5 Buzzwords to watch out for | |
Yeah, all these things are about trying to shape the narrative. Its not news at all, its basically propaganda. It stupid that making a tiny error is a 'gaffe' which is used to paint someone as an unelectable imbecile, and is portrayed as being of the same magnitude as actually doing something that potentially breaks ministerial code or due process. Its a symptom of politics being dominated by personality over policy. Because, ironically, actually being incompetent in government doesn't actually seem to have any penalties. Not to the politician at any rate. rant over. | |
Ironic how Cracked is more reliable then actual news companies. I love that site, man. | |
These don't really come up that often in our discussions here though on the Escapist. So I propose we bring up other words and their real definitions Liberal: Someone on the left side of the political spectrum or center right for Americans. Usually more often tend to have more accepting social policy. More for government ideas to fix problems. Conservative: Someone on the right side of the political spectrum or further right for Americans who usually prefers less change and is more willing to push their beliefs onto others in ways such as religious laws. Tend to be willing to spend less and more laissez faire in the true sense. Authoritarian: Someone who prefers bigger government control in their country such as more laws that may be used for safety of the people or pushing beliefs. Also used economically. Libertarian: Someone who prefers smaller government control in their country such as laxer laws or letting people deal with issues with each other than having government intervene. Constitutionalist: Someone who reads the constitution strictly and if there is no mention of something, they will go by the constitution. RON PAUL! Republican: American conservative political party, not a political belief. Does tend to have a pretty set ideology. Democrat: American center right political party, not a political belief. Does tend to have a pretty set ideology. Anarchy: The state where there is ZERO government. Not tribes or whatever. Zero government That's all I can think of right now. Add more and correct any mistakes if you could. Also, let me just add this.
| |
I'm ok with the question headlines, atleast fundamentally. Can a rhetorical question be abused like crazy? Sure. But it is admittedly a great hook (and journalists are trying to get people to read their articles) and sometimes the truth is uncertain and should be reported that way. If something is basically an opinion, I'm not going to complain about getting the question, then being given the information to make my own stance on the issue. Telling a journalist they can't report with uncertainty is telling them to either ignore issues or make up their own reality on them. | |
Disagree on the first quite a bit, actually. I mean, it depends what kind of gaffe we're talking about. There are the simple mistakes brought on by campaigning fatigue, and those should be ignored. But some gaffes are incredibly revealing. For instance, Romney is a gaffe machine, and what he says unscripted shows a pattern of "rich guy who is out of touch and cares only about the wealthy" that's completely relevant. Candidates, particularly national-level candidates, are so tightly controlled and scripted that gaffes and other off-the-cuff remarks are often the only window into how they actually think, and some of them say quite a bit about the candidate. Some of them raise questions, even when they do seem a product of fatigue. For instance, *does* Rick Perry actually know the names of the agencies he'd do away with and just flubbed it because he was tired? Or is it a case where the proper conservative Evangelical thinking is that you do away with certain agencies but it's not something he's personally passionate about, so he genuinely doesn't know? Oh, another one just happened this weekend. Romney said, chuckling, that giving the order Obama gave to go in after bin Laden in that particular way is something "anyone, even Jimmy Carter would have done". That was *incredibly* revealing. It said 1) he doesn't know that Carter actually did make a gutsy call, and one that turned out badly; 2) he buys into the "Democrats are weak on national security, without exception, and Republicans are strong, without exception, Republicans *own* this issue" rhetoric; and 3) that he doesn't actually know that some of Obama's military advisors opposed that particular plan and that the CIA came to Obama the day before the raid and said "that intel that we have placing Osama in that compound that we said was 60-80% certain? we now think it's more like 40% certain". The latter, particularly, makes it questionable that he actually understands what's involved in a president making a decision like that, which is 100% relevant to whether he'd be a good person to hire for the job. | |
My bitching at those exact same misconceptions. -------------- Gaffs depend on the context. For example in the UK Ken Clarke... Now... he's right. You have different levels of every crime with varying degree's of punishment delivered, rape isn't an exception, but merely an emotional example. Did this gaffe waste a lot of time? Yes... it bloody well did... However some gaffes can be telling of what a person really is like or thinks... for example Gordon Brown... when the cunt left his mic on... and said "what a biggoted woman" relating to someone who was a life long labour voter but concerned with imigration. Now that damaged a man who was already incrediby damaged as he had presided over the legacy of what he as chancellor had done to the economy xD | |
Agreed. To take things out of the realm of politics that most people are invested in, there were two famous gaffes from Japanese politicians a couple years back. One politician used a phrase analogous to "it can't be helped" referring to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is a good example of an ignorable gaffe IMHO. Because the scandal was that he didn't treat Hiroshima and Nagasaki with sufficient gravitas, but basically what he said was true. Another politician got raked over the coals for another gaffe- when describing Japan's demographic problems (the fact that the population is projected to decrease) he said that Japan has a limited number of "baby-making machines" and thus the only solution is for those machines to "produce more". This is a gaffe that should not be ignored, because it reveals an opinion about the role of women that would otherwise go unspoken. Unfortunately if I recall my news correctly, the first politician was sacked. The second was not. | |
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-to-spot-b.s.-political-story-in-under-10-seconds/
David Wong recently posted this on Cracked. A TL;DR version:
1. Gaffes are pointless because they're complete non-stories and essentially meaningless in 99.99% of the time.
2. "Rhetorical Question" headlines/headlines ending with question marks because the stories are, more often than not, based on extreme hyperbole and posturing
3. "X Blasts Y" headlines, because they're non-stories, simply explaining a politician's position again most of the time and rehashing their stump speeches
4. The Term "Lawmaker", as "lawmaker" could be basically anyone, regardless of if they have influence or not
5. "Dealing a blow to" as a headline, as it's almost always a story that focuses on how it touches the political environment, and is shallow and vapid.
I agree with pretty much all of them other than the last, and I think that this is a very valuable article for political discussion here on the escapist, because the more I think about it, the more it makes sense and the more I remember articles along those lines.