Slashdot Mirror
Getting Accurate Political Information?
XMorbius asks: "With the elections coming up in a few months, I (along with other Slashdot readers, I hope) want to get more informed about the candidates. But, where does one turn to get accurate (or as accurate as possible) information about them, while at the same time not having to review long logs and records of various hearings over the last decade or so? This seems like a nice compilation of information, but something tells me that it may not be very accurate. I've seen factcheck.org but I feel like there is more knowledge out there to be acquired. What does the Slashdot community recommend?"
to compile your own. The Washington spin artists make it hard to see through all the smoke and evalute canidates on what matters to you. No canidate will serious tell you their strengths *and* weaknesses, so you have to become your own source.
Go to the closest headquarters for each canidate. There will be at least one in all but the smallest communities. Ask them what they think their strengths and weakness are and be prepared to hear a lot of bull shit. Ask them why you should vote for them and not for the other guy. Then take that information to the other guy's headquarters and ask the same stuff. Take a good look at what they say about themselves and their opponent, and this will give you a nice base to start at.
Then read the major newspapers and watch the Sunday morning political lineup. Be careful to note the leanings of each, i.e. Nytimes == Liberal, Wall Street Journal == conservative. Radio political talk has a right leaning, and Tv political talk often is leftist.
After doing this for a couple weeks you'll have enough to start on if you want to do some serious reseach at the library. The most important things to remember are there is no unbaised source, gets information from as many sources as possible, and make you own descision (ie beware of groupthink). If you put some descent effort into you'll have more then enough to decide who to vote for.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
wikipedia as usual ?
Kerry
Bush
--
www.jmeeting.com - meet friends.
The Washington Monthly
The Daily Kos
The Columbia Journalism Review Campaign Desk
The Center for American Progress
Talking Points Memo by Josh Marshall
Tom Toles political cartoons
Ben Sargent cartoons
Pat Oliphant cartoons
Jamie Zawinski's freinds
Ed Fitzgerald's blog
more to follow-up...
The site you are thinking of is already cited in the Slashdot story: FactCheck.ORG from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Great site, but very limited focus. There is no examination of the underlying problems. In this case, that is a BIG shortcoming.
By far the biggest issue is one about which former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces and former Republican U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us in a famous speech. He said that we should beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here are quotes:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
The problem he warned us about has been happening big time for many years. The U.S. government has engaged in 24 wars since WW2. The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.
Every important speaker at the Republican convention spoke of keeping America safe. Every important speaker was reading speeches written for them by marketing consultants like Karl Rove. "Keeping America Safe" is code for "keeping America fearful by promoting violence so the rich can get richer". It was despicable when Bill Clinton did it, and it continues to be despicable now that George W. Bush is doing it. Possibly many of the nation's leaders are not fully aware of the circumstances. It seems that only a very small percentage of citizens realize the extent of the violence of the U.S. government.
The only really good way to educate yourself about the U.S. government is to read books about it. Here are reviews of 3 movies and 35 books: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government. It's necessary to gather enough information that you can make your own informed conclusions, and not just copy the conclusions of others.
Don't like the books I found? Find your own. It's your duty as an adult to participate in the political issues of your country.
If you read books about the issues, you may come to the conclusion that by far the biggest underlying issue in the present political campaign is U.S. government violence. You probably won't know this unless you read books.
The present system of violence in the U.S. and Britain started in the 1940s. In the 1940s, it was decided that the U.S. government could act in secret in foreign countries to preserve the profits of U.S. and British companies. It was decided that the U.S. government could not only act in secret, it could break the laws of the foreign country. It was decided the the U.S. government could even arrange the murder of the leaders of foreign countries. Agencies like the CIA were created for secret accomplishment of largely secret foreign policy.
Only an estimated 2% read non-fiction books not connected with work. The system of violence works partly by keeping U.S. citizens ignorant. It is not necessary that all citizens be ignorant, just a large percentage of the voters. Actually, there is plenty of information freely available in books, but only an estimated 2% of American citizens read non-fiction books not connected with their work. It is easy to understand why. United States citizens are the hardest-working in the world, with the exception of the Japanese. Many U.S. citizens have only two weeks of vacation every year, and they need that to rest. They simply don't have time to read books.
However, the only way to understand something as complicated as politics is to read books extensively. The issues are too complicated to express in a few words.
By far the biggest issue in the present political campaign is this fundamental one, about which former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces and former Republican U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us in a famous speech. He said that we should beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here are quotes:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
The problem he warned us about has been a major influence on both the politics and quality of life of the United States. The U.S. government has engaged in 24 wars since World War II. The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.
Very few U.S. citizens know the full history of the war against Iraq. This short article is a summary: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.
The events leading up to the present "war on terror" and the two wars against Iraq began in the 1950s, when hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran.
The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the Shah of Iran, who became very violent toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iran overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence that came after. The U.S. government supported Iraq against Iran, supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein at a very high profit for the rich owners of U.S. weapons companies. To give a present example, the Bu
The ACLU is far from unbiased. Though their original mission is a just one, they have evolved into an anti-christian pro-liberal group. Take, for example, the fact that they just sued to get a small cross taken off of LA's official seal while not protesting a non-christian god about 10 times larger on that same seal. Take, for example, the way they will defend NAMBLA, "the national man-boy love association" in court, for free, but won't defend anyone persecuted for faith. Yes, the framers were really all about legalizing the molestation of young boys, not freedom of religion.
Wikipedia cannot be said to be completely accurate, but you will get a very good overview, based upon a mixture of expertise and community thoughts.
Extreme views tend to be put to one side in an effort to strip away spin and leave the facts.
Political history, and other details are available as links. The two articles change very often, now that the campaign is underway.
George Bush Presidential Campaign
John Kerry Presidential Campaign
Also it is worth checking out the article discussions, for opposing views, challenges and related links.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
Yet, to initiate the war in Iraq...
Why would he mention September 11th? I think he believed they would find documents to prop up what the entire administration believed and implied every day before the invasion: Saddam Hussein tactically or monetarily supported the terrorists of September 11th.
In fact, they focused so much on the thin ties between Al Queda and Hussein, Cheney waffled and lied about it.