MANIPULATIONS

Politicians, if they are not so already, must become masters at reading and manipulating people. The failure for some is that they do not adequately gauge the intelligence of their listeners and end up insulting them. All campaigns are manipulations of some sort but during the past eight years we have been subjected to a Rovian kind of dirty campaign. Thus, it surprised even me, to learn that Karl Rove did not approve of the way the Republicans are running McCain’s campaign right now.
When the pig leaves you in the mud, indicating it is too dirty to play there, it has to be seen as a serious signal.

Alternet recently wrote an article titled: The 12 New Stomach-Turning Revelations About Sarah Palin. The first is whether Sarah Palin is trying to incite violence against Obama. Palin is referred to as a demagogue in a skirt. It seems that many people think that the McCain campaign is stirring up enough hatred, hoping there will be violence against Obama. Whether the wish is there in her open mind and empty head, how can anyone conscience her actions when she must know she is not speaking truth and is just fighting the dirtiest of Republican politics. Her lying about the money invested by her state in Darfur, her high regard for Dick Cheney, are all signals that too many people are ignorant of the truths, though the Internet seethes with criticism about her as a person, as a governor, as a taxpayer, and now as a candidate. Her performance has left little to be admired by anyone who takes the time to study her adult and political performance. if, in fact, some are correct in saying that she really doesn't care whether McCain loses (as the polls indicate is inevitable), she is trying to position herself for a Presidential run in 2012. Continuing on as Governor of Alaska might well not buy her a nomination. She is as likely to get it as Kerry has been in 2008.

One of the tricks of manipulating is Triangling. It uses the principal that 'in numbers there is strength'. It is when you claim the support of another, or several others, to support your position as more powerful than that of the person whom you are addressing. (eg, Mom (talking to kids), "I do not give my consent and your father and grandparents agree with me." Powerhouse to the kids!) The media pundits do it all the time with little shame or realization of the immaturity of the ploy.

Try maintaining your own position in a stand-off with someone without wishing you could say, "And, XXX feels exactly as I do and told me so." Whereupon the person with whom you have spoken will feel compelled to ask XXX who will then be caught in the middle. They will either be uncomfortable having to defend what they said to you and not to them in the first place, or they will chicken out and have to deny it, leaving you looking pretty untrustworthy. If your objection or position is compelling, you should argue only on your own information and convictions, never drawing in another who is not present, or by quoting (or often misquoting) that person.

Slight distortion of facts can change the tenor of a situation from acceptable to totally non-acceptable. Palin is trying to do that and is probably succeeding with many who believe her 'honesty' and 'sincerity', rather than seeing what she is doing as the worst kind of dirty politics possible. We must ask the question, "Is this the real Sarah Palin?" If so, her admiration for Cheney and lack of understanding and adherence to the Constitution and other societal rules, like income tax, make her a frightening thought to in any way be an example for young, impressionable women or having ability to lead our country.

DISTORTIONS

One of the most painful frustrations for me today is to have to tolerate the many distortions one hears and can do nothing to correct. For months we have been hearing that we are not in a recession when everything points to the fact that we are. Numbers are presented by the media as fact which frequently are not accurate and give a very biased or skewed picture which is then seen as some sort of standard.

Today I heard that a local town was fighting over the fact that a firefighter had been called to active duty and had been given full pay for as long as the town could afford it beyond the period required by law, what ever that time is. I believe it was an official of the firefighter's Union who gave a speech calling council members the worst politicians possible because they had stopped paying him full salary due to budgetary problems. This man described the fireman in Iraq as serving in our International Guard. I struggle to understand when our National Guard became the International Guard. The United States National Guard is authorized by the Constitution of the United States. As originally drafted,''the Constitution limited the mustering of state militias: without the consent of Congress, states could not "keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace,...or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." (Article I, Section 10; Clause 3) Congress, however, had a duty to protect states from invasion and domestic violence (Article IV, Section 4)." National or International? Is there a majority in the US who really believe that we were in imminent danger of attack from Iraq other than the Administration who lied so many times to us that people believed them? How do families subsist? Was this an unconscious (or Freudian ) slip? I'll probably never know. It was just a brief spot in the news when I did not know the time or station.