To what extent do you feel the internet and message boards such as this have helped add to the hatred of the President?
Well, I guess I'd say that I think that the internet and message boards play a part in distributing information and opinion. I don't really think they fuel hate and anger but you certainly can find hate, anger and outrage on the internet. I think that it's not the best medium to incite people with though. I think you can do a far better job with television or radio. I think the internet is a fantastic medium to distribute propaganda with and to organize people.
If I were to look to a communications medium that has played a large part in the way we communicate our opinions it would be radio and TV. Talk radio and guys like Rush changed the way we exchange thoughts and ideas. Television continued the trend and now we have all kinds of shows where these guys "discuss" the issues of the day. In some ways I think this is good. I think in a democracy we should have as much open debate as possible and that debate should be easily available to the general public. We've certainly established that goal.
But...there's always a but right...I think the approach has deteriorated our ability to have good meaningful discourse. On TV and radio ideas need to kept to soundbite length and be squeezed into a timeframe. Plus you are dealing with ratings issues...the show (and it is a show) must also be somewhat entertaining and draw an audience. If not nobody will advertise and unless you're on PBS you'll get yanked off the air. I think there is a big "venom" injection to keep things "entertaining". If you're dealing with a host, the host will always "steer" the show in the direction the format dictates. That's just the nuts and bolts of it. I think it has caused us all to communicate in the same way they do on these shows though...and venom in general just produces more venom.
These shows have also, in my opinion, between the 80's and now changed the way we view the world and our government and made it appear that there is this battle to the death between the left and right. I really don't think if you go back to the 70's people were seeing things that way. What it's done is add a lot of desperation to our discourse. It seems to get harder and harder to just discuss things as what's best for us as a people and the role government plays in that.
Instead there seems to be the desperation to forward the political agenda of one side or the other and there is some overwhelmingly misguided idea that that's the only way to create the kind of world we want to live in. We seem to defend our side or attack the other more than talk about what will make this a better world. That seems to me a huge mistake and more what the political parties and politicians who are trying to score your vote would want. That sort of discussion only benefits them not us. It's as if they have all fooled us into falling for all of their rhetoric.
At the same time what people once thought of as the core values of being a Republican or Democrat have been destroyed. The old school guys are fading away and they have been replaced by a new crew that has found that it's better to fool the people with propaganda. They have in fact got us angry and push us further and further apart. As a people, as a society, we've always had issues that pull us apart...but this left and right thing is totally out of hand. So if you want to "blame" someone or something for generating this anger...blame them.
The other thing that really bothers me about these guys is that they seem to have forgotten or intentionally pushed aside the idea that they are public servants. They work for us...they answer to us...their doors should always be open to us. It is our bidding that they do. We seem to be forgetting that as a nation too.
We don't owe them anything. They owe us because we put them in that chair they sit in, in that office on the hill, they take their salary out of our hard earned cash. They no longer seem to recognize that they answer to us though and that means we are failing terribly as a democracy.
At the very least on these message boards we get to express whole ideas and finish thoughts and continue a discussion as long as we feel like it. In that way I think the internet and message boards have done us a favor. So, I don't think Bush has anyone to blame but himself and his advisors for how people feel about him. If you want to create real and true change people will embrace you for that...if you are reckless and foolhardy people will see it and call you out on it.
We've always had the editorial section of the newspaper to rant and rave but this is something new. I'd be curious to see what his approval numbers would be with no internet to help hype the anger.
Well, I think this message board forum gives far more of us a voice in that regard and gives more people access to our voice. I don't see as how you could veiw that as anything but a good thing. Regardless of access to the internet, people would still be angry with Bush and his decisions. For one thing I think people can recognize what's Un-American when they hear it...and last night Bush gave a speech that for the most part went against the ideals and the ideas this country supposedly stands for.
You can disagree with that as that's what we're all about in this country right? I'd guess though that even if people didn't read what I have to say on it they'd still recognize that basic idea...at least I have the faith in them that they would.
