Are you equating the desire for freedom and independence and self-determination with terrorism? That's a bizarre, not to mention profoundly and deeply un-American suggestion. Haven't you ever heard of the Declaration of Independence? Doesn't really make sense either, considering that the federal government is itself engaged in institutionalized terrorism - so secession really could be seen as one method of combating terrorism.

Support for the federal government certainly constitutes support for the military-industrial complex and for perpetual war, no one can seriously deny that at this point. And no one can possibly claim with a straight face that there is any chance that the Democrats or Republicans will change anything. Obama and McCain are both equally committed to expanding the military. Secession, devolution or disbanding the union, or something on those lines, may not be the answers, but it's more than obvious that the 18th century federal model and union are no longer functioning and are breaking down, and it is essential and urgent that we begin to explore alternatives and figure out a way to govern all of the peoples that constitute America. Referring to people who have the vision and courage to consider that there might possibly be better ways of running this country as terrorists doesn't really accomplish much but perpetuate the military-industrial complex and cause more people to die.

America fought the Civil War over this issue. Case closed.

will never be closed, so long as humans exist and are human.

freedom and independence, secession from the Union is considered to be an an extremist position in America. Moreover, a war was fought to prevent its happening. Anyone who thinks that the situation is now up for change is not only an extremist but deluded as well. Especially Republicans. The founder the GOP was Abraham Lincoln, whose mission as president of the United States was to "preserve the union" all any cost. Palin doesn't seem to know her American history very well.

good point!
usually in this country we try to change things not destroy them.

well, wait till foreigners start buying up more property and/or resources via "investments" and "soverign investment funds!"

i.e. I envision that most humans will have as much importance as the animals which scurry around ANWR.

as we speak, it appears she will not be doing interviews or taking questions. Firedoglake has more but the site seems to be having problems right now.

FDL
and here.

of course i am not equating the desire for freedom with terrorism. that is absurd. i agree that our government for many years has served corporate interests more than the people, and i am not head-over-heals in love with Obama. but it seems to me that responsible citzenship should try to change who governs in the current system b4 trying to destroy the system.
the AIP is a rightwing libertarian group that has called for the destruction of the US government. and the founder is buried in canada, because he hated the US. that is completely different that trying to change the government. these people are not interested in freedom.

as far as I can tell. On Monday the first, he said there was not sufficient evidence for it. What happened is some obscure user posted it in a kos diary. Anyone can post a kos diary; it doesn't imply editorial endorsement. The McCain campaign, and following their lead the MSM, have chosen to treat this as something Kos said, just as they earlier held moveon responsible for the Hitler ad posted on their site. To my knowledge, no major bloggers ran with this. We can't support narratives like this that are ultimately aimed at undermining the open comment nature of the internet by holding site proprietors responsible for everything said, which they can only be if they impose fairly thorough censorship.

OF course, kos has left himself open for this by practicing half-assed censorship. Certain types of diaries will be deleted from dailykos as a matter of policy, and probably others from discretion. This makes it a little harder for kos to claim that a failure to censor does not constitute a tacit endorsement. And he has erred on the other side. The Foley scandal first broke on kos as an email from an claimed insider compaining about Foley hitting on pages. Since anyone can claim inside information about anything on the Internet, such claims cannot be taken seriously without further support. Kos deleted it. Very defensibly: if he's going to delete anything , he should delete stuff like that. Nonetheless, that turned out to be true.

Really, though, kos gets hundreds of posts a day; he can't really monitor them all, especially when a charge like this would require investigation to evaluate. I think kos just looks for specific things, like 9/11 conspiracy theories, to censor. Bristol Palin is not anything he nor anyone else would be looking for. It's the same problem with AOL's position: you can be a common carrier or you can have editorial control, but splitting the difference will create accountability problems. This is intrinsic to what we do here, so we should be very wary about accepting such attacks, much less joining them.

all the diaies, that is what he has helpers for. He allows stuff like that to stay up/be posted because it serves a purpose, it does the dirty work for Obama - which is why I believe Obama has made a point of distancing himself from the bloggers. Shitty deal the way I see it.

Just like the boyz allowed their blogs to eviserate Hillary(that way Obama could say his campaign didn't do it, even tho he himself made a few sexist statements), which is why the a-listers have lost a lot of respect from those on the net with a conscious.

If I post a diary or comment here and Sean or you do not delete it, can you be taken to endorse the contents? Even if you explicitly disavow it? That is the standard you are defending Tina. This is not an attack on Kos; it is an attack on the blogosphere. Indeed, most of the media coverage generalizes the responsibility to the liberal blogosphere. If site proprietors cannot permit ideas and claims to be posted without an endorsement being inferred, this medium is finished. After all, there can be no dialog without opposing views, and under this standard site proprietors would have to censor views or claims they don't endorse. And you're going to endorse this because you're still pissed about what some kos diarists said about Hillary?

I don't agree with but if I or someone ask for some credible backup it is expected that members supply it. It is the pattern of behavior at kos that lowers their credibility. The endless sexist misogynist statements made by their members can only say that the site owner did not have a problem with what was being written or recommended.

I don't have a problem with people disagreeing, it is how they disagree that matters. It is the words they use and the attitude they portray. I'm sure things have been missed on this site that probably should not have been posted, but we have removed things when it has been brought to our attention. Btw dkos lost me way before the primaries, the primaries only sealed the deal.

Kos can recruit all the helpers he wants, but the sheer number of diaries and comments - ye gods, the comments! - would overwhelm a government bureau, let alone an efficient organization.

Sean-Paul and the editors welcome opinions and fact-based cites here regardless of their POV - so long as trolling, stalking, and crude personal attacks on other posters are avoided - and especially threats or expressions of Bad Things against any person, public or private though they may be. Yes, it's always a judgement call. Yes, some folks have been kicked from here, after much "Agonized" discussion among the editorial crew. No, Sean-Paul and his editors don't imply support of any viewpoint unless expressly stated, nor do they necessarily agree with the rebuttals to a post or comment. What is encouraged here is the civil exchange of ideas and opinions without the baggage of talking points or tin foil. Perfect? Absolutely not! Moderated? yes, to maintain a semblance of rationality. Censored? Not unless an individual wants to piss on our legs and insist it's raining.

All this is to say that I don't agree with Tina (sorry, I love you Candy!) that silence must mean agreement; no committee of humans could police a site with the traffic of Daily Kos. I don't share the opinion that everything posted there bears Markos' seal of approval - he's too busy trying to build a career to vet the posts of 175,000+ members. I don't believe that's true of Red State or O'Reilly's site either, but who would bother posting contrary opinions there? The Kool-Aid drinkers prevail.

_{"What we have here is, failure to communicate"}

the volume it is impossible but I'm talking about the recommended diaries that the fp'ers participate in, those are not hidden or buried. I do think the tone is set by the owner, the members post what they can get away with, which is about anything. And it isn't just about Hillary, look at the attacks on Palin and her daughter. There is so much to attack Palin on without sinking to such a low level. And yano Rick I only play a prude where anyone in the world can read. :D I'm done with dkos, my new bitch is at Talk Left lol

Those comments leave me speechless. I am without speech.

_{"What we have here is, failure to communicate"}

and I'm not sure even deleting all the stuff will bring it back. I went there to read BTD but he stopped posting over it. I see he is back but I don't know why. I would not want to be associated went any of that. Jeralyn had all these posts on the FP about not attacking the Palins and then flipped and went Cheney.

I didn't read the whole thread(sedation comment) I got the link from a thread at Corrente. I can't believe she is an attorney. What ammo against her.

The Dems are primarily issue-oriented, and they seek to establish identity through issues, based on reasoning from factual evidence and commonly agreed upon presuppositions and norms.

do you have proof, like IQ scores, that party affiliation translates into intelligence?

i.e. I know plenty of intelligent democrats and plenty of intelligent republicans.

I have never seen a study relating IQ to party affiliation, but here is one by red state/blue state. Here's a funny graphic on this. I have seen studies on occupation and party affiliation, although I don't have the reference handy. As I recall, the GOP base is largely conservative working and lower middle class, especially those who regard themselves as very religious — many Southerners and Reagan Dems, small business owners, and corporate execs. The Dem party major categories comprise the severely disadvantaged, union workers, professionals, educators and other more highly educated members of the middle class, as well as a surprisingly significant portion of the really wealthy. Of course, both parties have a distribution of other demographics but they share these other categories. The ones cited are the stand-outs.

the other question is: how many democrats are democrats because of personal conviction or because of the bottom line?

Bush, for example, has fought universities and secured more positions for conservatives.

thus, when the "group think" is busted, we'll see, perhaps, different statistics since the underlying causes were chronyism and gerrymandering.

I say this mostly because educational institutions used to rely more heavily on government funding and democrats, of course, embraced big government. in today's world, some of these institutions have huge endowments and are funded by debt so perhaps that would push an ideological shift? especially since government grants can no longer fuel the desired growth at universities.

McCain has to keep his base while winning enough independents. Palin is red meat for the base, but can she pass muster as "one of us" of independents. Dunno about that.

She's really pretty much an extremist. More so than just about any of the Bush crowd that hasn't been in the background. Most of the extremists of this level have been "operatives" instead of mainstream elected politicians outside really red states.

The headline in the local paper in AM was a Repub operative hailing Palin as a "maverick" trying to flog her to independents as one of the them. Most independents I know aren't creationist fundies who think that climate change isn't man-made, etc.

I think this is going to be a tough sell for the GOP, especially if the Dems stop attacking her superficially and go for the political throat — her extremism that puts her out of the mainstream and very far right of the center. Palin is at the right edge of the Overton window as it is presently position, and that window has been moving left since the 2006 elections.

But rather to the rural Ohioans, particularly the males, ironically enough. A Christian gun-toting mommy.

get a load of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9GfJvLyh-g

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

I have a feeling that a lot of people voted for Reagan because he reminded them of their (daddy, uncle, grandpa). Of course, those who had to endure his mangling of California as governor knew better.

How many presidential elections are actually about the issues?

her extremism that puts her out of the mainstream and very far right of the center.

I don't think she's all that extreme. I supported Dennis Kucinich and he was pro-life because he couldn't imagine anything else and I truely weep for those who have to abort life. Pro-life, I'd say, is at the core of nationalism since it's about the extreme security of knowing that individuals are protected in a society and, most importantly, that my own diversity is protected.

She also waves around the 2nd admendment and, certainly, guns are an important, powerful, unconcious symbol of self determination and self protection.

Certainly, pro-life, pro-gun folks will never achieve such a society but their motivations, I think, come from the right place.

What makes Palin mainstream and contemporary, in my mind, is that she uses her mind to secure the good life and, in this era of globalization, that psychology connects: we're in it together as long as I can perform!

Obama's narrative struggles since, in this post 9/11 chaotic world, it almost ludacris to envision a world organized around peace and social justice.

She is for the secession of Alaska from the Union (it's "our" oil taken to the extreme), believes that it is "God's will" that the US is in Iraq. This is pretty extreme. And KO and Rachel Maddow haven't even done their stuff yet, not to mention Stewart and Colbert.

Oh, and she is also a proven liar.

well, some claim that we're in Iraq for the oil (secular reasons) while others say it's God (empire). I'm certainly extreme since I don't believe that any war is legal but, yes, the genie is out of the bottle and caught our imaginations in different ways.

McCain's not a fool, but he's not temperamentally capable of "carefully selecting" a donut. People grow over the years, but this is something McCain hasn't addressed for one simple psychological reason: he thinks it's a virtue rather than a disability.

This seems to me to be precisely what it is on its face: a rash, hurried decision, taken in the heat of battle, a decision not without some arguable merit (because he's rash but he's not an idiot), but from the gut, and with minimal consultation and the bare minimum of research.

The spin machine is trying to portray it as brilliant because to do otherwise is to spotlight his unfitness to be trusted with decisions. The base is delighted. The intelligentsia are secretly appalled.

Peggy Noonan nailed it: it's over. It's obvious Palin wasn't even cursorily vetted - she's one more Harriet Miers/Bernie Kerik-shaped nail in the GOP's coffin.

• After viewing Palin’s speech, a greater number of respondents across all parties believe that McCain’s selection of the first-term Alaska governor will help his campaign. Republicans were especially positive, with nearly three-quarters suggesting the pick will “definitely” help.
• After viewing the speech, 70 percent of Republicans say they will “definitely” vote for the McCain/Palin ticket.
• After viewing the speech, there is a 9 percent increase in the number of Independents that will “probably’ or “definitely” vote McCain/Palin.
• Palin’s speech proved to be equally effective in swaying votes for both men and women.
• Among Independents who watched Palin’s speech, respondents who reported they will “probably” or “definitely” vote for McCain increased by 10 percent across both genders -- around 38 percent for females and 36 percent for males.

[SOURCE]

it's a choice that is not without some defensible merits, McCain's not an idiot.

But this is Week One stuff. Wait for the real fruits of the decision to mature. It's over.

[edited to add - Frank Luntz focus group, Minnesota, undecided voters: ]

But this is Week One stuff. Wait for the real fruits of the decision to mature. It's over.

I think that, statistically, the "he said" versus "she said" will be a wash.

almost every progressive identified person I know wasn't happy with Obama's FISA vote and the difference they saw evaporated.

Watch the Luntz video. You might find it's not very much concerned with what you're dismissing as the "he said, she said". A lot of the voiced concerns are about far more easily verifiable and less malleable truths - her non-entity, her hard-right-wing, out-of-the-mainstream views, her utter lack of relevant experience.

almost every progressive identified person I know wasn't happy with Obama's FISA vote and the difference they saw evaporated.

She's anti-choice, pro-gun and pro-drilling, a hard right-winger, but "progressives" told you the differences they saw evaporated. OK, sure. If you say so.

as you know, everyone has their hot button isssues.

The wedge issue for progressives. I think, is "education" and I think that folks are ready for vouchers and privatization.

Thus, voters will ignore choice, guns and drilling and support mccain on education. Of course, I could be agressive with the timing...

Really. Out of all the issues in play in this election - that's what you think the wedge issue is going to be for progressives - education.

OK.

at the university, I was told that the american military spends more on education than anyone else so education is really a non-partisan issue.

what I do see is a change from our human based approach to one based on metrics and based on work like The Numerati.

Corportations, of course, have long been profiling their employees and this technogly should find its way into mainstream classrooms.

My vision is that we're going to move away from "teacher quality" towards "learning ability" since educational institutions are supposed to create humans which are capable of using their minds to advance humanity.

I say this based on the published warnings of several piano masters: "remember, practicing won't get you where you want to go since it's all about mental concentration!"

an analogy would be Patrick Swayze in the movie Ghost with Demi Moore.

was this irony? I sincerely hope so.

I say this based on the published warnings of several piano masters: "remember, practicing won't get you where you want to go since it's all about mental concentration!"

no, not at all. lance armstrong-- that famous biker, was talking about "genetic doping" and fantasized that it wouldn't be detectible and I think it's just a matter of time until "genetic doping" impacts intelligence.

another example: one of my of my piano pedagogy books claims that the introduction of the piano killed music since composures and the rest of the world standardized on the chromatic scale.

I personally hope that vouchers bring diversity back into education!

Let's teach creationism right along with evolution. Discuss earth-centered cosmology with the same zeal as Copernicus' discoveries. Teach astrology and astronomy one after the other!

More metrics are also the wave of the future - it's working out really well these days under NCLB! Soon all of our schools will fail, and we'll just have to privatize in order to compete! That' the trifecta! Corporate welfare, religious indoctrination at the public expense, and crush the unions! Let's all hop right on that bus.

Anyway - that's enough food for tonight.

don't we all value diversity

well, you mentioned corporate and religous indoctrination to identify groups of humans that you feel angry and/or isolated from. I'm not taunting you; everyone has their boundries.

Soon all of our schools will fail...

our schools will be collaterl damage since the underlying culture is changing as globalization heats up and resources are allocated differently; the vikings, romans, etc... all faced change and had to yield.

and it's not about hopping on the bus since you'll either be dragged along or roadkill.

Well, those views on the chromatic scale are a bit... wacky and extreme.

I suppose if you were to define music so narrowly as to exclude Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Cecil Taylor et al the world might look as bizarre as that.

But it's not an insight. It's an artifact generated by limiting the scope of the argument to the point of absurdity. Personally, I'd invest in a broader selection of books.

As far as this quote:

"remember, practicing won't get you where you want to go since it's all about mental concentration!"

- as phrased - and I stress that because I don't know how it was originally put - it's complete crap. It's not "all about mental concentration" at all. It's partly about mental concentration, but an enormous part of performance is "athleticism written small"; musicians build a library of movements through intensive training.

Flatly: no debutante is going to "mental concentration" their way through 32nd-note arppegios at 116 BPM on a violin. That's all about trained musculature, and trained kinesthetic appreciation of precisely how the intervals compress in distance as one progresses up the neck. Because you don't get to "correct" at that tempo, by the time you've heard the note you just played you're three notes further into the passage. Your fingers need to land in the correct position completely without mental concentration, through rigorous and disciplined training of good habits.

So as expressed, because I leave room for an otherwise intelligent observation to have been mangled in the transmission through misunderstanding, it's every bit as ridiculous a statement as telling an Olympic athlete "remember, training won't get you where you want to go since it's all about mental concentration!"

In short, it's a fine thing to tell a person who's already training intensively. By itself, any musician would recognize it as ridiculous.

And that's totally leaving aside the question of "where you want to go". Woody Guthrie, Julian Bream and Jimi Hendrix wanted to go to different places.

...

the writer seems like a good person and he taught at Harvard, Oxford and the University of Chicago, so i'll give him some slack. moreover, every book I have repeats that line that it's all mental and: "once you start hitting the key, it's over" especially because you have to start thinking about your next note.

your comment about olympic atheletes seem archaic; if you read the september issue of "Fast Company," you'd see how much elective surgery that atheletes are having these days simply to increase their performance and extend their carears; moreover, it was well publicized that the US olympic swimmers had their lactic acid levels checked betwen races and wore Speedo Swimsuits which dispersed water more efficently than skin. On top of this, the olympic pool was deeper and wider so reflected waves wouldn't slow the swimmers down.

Of course you can stick your head in the sand and believe in pure humanism, but that's your choice. But it's fairly clear that the author of the book I read was intelligent and aware and was simply saying that insanity is about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results; I found his book compeling because he seemed really good at efficiently improving his skills.

no debutante is going to "mental concentration" their way through 32nd-note arppegios at 116 BPM on a violin.

when I play high BPM's like that, it's all mental because I can't verbalize the rhythm; thus, it has to be internally generated. your comment about "muscle memory" misses the mark since something has to train the muscles and it's the mind; moreover, a 10 minute yoga warmup helps me a lot more than practicing 10 more minutes.

""once you start hitting the key, it's over" especially because you have to start thinking about your next note."

If this is indicative at all of pace, than this musician is a one note johhnny. It also appears that you think breathing and blood circulation are mental exercises.

"when I play high BPM's like that, it's all mental"

dude, if we didn't have hands we couldn't play.

"what I do see is a change from our human based approach to one based on metrics and based on work like The Numerati."

From page 2:

"Takriti's researchers may be able to map the workers' movements. Call records and e-mails define the social networks of each consultant. Whom do they copy on their e-mails? Do they send blind copies to certain people?

These hidden messages could point to the growth of informal networks within the company. They may show that a midlevel manager is quietly leading an important group of colleagues—and that his boss is out of the loop. Eventually, say experts, e-mail analysis may single out workers whose behavior places them outside the known networks. Are these outliers depressed, about to jump ship, consorting with the competition? In companies around the world, the Numerati will be hunting for statistical clues."

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for he time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

-W.H.Auden

one of the reasons why we had the depression, according to a book I read, was because the academics in charge didn't realize that the world changed and they were applying the theory they learned in college; so that's why "metric based economics" is a big thing now because metrics will supposedly be the impartial judge of human decisions.

in general, I believe in trickle down economics to the extent of believing that I've benefited greatly from past masters and, indeed, a metrics based workplace could influence production outcomes if done right.

the big elephant in the room is that unmanaged stock indexes return the same (or more because of lower fees) than managed investments.

so darwanism and the free market seem to be as good or better than one based on creationism but men and women like believing that they're intelligent so they try their best to beat the house.

From the lips of Obama:

"I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn," Mr. Obama, who has previously said he opposes vouchers, said in a meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "We're losing several generations of kids, and something has to be done." [SOURCE]

I listened to the video and Obama indeed said this but he was very careful not to say too much and get the teaching unions mad at him.

However, the political climate about education will start changing quickly as the reality of globalization sets in and the American economy and culture are no longer uniquely local to our soil as undeveloped nations start making gains.

Moreover, I expect that "out of work parents" will become unsatisified with the system which let them down.

This is an important topic that cannot be adequately addressed in this thread. Why don't you diary your ideas on it. It's a timely discussion and one that liberals/progressives need to have.

Education is in transition just as the world is in transition. We need to think about both new direction and overcoming the inertia of momentum.

I just saw McCain's speech and nearly vomited... Ouch...

A sample:

On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.

On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.

We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.

We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?

Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.

It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn’t be. To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.

Seems like John McCain's honeymoon with the press is over, and Palin pushed it over the edge.

:-)eom

_{"The mythical John McCain is an affable, straight-talking, moderately conservative war hero who is an expert on foreign policy" - Bob Herbert}

http://festival06.showcomotion.org.uk/p/films/wallace_and_gromit.jpg

... one is making sure your seat is saved on the Titanic before the iceberg, the other is ... i dunno ... asking someone else to save your seat so you can wait in line on the Lido deck for a chance to see the Capt. ... before the iceberg.

I like that ship idea! I was thinking that Obama would tell someone boarding a slaveship "don't worry, I'll find someone to pay for your freedom!" while Palin would say: "don't worry, you'll be free before you know it!"

It's soaring!

the extreme right. Don't you think McCain's base are a group of primarily freightened people? Poor people don't know where the next pay cheque is coming from? They don't know how they'll be able to afford to educate their kids. They don't know how they'll be able to afford a roof over their heads and pay for groceries that are going up in price. Churches are likely a primary source of solace and support.

My theory is they're insecure and lash out because they're given too few alternatives.

My strategy if I lived in the United States and needed to persuade voters to cast their ballot for the Democrats is appeal to their wallet! Offer programmes that raise their literacy level, fund head start programmes, and literally anything else that can be done to elevate them that improves their living conditions.

Making fun of them causes their backbone to get stronger and should not be done. Would you make jokes about a disabled person? This is what the bulk of this population is...they're disabled from reaching the good life that everyone wants. Pity, however, never helped anyone and that as a technique needs rejecting. Think about it...if you were in a desperate situation, wouldn't you turn to the charity of the church and that could make your children lifelong believers. Have studies been done about the evangelical movement relating their attendance and membership to poverty and/or lack of opportunity?

The unscrupulous segments of society take advantage of less economically advantaged as well as the undereducated to maximize their fears to 'their' advantage.

Obama is highly capable of re-wording what I'm saying and becoming more attractive to this segment of society.

Their fears, desperately need reducing.

Six packers buy beer because it's cheaper than spirits and wine. And most of the things they do for relaxation/entertainment don't cost big bucks.

Yeah gads look at the minimum wages in the southern states Aren't the southern states referred to as the bible belt? Ontario's minimum wage is $8.75/hour and we're no-where near as wealthy a country as the United States. Betcha if fundies were paid a living wage, the size of this group would be greatly diminished.

Hunting which has zero appeal for me, but does put food on the table. Cruel hunting from airplanes is something I have absolutely no understanding about??? That's just being sadistic and belongs to the mentality of murderers. Palin apparently supports it which makes her a dangerous freak! She isn't hurting for money...what's her excuse for being so cruel and identifying with criminals! That part of her personality needs to be publically attacked! Palin is comparable to Chaney. People at extreme ends do not listen to reason and need exposing, but only those parts that are visible. Other parts of them may appear very normal and those should be left alone. She's educated and plays on the fears of those less fortunate than herself. Is she going to extremes because she no longer is part of that group but knows what makes them tick! Ditto McCain for selecting her.

My strategy if I lived in the United States and needed to persuade voters to cast their ballot for the Democrats is appeal to their wallet!

John Edward's wife, in Rochester, MN, noted that health care costs correlate well with stock market gains. Hence, under Clinton, health care costs compounded much faster than salaries; and now, because of inflation, and now a recession, their 401k's are eroding away!

Overall, the Clintonian economy was an illusion that will ultimately hurt the middle class since, as we know, college costs are higher than ever and families are struggling to remain economically mobile.

Don't you think McCain's base are a group of primarily freightened people?

yes but democrats are freightened too; they just hope that wealth redistribution fixes things. republicans bet on improved production efficiencies.

Obama is highly capable of re-wording what I'm saying and becoming more attractive to this segment of society.

I've worked on campaigns in Minnesota and learned that "poor people don't vote" so Obama is certainly not targeting demographics which are poor.

Of course, when middle class workers lose their jobs, they'll become part of a politically irrelavent community!

Canuck, You couldn't be more wrong.

Go to Wyoming. You could walk into any retail store and get a job immediately - it's The oil boom is making everybody wealthy - or at least prosperous. They can't get anybody to take a $9/hour job.

They've all got $40K diesel pickups - but they don't even take pickups off road anymore - that's for the $9,000 'four wheeler' rec vees they carry in the bed.

This notion that the rural people are poor is totally false.

The US electoral system rewards the smaller (low population) states - so a Wyomingite's vote means only 400,000 people get 3 electoral votes when their population indicates they only get one congressman.

Yet take California, it has the same two senators but far more congressmen. In essence, Wyomingite's votes ar roughly three times more valuable since they should get one electoral vote based on population - but get three because upper house (Senate) doles out two senators to every state - no matter how small.

This rural bias was baked into the US since 1787 - it partially explains the Gore 2000 debacle.

Alaska is a perfect example of how rural people get a truly profane amount of pork on a per capita basis.

The American system as constructed now steals from the poor in urban areas (and the rich too!) and gives it to the relatively prosperous rural 'folks' of America.

and had to overnight in Wyoming. I pulled off out in nowhere (everywhere but Cheyenne and Laramie are nowhere on Interstate 80) expecting to pay the accustomed rate. There were almost no rooms and I had to fork out over a hundred bucks for an ordinary room, or stay in a sleaze joint for over 50. The reason? Almost all the rooms were taken long term by oil workers so the rest were only available at a premium.

Palin supports cruel hunting from airplanes and is extremely pro life? I suppose she supports the "Theory of Cognitively Dissonant Morals".

_{"While not a Playboy reader, she invites a male acquaintance in for a quiet discussion of Chagall, Nietzsche, jazz, sex." - not a Hugh Hefner quote}

An e-mail to friends from Wasilla becomes Internet hit McClatchy