Politics

While the GOP sure looked bad on Nov 4th, there is still hope that the Grand Old Party will not be completely dead in 2009.  With the run off election victory of Saxby Chambliss over Jim Martin in Georgia and the possible victory of Norm Coleman defeating Al Franken in Minnesota, this will mean that the Republicans will have 42 Senators and will be able to use the filibuster if necessary.

For those of you who are not sure what the filibuster is let me give you a brief synopsis: In the House of Representatives there are rules of debate, how long the person can speak and how many speakers on an issue.  These rules are agreed to before hand with the majority party getting the greater say in how those rules will be structured. 

After the debate is done, the bill has a vote and that is it.  In the Senate it does not work that way, there can be unlimited amount of debate.  One person can talk for hours and hours once he or she has been recognized and can defer to any college he or she wants.

The only way that the debate on an issue can come to an end is if 60 Senators vote to end the debate and go straight to a vote.  During a filibuster, the side that does not have enough votes to get their way just keeps talking and talking.  In fact, you do not even have to be talking about the issue being voted on. 

One time a Senator just stood up there and read names from a phone book.  It is a delay tactic that keeps a bill from becoming a law.

Now, the filibuster itself is not a solution and right now we need solutions.  What the filibuster will do is ensure that Republican ideas will be allowed at the table and provide a check to some more Liberal movements in the Democratic Party. Of course, the filibuster also gives the Democrats a built in excuse as to why they could not do all that they promised their constituents that they would do if elected. 

We should know, we used that same excuse for years when the Republicans controlled the Presidency, House and Senate.  Even with all that GOP control, somehow those crafty Democrats were out there thwarting our grand plans.

In fact, during those years Republicans even tried to get rid of the filibuster, something I was adamantly against, I am sure they are glad that their plan was foiled by those crafty Dems now.  

Of course, had the Democrats really been crafty they would have foreseen a huge victory in 2008, they would have then let the Republicans win the battle of eliminating the filibuster, only to lose the war.

When the only thing that you have is the possibility of delaying laws that you do not like there is not much life, however, as we have seen with the Phoenix and its ashes, that is all we need.  The forces of creative destruction will turn the Republican Party into a better party. 

We can rebuild it, we have the technology, we can make it stronger, faster, just like the “Six Million Dollar Man”, only in today’s politics we will need to upgrade that to six hundred million dollars.

I was driving to work one morning and I found myself stuck behind a newer looking Honda Accord with bumper stickers slathered across thebumper, windshield and other parts of the car. This gentleman is very obviously a Democrat, and he has taken quite a bit of time to make his political beliefs known. There is nothing wrong with this. He has every right to do so.

There were stickers ranging from the simple Obama/Biden stickers to heckling Palin to calling McCain the equivalent of a feather plucking cockatoo…and that isn’t a nice thing. It is great that this gentleman wants to express his political stance, and if he got my attention, it can safely be said that he got many other people’s too.

I found myself thinking I was kind of jealous that I didn’t have that on fire conviction for any candidate or party. I’m not a fan of either presidential candidate. I never really liked an of the possible candidates and while the election has seemed to be the topic everyone wanted to talk about , I wasn’t nearly as engaged.

I’ve never voted a straight ticket. Like for Indiana Governor, our current Governor is a better choice when in regards to higher education.

I work for a statewide community college system, so it makes sense that I voted for him. He’s a republican, but that does not mean I’ll vote for that party all around. I thought about how I couldn’t wait until the election to be over so my only “team” loyalty will be to “Team Edward” and bringing back Blood Ties. As my mind started to wander…something even less unrelated to politics popped into my head. “Man it is going to be hell to get those stickers off.”

I looked a little closer…hoping the “stickers” were really magnets or stickers put on magnets. Some were but most of the stickers were actual stickers put on the back of the car. Ouch! I purposely only have my Guster widow cling and BLOG bumper magnet on the back of my car. I even conceded and put my “Corporate Goth: Because Nice Boots are Expensive” sticker on my laptop because I know how hard it is to get those suckers off.

Well no, it isn’t hard to remove them. The issue is what will you do to your paint job in the process. You can carefully remove them and minimize the damage, but it is a lot of work and far from fool proof. When you go to sell that car, unless you pay for a new paint job, this could look bad.

Yard signs are easy to remove. You can stop wearing t-shirts, and the commercials and debates will soon be nothing but a distant memory (thank God!). However, this guy has to look forward to painfully removing each of those stickers. Well he could just leave them on.

Now if Obama wins, it really isn’t a huge faux pas initially, but soon people are going to be over the whole election and want to move on. However, if Obama loses (mind you I’m writing this on election night…as I watch the election coverage) that could be a little more shady. I know my eyes automatically roll when I pull up behind that car with the Kerry/Edwards sticker slapped on the bumper.

Are political bumper stickers like a tattoo? They sound like a great idea at the time. You actually may still love them dearly, but maybe it isn’t what you want representing yourself to the world?

People will not only believe everything they hear on TV or radio, but how they only hear the messages they want to hear or the parts of the message that back up their believes and ideas. It kills me on how media illiterate we have become. We take everything at face value, and we never delve beneath the surface. This leads to people being miss and under informed.

Any time you look at ANY media artifact (article, blog, TV show, website, radio show, advertisement…basically any piece of media), you need to be thinking critically. You need to know who made the artifact, what they stand for, what’s their angle, background and goal.

Even as you read this, before you take anything I say at face value, do you know who I am, what credibility I have, or what I am trying to accomplish? You need to know these things so you can evaluate the artifact properly and then assess its value and merit.

Yes, you need to not only look at *what* is being said, but also who is saying it and how it is being said. Media bias isn’t new by any stretch of the meaning, but when you here people touting something they read in the paper or hear on tv…or worse read on the internet as fact and then go about spreading the ideas as truth.

With the Presidential Election just around the corner, this is even more noticeable. At lunch one day a friend took offense to someone saying Obama is running some pretty “ugly” ads. He is running some rough ads, and so is McCain, but Obama’s “mud slinging” is a bit harsher and widespread than his.

The offended co-worker of course jumped to the defensive and started referring to ads that in fact are very harsh on Obama and saying they were McCain’s. Really they are not his. They are ads run by the Republican National Party not McCain’s campaign. One could easily assume they were McCain ads, but if you read the fine print at the end of the ad or listen carefully to the voiceovers, you are told who is actually responsible for the ad. Now, this really doesn’t make the situation better.

It is McCain’s party slinging the mud, but it is still being slung. I’m pretty much disgusted by all mud slinging. Both candidates are guilty of it. However, the facts prove that Obama has produced more negative ads against McCain than McCain has produced against him.

That simple fact should not have put my co-worker into defensive mode. Now, had she argued that yes, McCain didn’t air the ads, but he also has done nothing to speak out against them, that would be a different story. I would totally been interested to see what people had to say about that! Instead she made a faulty argument and most everyone at the table agreed with her, or just didn’t know enough to question her.

I’m not claiming to be perfect or not fall prey to this from time to time too, but I’m also pretty jaded in regards to the media and it is in my nature to pick things apart.

I guess I would rather have my facts straight than to just go off what the media feeds me. Maybe all those media studies classes just made me paranoid. However, I would rather be safe than sorry. Remember, media is a business.

In most cases, their main objective is to make money and further their own agendas! Figure out the facts and then make your own conclusions, and you wll be more informed and better off.