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NBC Believes They Own Political Discourse
PoliSciASU writes "MSNBC has established draconian rules regarding the use of the Presidential Primary Debates on the internet. Some examples: '5. No excerpts may be aired after 8:30 pm on Saturday, May 26th. Excerpts may not be archived. Any further use of excerpts is by express permission of MSNBC only. 6. All debate excerpts must be taped directly from MSNBC's cablecast or obtained directly from MSNBC and may not be obtained from other sources, such as satellite or other forms of transmission. No portions of the live event not aired by MSNBC may be used.' Kevin Bondelli talks about why this is 'shameful and wrong'. Voters are missing out on the ability to actually have an engaged conversation about the candidates and their debate performances because of NBC's greed." Alexander Wolfe at InformationWeek and Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine share similar sentiments, and discuss the matter in different ways.
Remember kids, Preview!
Grrr. Fair Use!
Well, they've paid for it so it is not too unreasonable. Besides, I thought big business allready owned US politics.
I used to think these televised debates were a good idea until I watched the debates between Gore and Bush. For anyone watching the first debate it was blatently obvious that Bush was totally and utterly out of his depth and could not possibly be considered a credible candidate. Gore was devoid of charisma but was at least informed and coherent. Yet by the time the third debate came round the much of media had managed to portray Bush's lack of awareness and knowledge as a good thing(tm) because he was 'trying' and that Gore was a pompous arrogant know it all because he happened to be properly informed with facts and figures and could substantiate his responses. Utterly astonishing. It seems the debates themselves are irrelevant now and its the media circus that follows them that matters.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
If you're not voting third party, you're wasting your vote.
If you don't vote what you believe, you'll never get what you want.
The people elect the government they deserve.
Two options is only one more than they had in the Soviet Union.
Every November the same party wins: the Politician Party.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil.
It amazes me that for all the talk of reform and eliminating corruption in government, no one ever addresses the fundamental issue: lack of choices, which is caused directly by our (plurality) voting method. Give non-Dem/Rep voices a fair and equal chance to discuss and promote the merits of their platform instead of dismissing them outright. This means changing the voting system to something that doesn't predetermine the "leading two". Anything other than this is a charade. A previous poster had it right - "they" don't care who wins, because it's still one of "them". The real danger (in "their" minds) is if an outsider were to get in and shake things up. Yes, the past 6 years have really demonstrated the truth in "not a dime's worth of difference". Who'd've thought that a member of the "party of Reagan" would preside over the largest budget increase in history? Both parties want bigger government, so they can curtail your rights - whether they grab them from the left or the right makes no difference in the end.
Constitutionally Correct
Off the top of my head, a few examples of major things that would've been different if Bush hadn't become U.S. President:
- We wouldn't be in Iraq (probably still in Afghanistan though). The troops would have had a CinC that had actually seen combat in Vietnam (and would supposedly eager to avoid making the same mistakes).
- The federal budget would've been a helluva lot more balanced (especially if the Congress had remained in Republican hands).
- The U.S. government wouldn't be regarded with contempt by most of the rest of the world, including many of our "allies".
- There probably wouldn't have been such a big emphasis on torture & "extraordinary rendition" as part of our response to 9/11 (see #3 for partial results of that).
- The Supreme Court wouldn't have had a couple more big-business apologist, social-moral-enforcing, excuses for jurists.
- The various federal agencies wouldn't have been populated with a bunch of incompetent neocon political tools.
I'm sure even YOU could think of a couple others if you're willing to put some thought into it rather than a stupid knee-jerk "they're all the same!" response.Kerry could have just stayed in the White House & picked his nose for his entire term, and the country would've been better off than it is now.