2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

George W would like us to think he's fighting the bad guys too, PDiddie. But off-screen....

Thank you, Blatham, WOW!, and backatcha. I don't think I come anywhere near you (and many others herein) in writing.

Tartarin - I note that the protests seem to have been able to achieve their ends without the need for any to resort to violence. Hopefully some bad elements within the protest movement will note this and change their ways.

(I mean this in a positive sense. Those engaging in violence during protests are undermining the value of protesting as a tool of change.)

Scrat -- Protests aren't sexy. They're only sexy when things get out of control. The media are only interested when things get out of control. I've actually been in a very quiet protest in which the police tried to make things get out of hand -- and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had that experience. I suspect you're a young guy, probably with not a whole lot of experience in political protest? Believe me, it's not as it's presented on the goggle box.

There's no doubt I don't have your experience in this area, and I don't doubt that some police can be part of the problem, but the growth in numbers of those who attend protests with the intention of wreaking havoc should be of concern to every legitimate protester out there.

Well, protests do upset a tidy little capitalist society, even when they're polite, Scrat. And that's a good thing. A very good thing.

Scrat, I think your point just zoomed right over Tartarin's head.

I agree that many protests are important and I have participated in the few I felt worthy while in college, but many recent protests have been nothing but hooliganism. College kids causing trouble, breaking things, looting, and causing fear in the local populations. All in the name of peace. I don't blame the police for being rough sometimes, how many rocks do you have to be hit in the head with before you just start throwing them back?

Is it protest when the FCC admits it received thousands of comments from the public about the recent FCC decisions, about 99% of them negative, but Michael Powell (head of FCC) says they didn't mean much?

Could the FCC be hooligans? Does Michael Powell secretly want to throw rocks? Will Guantanamo hold the entire Bush administration? Tune in tomorrow...

Do you guys even READ other posts and think about them before replying? Did you even understand the point that Scrat was trying to make?

Try again.

If you are referring to this:

"but the growth in numbers of those who attend protests with the intention of wreaking havoc should be of concern to every legitimate protester out there."


you start with the assumption that those who attend protests have the intention of wreaking havoc. Why should this be an accepted assumption? Have you read anything at all about the protests that occurred all over the world, and were obviously not concerned with the intention of wreaking havoc? Perhaps it would be better to read far more extensively on this subject before leaping to conclusions. Read every word - see nothing in any report all over the world about havoc-wreaking intentions - but in this post.

Even if the FCC got all those complaints, the decisions needed to be done. Why? The reasons are many-fold and it is beyond the scope of a simple post to get them all across. Some of the major ones include:

Many of the News Stations are ALREADY over their limit that used to be 35%. All this was doing was saving Tax-Payer dollars making it so the media giants nowadays can be legit. That's only one of the main reasons I can remember. I found a pretty nice article about it, I'll post it if I find it again...

Seems to me our dedication to saving "taxpayer dollars" these days inevitably refers to saving big dollars for those at a high level of income (including corporations) while doing nothing for the well-being and independence of those at the other end of the economic spectrum.

"Many of the News Stations are ALREADY over their limit that used to be 35%. All this was doing was saving Tax-Payer dollars making it so the media giants nowadays can be legit." Corporations are exceeding their quotas, so the answer is to enlarge their quotas? What kind of precedent does this set? Particularly when they don't own the "air."

There's also an effort to take the networks off the "free" airwaves. I'll see if I can find more on that.

(I'd be hard put to call them "news stations," by the way. That a piece of public service which got lost quite a ways back...)

Scipio -- Here's the piece I referred to above -- is it maybe the same guy who wrote the piece you referred to?

Robert Siegel speaks with Thomas Hazlett, a former chief economist for the FCC who is now a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Hazlett was quoted in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times as saying that free television -- VHF and UHF -- is insane in an environment where 90 percent of the public accesses programming through cable and satellite.
National Public Radio, All Things Considered, 6/3/03 -- available on audio

Could be, could be. Have the whole article?

edit:

See, saving what you call "upper class" (and by you I mean those who argue on the same side you do with respect to this issue) dollars (which is really only the top 3 or 4% of Americans; and to be a member of that group all you need make is 70-80 thousand dollars a year)is the thing that benefits the economy -- NOT giving it directly to the "poorer" class. Because there are so many parenthesis, I'll reiterate without them: Giving money to the "upper classes" = better economy.

I think the "=better economy" argument is now a dead one. Though I see a lot of willingness to put lipstick on the corpse...!

I don't assume anything. If you read the quote YOU copied, there is a "growth in numbers of those who attend protests with the intention of wreaking havoc" NOT that ALL protestors are. Sheesh! Take a break from being offended and READ! then comprehend.

If you don't think that some people who attend some protests only go there to raise hell and create anarchy then perhaps I have given you more credit than deserving. Look whats happening in Switzerland at the G-8 conference, and whenever the World Economic Org. meets.

McGentrix, since you've been a member of this board for about a half minute, you think it might be a bit premature for you to be telling Mamajuana to "take a break from being offended?". Mama is one of the most evenkeeled and astute posters here. If the general comportment of protesters is a point of contention between you two, that's just fine, but why don't you hang around long enough to know who you're addressing before you try getting personal?

you said it go well, Snood

McGentrix

Snood's making a point you ought to listen to. Mama is no slouch.

Additionally, whether or not there are some individuals at a protest who do the violent thing is quite irrelevant to any matter at all other than if someone asks "Is anyone there being violent?". Such a presence is quite irrelevant to the the validity of the protest. You do understand what an ad hominem is?