions on both sides of the isle and find out opinions on them etc. If people didn't just vote party line but actually read about them and critize them then things would be different in this world. If there was a canidate who had a (d) next to their name and after I did my research on all the canidates and I didn't like him but I liked the guy with an (r) or an (i) after their name better I would vote for them.

[Dora]

2. I second that nomination

Thank you for your insight.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. As I noted on another thread yesterday,

early in 1999, the Republican activists who lived in my apartment complex in Portland knew for certain that George W. would be the Republican nominee and would occupy the White House. This wasn't just bragging about one's candidate: they obviously knew something about the machinations going on.

At that time, I had not revealed my own political inclinations, wanting to stay on friendly terms with my neighbors, but I asked honestly, "Are you sure? With millions of Republicans in this country, isn't there anyone else?"

They were resolute. Bushboy was definitely going to be the nominee.

By the way, these people stopped speaking to me after I wrote a LTTE advocating for the Democratic Senate candidate in 2002.

[Trailrider1951]

6. Lydia, I missed that thread here yesterday.

Would you please post a link to that thread for me? I would really like to read it. Thanks!
:hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. Here ya go

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3923603&mesg_id=3925119

:hi: yourself!

[salin]

9. No secret at all... it was being written about that way

on the political pages of the Mercury News throughout 1998 (under the theme of if the GOP lose california permanently ... they will lose the ability to be elected nationally... that was the theme of the day - at least in northern california.)

I do think that the brief McCain surge caught many by surprise, however. For that reason alone I was rooting for him (would never have voted for him - but I loved watching the early primaries in hopes that he would upset the gop mantra pushing for bush... little did I or anyone I know - know what jrbush really stood for.)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Also by the way, I'll probably get flamed for this, but

the nomination process in both parties seems like a stage-managed charade and has seemed so for a long time. Having watched the 1984 and 1988 elections with horror, as if witnessing a car crash about to happen, I couldn't help feeling that Mondale and Dukakis were supposed to lose.

Otherwise, why would such lousy campaigners and uncharismatic speakers been chosen? Why would their campaigns have been run so badly, with so many no-brainer missteps?

Answer: so that the conservative moles within the Democratic Party could say, "See? The public rejects liberals. Look at Humphrey, Mondale, McGovern, and Dukakis."

But the public didn't reject "liberals" per se. They rejected unappealing candidates or those who were otherwise made to appear flawed.

People forget that Hubert Humphrey was actually the most conservative of the Dems running in 1968. His opponents were Eugene McCarthy and :cry: Robert Kennedy, and after he got the nomination, amidst mayhem in the streets, a lot of anti-war activists refused to vote for him, because he had made excuses for the Vietnam War. In one sense, he wasn't liberal enough.

The media consistently implied that George McGovern was the "hippie candidate," because they hardly ever showed him without a shot of enthusiastic "flower child" fans. That was a killer in a time when Middle America was in the midst of a cultural backlash against "hippies."

In 1988, I was teaching at a college where the faculty was overwhelmingly liberal, but many of them didn't vote that year. (Dukakis carried Oregon anyway.) A faculty member who was chair of the county Democrats was going around the campus coffee shop at lunchtime trying to inspire his colleagues to take part in GOTV activities. The overwhelming response he got was, "Give me someone worth voting for, and then I'll think about it."

Another thing that people may not remember about the 1988 convention is that there was a lot of buzz about the hot young governor of Arkansas who had a bright future in the party. For whatever reason, his speech went very badly (I was completely underwhelmed), but look who popped up four years later as the nominee, with Al Gore as his running mate (Al Gore, who spent the Reagan years mostly agreeing with Reagan).

When it came to be Al's turn to run, he, too, was given extremly bad advice. Again, it was painful to watch him agree with Bush on everything in the "debates." Something like 1/3 of the voters were "undecided" just a few days before the election, which would never have happened if Gore had clearly distinguished himself from Bush. That inept, timid, lily-livered campaign made the election close enough to steal.

My feelings about 2004 are well-known here. Suffice it to say that faced with the worst sitting president in the history of the U.S., Kerry should have been able to defeat him without breaking into a sweat. It should have been Johnson versus Goldwater, too lopsided to steal.

[glitch]

31. No such thing as too lopsided to steal when you run both polls and vote

count.

[salin]

37. go back to Watergate... the biggest issue wasn't the

petty breakin, it was a pattern of behavior that went to tampering in one party's primary in order to "get" the desired candidate. Target - Muskie out desire: McGovern in. Sadly that part of the watergate scandal has been forgotten over the years.

[FreedomAngel82]

39. I do agree with you

I've looked and thought about everything a long time. But the "powers that be" over our government didn't want any of them to be president. So why did they choose Clinton? I think after Bush they will have a democrat be the president. Why? I don't know. Call it a "gut" feeling and just looking at the pattern. I have heard people say they think they rigged our primaries. I don't think they would care to do that but I do think they used the media to go against Dean in the primaries and Kerry's campaign and how it was run. Dean was the popular, anti-war canidate. They couldn't have a democrat win because of Iraq and enough democrats would destory their party if they didn't support anti-war bills because we're against Iraq. A lot of us didn't want a war fought smater, we wanted to get out of there!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

53. I think they had to get Clinton in because it would look

too Soviet to have the same party in office for more than 12 years.

That's my cynical take on it.

[salin]

54. I think Clinton was a mistake

I don't think they expected him to win - because they discounted the Perot factor. He fits your "selection" criteria - interms of how they could have (and did try) to paint him... war protestor, draft dodger, etc. BUT they suddenly had a second flank that was doing more damage to them by drawing part of the "Reagan Democrat" base.

So they got to work on dismantling his ability to do much of anything right away.

[AndyTiedye]

17. The Votes Were Being FIXED Around the Candidate

[salin]

19. but prior to that... the money was being fixed

ala pushing donors to back one guy... and intimidating others out of the race as they couldn't raise funds.

then the media was being fixed ... both because of the story in itself about the amazing fundraising... and then because of the media that could be bought by the fundraising... and then due to the corporate backers who realized they could get on the bandwagon and get some goodies in the long run from it.

All of this more than a year before the voting.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. Yes, I recall that Bushboy had a war chest of 40 million

by the beginning of 1999. The whole news mantra was about how unstoppable he was.

[salin]

26. while it seemed worrisome at the time

it didn't seem as worrisome as it should have - given what we know now.

[AFSCME girl]

7. I agree! Recommended and

thank you very much!

[AFSCME girl]

8. Kick again and

passing this on to friends and coworkers...

AFSCME girl

[salin]

10. please let me know how they respond

thanks.

[AFSCME girl]

22. I will and

thanks, again, salin. This is a great post!

AFSCME girl

[bullimiami]

11. but books and stories were being written

and for anyone who looked beyond the end of their nose the truth was there to see.

but the msm was corrupt long before that.

[salin]

13. the point is to get more folks, not just those reading the books

more aware of the whole "show" and manipulation thereof. The whole scope of how we were manipulated. Work their memory back to the pre-primary packaging of the candidate... and then back to the pre-911 actions of bush - and how completely different those two bush images were.

Why - because then the current antics become much easier for folks who weren't paying attention, or who got put into a bit of a funk and deaf zone after the terrorist attacks of 911, to discern current words and actions from bushco.

And because hopefully more folks will become savvy enough to look deeper at their candidates - and feel more compelled to read and pay attention.

[FreedomAngel82]

40. Jon Stewart did great with that

On his show he did a Bush "debate" with Bush from 2000 and Bush now. It really is amazing.

[salin]

41. everyone needs to see that clip

and there are new ones just begging to be made per bush per war vs the downing street memos and other statements from officials that confirm the dsms assertions.

[G_j]

12. good synopsis, nominated

and you see the corporate media's hands in it all the way.

[salin]

15. I am now ashamed to admit that I discounted

a good friends growing concerns about the corporate media back in 1998. Ya, I knew there were corporate interests... but I still thought that in the end - the goal was to sell product (eg news) and that the better product would still win by folks watching it... I was slow to pickup upon the fact that often it wasn't about selling a news product, but using the news to sell other "products".

At least in turn for his opening my eyes (his warnings did get me to start paying attention) - I turned him - a life long nonvoter (my vote doesn't count) into a registered and regular voter.

[Beam Me Up]

14. Excellent analysis, thank you. Nominated.

[BurtWorm]

21. Enough people saw through Bush to reject him

Unfortunately, we weren't ready for how low they were willing to go to get into power.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. This needs another kick

:kick:

[Peace Patriot]

24. You're right, salin! Cheney's energy task force meetings were also in

spring 2001. The secrecy of these meetings was noted, but never broken into. (Those were the meetings at which Cheney & buds poured over maps of Iraq's oil fields.) If the news monopolies had been journalists, had looked harder at it, would we have had more warning of Enron, of Iraq? Same period: Enron's theft of $9 billion in Calif. And the first tax cut for the rich: May 2001.

Everybody was distracted by Chandra Levy and Gary Condit that summer (while the 9/11 warnings went unheeded in the White House). I say distracted, but only because I feel that the attention was wrongly focused on Condit and his sex life. Do you know who Condit was meeting with on that day, May 1, 2001, in the very hours of Levy's disappearance? Dick Cheney. (It's in Condit's released schedule for the first week of May, which he made public in June--but was not confirmed by the news monopolies--that is, no one asked Cheney's office to even confirm that meeting--until August '01.) And do you know what Condit did two days after Levy disappeared? He was one of only ten Democrats who voted for Bush's first tax cut for the rich. May 3, 2001. It was a very close vote. Condit's vote was critical to its passage.

Distracted, yes. And missing everything. The turnabout from "compassionate conservatism" to naked thievery by the rich. Enron bleeding Calif dry. Iraq in preparation. 9/11 in preparation. Another odd fact I know re 2001, pre 9/11: When Colleen Rowley was trying to get permission to open Zacharias Moussoui's computer, that summer, in August 2001--(Moussoui is an accused 9/11 conspirator)--at almost the same moment that Dick Cheney was fessing to Newsweek that, yes, he did meet with Gary Condit that day, but for only twenty minutes, see--what was waiting inside that computer, that Rowley was not given permission to open, was the name Nicholas Berg.

Somehow Nicholas Berg--the businessman beheaded in Iraq during the Falluja uprising (cause celebre for the Bushite dittoheads)--had happened to sit next to Moussoui on a bus one day, and happened to lend Moussoui his email account and his password. Anyway, that's the story that the FBI put out, after Berg was beheaded following an FBI interrogation in Iraq. And I've never understood why they put that story around at all. No one but they would have known what was in Moussoui's computer, and that Berg had been previously questioned about it by the FBI. Very odd doings.

All of this happening in 2001--while we were still choking on the first stolen election.

It all seems very, very weird now, looking back. I remember thinking, when that V-P office planted story about Cheney and Condit came out in Newsweek: something very wrong with news people these days, failing to notice who had met with Condit that day, during those hours, and never asking Cheney about it. (That's what the article said--that neither Cheney nor his aides were ever asked about it, by ANYBODY. They came forth with the story to Newsweek on their own, who dutifully let it be planted.)

Something wrong with these news people who never ask questions.

Okay, one last weird fact: Who met with Kenneth Lay that May--that very May in which Chandra Levy disappeared, and Condit met with Cheney, and Condit voted for the first tax cut for the rich, etc.--in Los Angeles, in a meeting called by Lay , regarding how much of the $9 billion Enron might have to give back to the people of California--May 17, 2001 (just about the time that Levy's disappearance was hitting the news)?

Answer: Arnold Schwarzenegger--who would be installed as governor of California two years later in a highly unusual Recall election in which his Democratic opponent would be blamed for the energy blackouts and huge costs that Enron had inflicted.

Yet another "compassionate conservative."

Chandra Levy's bones were found in a DC park in early 2002. She had been pretty much forgotten by then, post-9/11, while the Bushites and the Blairites were cooking up the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis (according to the British doctors' report--mostly killed by our bombs during the invasion).

But she still tugs at the heart, that pretty girl--along with everything we could not see behind the "Beltway" sex drama that was being presented to us. (Fox was big on that one.) Everything that was coming. All the evil that was coming, including a second stolen election.

These news people who never ask questions were a phenomenon then, as they are now. That hasn't changed.

Okay, one more weird fact. Who was the author of a bill proposed in Congress during the 2000-2001 period to mandate the placing of the Ten Commandments in all public buildings. Answer: Gary Condit.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. Wow, if Robert Ludlum had tried to sell his publisher a novel with

those details, it would have been rejected as "unbelievable."

Two possibilities come to mind:

1) There was something unsavory about the whole Chandra Levy affair, and the Republicanites used it as leverage to turn Condit into a "pet Democrat."

2) Condit was a mole all along and willing to have his personal reputation smeared in order to further the designs of the BFEE.

[salin]

28. hard to imagine that one would put oneself through that level

of ongoing personal humiliation (per the mole theory). Would guess more that it was repubs taking up the "opportunity" - even when they knew the "evidence" was thin.

[salin]

27. very interesting

time line...

especially the energy task force meetings, and the Lay meetings in California... didn't those all occur during the "energy crisis" in California? Or is my timing off?

[FreedomAngel82]

42. Oh wow

Good information. It does all tie together. What's that about Nick Berg? I don't know much about that.

[clark4me]

29. Nicely Put - Dorian Gray

Bush's Presidency has had two faces. The one that is sold to the public and the one that actually exists. Why more people don't see this is wayyyyyy beyond me. It all started right from the beginning.

[salin]

32. collective memory lapse

due in part to the collective jolt of 911.

[clark4me]

34. Yeah, we were all jolted

but not to the point of being brain dead or imcompetent on the job (journalists). Journalists have been silenced and 9 /11 has nothing to do with it.

As far as the "collective" rest of us, that really is just a weak excuse for them. The society has become so "me" oriented that as long as they are not personally affected they will buy any bs that sounds good and somehow gives them a feeling of superiority - even if it is based on nothing but lies.

[salin]

35. sad, isn't it?

I have to agree. Very self-centered society - and contented with that state of constant self-righteous self-superiority towards others.

[FreedomAngel82]

43. Also with journalists and 9/11

if they do any investigating they would be labeled as "consperiacy theorists" and any crediability would be gone. If they also questioned the Bush/Cheney camp they would be seen as "anti-American" because of the "war on terror" that's going on. Everything seems so hopeless. That's why I don't watch "news" anymore etc.

[salin]

45. I think there was both intentional manipulation by some

journalists - and intimidation used to manipulate others. Both interms of being viewed negatively, and in the real sense the whole Anthrax thing. All colluded to rewrite the "memory" of the public... where bush seems to just have been invented/created as he is at the time he (finally) reappeared several days later... after looking foolish while hopping around on airforce one after the attacks.

[clark4me]

48. It boils down to integrity and courage

Both of which is sorely lacking in journalism. They don't do their jobs because they are AFRAID of this or that? The American people have been in wars and the journalists are afraid of being called names? Then why don't they flip burgers at McDonalds? Leaders lead and so far there are too few leaders in journalisim and too many parrots.

The Dems have been namecalled into silence. Remember "Sticks and Stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me."

The only way that the NAMES being called will get heard is if JOURNALISTS REPORT, COVER AND/OR PRINT THEM. If ENOUGH journalists stood up for the right thing then there could be namecalling going back and forth thus nullifying the effect overall. The time for journalists to step up to the plate and do their job is long overdue. Name calling excuses are not are not acceptable.

[salin]

50. agreed, but we seem to have a little bit of a standoff

the fear (or laziness) in the press would likely be counteracted if there was public anger/outrage/desire for more information... but the public anger/outrage/desire for more information isn't yet here as long as big stories keep getting buried or given the soft-shoe routine (page A 18 lower left corner).

[newyawker99]

55. Hi clark4me!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[dbt]

30. Then there was the Impeachment Circus.

Just the thing to keep people from looking too deeply at anything else, no?

[salin]

33. perhaps in the sense of the alleged "scandal fatigue"

you are right. Even the issues the right falaciously threw up about Gore were pretty lightweight - aimed not at looking closely - just at trying to make him look ridiculous.

[FreedomAngel82]

44. Oh yeah

That was the biggest distraction. Does anybody know what they were doing during the whole ordeal? And where did all of Starr get his money for the investigation etc?

[librechik]

36. it's a fascist totalitarian coup that's taken 50 years to unfold

and they are getting a once in a lifetime opportunity to loot the riches nation in the world into the ground and then beat it becasue it is no longer a golden goose. What could be better than that?

Democracy is hard work. Too hard for these folks, indeed. Steling has always been easier, for them.

[sweetheart]

46. social darwinist or social creationist

With all respect to Darwin, it is a bit of an abuse to bring his name
in to it when some apes with guns hyjak the aircraft of state.

[salin]

47. fundies do the social darwin thing all the time... its the economic

survival of the fittest. They just don't like darwin's evolution for biology.... but they LOVE it for reasoning why poor deserve to be poor, rich folks are deserving, etc. The term has been used for years in this way.

[sweetheart]

49. jus' questioning the framing is all...

They are not darwinists. They are creationists, creating their own
mock reality to test the laws of natural selection which they doubt
exist... and hence the confidence they have that stupidity will triumph.

[wicket]

51. Salin, I am proud you are a fellow DUer

EXCELLENT post!!!!

:kick:

[salin]

52. we live up to the company we keep

:hi: - thanks.

[Mythsaje]

56. Excellent post

these thoughts need to be spread far and wide.

[Inland]

57. Bush was all lies, ulterior motives and hidden agenda from day ONE! nt