Left, Right, or Wrong?

Posts Tagged ‘propaganda’

No matter how bad GOP scandals are, Democrats are always skewered by the media and their own party for their scandals. Why is that? Is it because Democratic scandals are worse? I’d have to give that notion a resounding no. Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of Democratic scandals out there over the years and they aren’t pretty. But corruption and sex scandals – particularly from ‘family values’ candidates – are the worst and they are predominantly members of the GOP that are at fault. Let’s take the case of Anthony Weiner. Weiner texted with six women over the past several years mostly before he was married and some after he married. Weiner, after initially lying out of embarrassment and fear (paraphrasing Weiner here), then came clean. The notorious Andrew Brietbart was behind the outing with what appears to be the help of Congressman Darrel Issa (who denies it, but emails seem to indicate otherwise).

The Weiner scandal has produced a 24-hour ‘beat the snot out of Rep Weiner’ campaign by the ‘liberal’ media and disdain from his colleagues whom have asked him to resign. Weiner, in the mean time, has checked into a rehab facility and asked for a leave of absence from Congress. As of this time, Weiner has committed no crime, broken no ethics violations, and had no physical or attempted physical relationship with any of the women he texted. Granted, his actions show poor judgement on this issue and sending a lewd photo to a woman was idiotic. However, again, he broke no laws.

The GOP – outraged – want him gone. The Democrats, who lack spine, want him gone. Weiner’s constituents want him to stay (56% positive to 33% negative).

In contrast, the GOP has not asked David Vitter to resign. The GOP Senator was guilty of multiple violations of the law when he engaged in sexual acts with prostitutes. Vitter lied about this, indignantly refused to resign and the GOP left him alone (something the Democrats seem unable to do with Weiner). Nor did the GOP ask ‘toe-tapping’ Larry Craig to resign. Craig, said he would resign, but then finished out his term with very few peeps from the GOP. Democrats didn’t exactly raise a huge stink either. It was forgotten by all including the media. That darn short attention span got the better of them. Craig, like Vitter, broke the law. He was arrested in a Men’s bathroom for soliciting sex from the undercover Police Officer in the next stall. Where was the media, GOP, and Democratic outrage then? Did the GOP leadership force him to resign? Nope.

So, I ask again, what exactly is it? Why are Democratic scandals always worse than GOP scandals? Take the more recent attempt at creating a White House scandal with President Obama and the information leaks. There is ample proof to show that the Obama White house has gone after leaks aggressively – and yet the press goes along with the white noise from McCain and his ilk that the White House is behind the leaks. In contrast, none of the media or GOP seems particularly interested in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame – even though that led directly to Vice President Dick Chaney’s office.

There is always an attempt when a GOP scandal breaks to say both parties are equally corrupt or wrong or whatever the media and GOP want to call it for that given situation. The truth is, this is far from true.

The GOP are cowards. That’s right – I said cowards. Karl Rove and his ilk are spreading lies, disinformation, and increased half truths by way of corporate funded attack ads. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this is the secretive way that these corporations (some foreign) funnel campaign financing secretly to front groups that produce attack ads and literature that are all 100% against the Democratic Party. The GOP doesn’t even hide the fact that they are working with corporations to raise millions of dollars to attack Democrats.

What is truly disgusting about this is that the GOP defends the secretive nature of their fundraising. What are they hiding? What are they afraid of? The answer is clear: they are ashamed of the backers that fund their attack ads. Why ashamed? If the American Public knew about the businesses that backed the GOP agenda, they would vote against the GOP!

However, without the mandatory disclosure rules of campaign donations,  corporations are free to donate to whomever protects their interests best – the GOP. And why would corporate America protect the GOP? It’s simple – for money.  The US Chamber of Commerce, leading the charge, wants to help make the GOP agenda a reality. This agenda includes the repeal the health care law, privatizing Social Security and Medicare, and rolling back as many of the new regulations that protect consumers and regulate corporations.

Imagine, for a moment, if you knew that BP funded attack ads that helped a GOP candidate who was friendly to their agenda. A candidate who was against regulations that protect our natural environment from an oil spill disaster. A candidate who was letting the oil industry lobbyists help the GOP write legislation (just as many GOP members did during the first term of George W. Bush). A candidate who did not care about the middle class workers who would be hurt by having their livelihood erased by BP. Would you vote for that candidate knowing all this? Probably not. But the Supreme Court – a right-leaning court for some time now – ruled that corporations are people and have the right to donate in private.

The result of this ruling was nothing less than mayhem. Now, financing from corporations – all done in secret – remove the accountability that those corporations have to the people.

The GOP claim, however, that this doesn’t change anything. Or they claim that Democrats do the ’same’ thing. This is clearly a lie – on a very large scale. Some Democrats are friendly to businesses and support their interests in legislation. This is true. But the Democratic Party – as a whole – does not have an agenda to oust the GOP by employing secret attack ads across a wide spectrum of candidacies. This is anti-American and undemocratic.

In the end, the GOP does not want you – the voting public – to know where their donations (now in the millions) come from. They are happy to hide in the cloak of secrecy that protects their corporate masters. They do not care what is at stake for our democracy and country as a whole. Fortunately, there are many people who do care. The GOP would have you believe that these people do not exist. That we support them and have no problem with their secret campaign contributions.

Again, this is very far from true. Case in point? How about Fox News. When shareholders found out about several $1 Million donations to the Republican Governors Association and the US Chamber of Commerce, they responded angrily to Rupert Murdoch’s evasive answers at a recent shareholder’s meeting.

The GOP and their TeaParty cohorts often talk about taking the country back. This makes no sense to me since in my opinion, they already have the country. If anyone needs to take the country back, it should be the American people and the Democratic Party.

Anyone who has served or has a loved one that has served can appreciate with great respect John McCain’s service to our country. But, when the McCain camp and practically every speaker at the Republican National Convention mentioned McCain’s POW status over and over again, it raises the ugly spectre that the entire Republican Party is cashing in on his heroic service to their own benefit. This kind of propaganda is the worst kind of fodder. As the evening wore on during day 2 of this convention, it became more and more painful to watch.

Perhaps the worst was Fred Thompson. His prolonged discussion of every nuance of McCain’s torture and stay as a POW in Vietnam, was purely manipulative and disgusting in the obvious sense. 

I was particularly disturbed by the obvious use of manipulative propaganda by Thompson when he stated that McCain can’t raise his arms to salute the flag any more. 

I have nothing but respect for a Veteran who has served – especially one who sacrificed so much. But when that candidate and his party uses his own heroic service as a crutch to defend, prop up, or bolster his own personal ambitions, I think it is the duty of any veteran or american to reject that person. Political manipulation of any service to our country – whether you were a POW or not – should be rejected by all Americans as self-serving propaganda that cheapens the heroic service of others.

In the end, day 2 of this convention talked about every facet of McCain’s service, premiered tributes to Bush 41 and Reagan, and talked about that new “maverick” on the scene – Sarah Palin.

But they left one small detail out on day 2 – the issues. Where are the issues? Where is the discussion of how we plan to move forward? Where is discussion of the economy? How are we going to deal with the energy crisis?

No mention – at all.

SIDEBAR: There are several articles on McCain’s use of his POW status for his own benefit. Two excellent articles on this are posted on the Huffinton Post Blog and Talking Points Memo. I encourage you to check them out.