Good points. With all the

NCD — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 18:06:52 +0000

In reply to You gloss over some of the

Good points. With all the chicanery and secret campaign spending from politically connected 'public welfare' tax free organizations, GOP vote suppression, no doubt big money is the number one threat to good government, and the nation. Why, because it suppresses what is bad for big money. Money makes it's own rules in this country, before, during and after elections.

With collapsing infrastructure left over from the 60's, rising sea levels and climate change, huge economic inequality and a myriad of other issues facing the nation, government is the only institution we have to meet the challenges we face. Gallup didn't poll on the threat of big money, or what threats people were afraid of, Gallup/MSM, play polls like horse races. Clearly the data from this poll going back to 1965 is a product of media hype and propaganda. The data is worthless except as an indicator of media control of citizens opinions of reality.

The establishment media has been a sycophantic servant to power for as long as big money was to be made from newspapers, radio or TV. I no longer watch any network news or pay any attention to the pundits. I recall the punditry saying 'no one could have known there were no WMD in Iraq!' when millions were in the streets protesting before Bush launched the invasion in March, 2003. No sane person would have believed Iraq was a threat to America, only people too brainwashed by MSM TV. The protestors knew it was a ginned up war for oil $$$. It didn't work out exactly as the war profiteers planned, but they made a lot of money anyway. No surprise. I remember 'small government' Bush putting fences around protestors and calling it 'a free speech zone' as you mention. This from the Party that flaunts the Constitution as justification for everything they want to do or say.

You gloss over some of the

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 15:59:10 +0000

In reply to Gallup Polls, How to Bamboozle the Public

You gloss over some of the arguments re: Citizens United - some items that Greenwald covered pretty well a while back.

If I as a citizen want to grab my camera, film Bush keeping protesters away from the 2004 campaign, and put this on TV - I wouldn't be allowed, because I'd fall foul of the FCC's rules on campaign spending. My effort would be "campaign spending", and all of that was already paid for.

The Constitution allows for "free speech", but doesn't specifically say you're allowed a reasonable distance from where you want to speechify, so if we go with the bizarre, they can put you off in the woods with the Rainbow Festival so no one ever hears all that glorified speech.

Aside from "location, location, location", many things we speak out about require funds to make that speech reasonably effective (not just overblown). Presumably all that free texting and tweeting during campaign 2008 could have been calculated to have a dollar value - including bandwidth, consultant time, obvious value as advertisement, along with campaign organizing, etc. - and could have been subject to spending laws.

The backdrop of Citizens United is also a near monopoly on effective advertisement by TV media and the ever-more consolidated print media and the horribly manipulated presidential debates. If I can't get my opinion on a TV station or near front page, my opinion sinks like a stone in the ocean. Citizens' United put together a low-budget film compared to the billions in corporate media, but that anti-Hillary film was prevented from screening due to spending laws, and the obligation to filter everything through the dysfunctional and manipulated US elections system.

Of course there are lots of problematic repercussions from Citizens United - but many of the complaints ignore the unsustainability of the current system in this MSNBC/General Electric day and age, when the Washington Post is indebted to Kaplan education & the Department of Education, and Judy Woodward / NYTimes/Fred Hyatt/WaPo are helping our DoD, and the media keeps Iraq protests off the air, and 60 Minutes is busy helping conservatives bolster a debunked Benghazi "scandal" through another Oprah/Million Little Pieces-like huckster job.

dagblog - Comments for "Gallup Polls, How to Bamboozle the Public"

Good points. With all the

You gloss over some of the