Journal 1_6

Question from Last Week:
What is the most "honest campaign" ever in politics?  Who was involved? What were the issues? Why is it the most "honest campaign" ever?
This was a hard question to answer.  It was so broad I could not find a real answer on this, because there is never an "honest campaign" in politics.  My original thoughts were that politcs in our earliest years in a nation would be honest, before entertainment became so important to the America public.  I was very wrong.   Every campaign, starting from the first presidential election (not including George Washington) has had some kind of political slander.  John Adams used "whisper campaigns" against Alexander Hamilton to win the election of 1796, and Thomas Jeffeson was an even bigger victim of political slander in the presidential election of 1800 when Adams exposed Jefferson having three children with his slave.  There never been an honest campaign where there was a competition.  Negative campaigning does have pros, for example, we would not know about Thomas Jefferson's scandal without this negative campaigning because it would never have been documented if Adams had not used it in his campaign.  In a way someone could argue negative campainig keeps politicans honest, but slander is so biased many voters don't know what to trust.  Bias is a painful but realistic part of politics, and we as voters have had to sift through it to get the truth in every election in history.

In Class This Week:
A) This week we learned about political ad analysis.  We used local politics to examine what makes a candidate look professional, taking into account the race for our district's house representative.  The republican, Eric Cantor, is the incumbent and has been for years.  The democrat, Rick Waugh, is--to say the least- very unprofessional.  While Cantor's TV ads are professionally done, short, sweet, to the point and effective--Rick Waugh's main ad on his website is Waugh rambling on about issues for five minutes while pretending to fish.  He never looks at the camera, and talks away from the microphone, mumbling from time to time and talking in circles about the "issues" with no solutions.  The second day of class this week we had to present an analysis of a political ad we chose from a historical website.  I thought it was very interesting to see all the political ads, and realize that in when Eisenhower ran for president all the way to Obama, there was a form of negative campaigning in virtually every election, as I stated earlier.  I analyzed the most popular ad in the class, Obama's first general election ad.  It was entitiled "Country I Love."  Many people chose Obama because his advertisements and campaign was, I believe, one of the most influential in history.  If anything, Obama knows how to speak to a crowd, and is very personable on commericals.  He also literally speaks in virtue words.  From everything to patriotism to his country, to working hard and living the "American Dream" to good values and morale, you can't disagree with practically anything he says in his first commercial.  However, I did realize he had lots of background information about himself, which I found out was because of whisper campaigns (just like in the first elections of the United States!) from the McCain office, and so it was necessary for him to clarify where he grew up and who he lived with.  Lastly, this week we began a new documentary called "The Divided State" about a college in the most conservative town, in the most conservative and mormon state in America--Utah-- that invited Michael Moore to speak to their students.  I will save commentary on "The Divided State" for next week.

Cantor

vs.

Waugh

B)  When studying the local politics of Virginia, I find it obvious that this year's Republican candidate for the 11th district, Eric Cantor, is by far the favorite.  Accoring to virginiapolitics.com, the House seat is called to be a "safe republican" victory.  Why shouldn't it be when the the democratic party has such a weak candidate and Cantor is loaded with monetary funds?  Another statistic I found showed Cantor spending $4,522,918 dollars on his campaign, and still has $1,408,116 left to spend, while Rick Waugh has spent  $83,378 and only has a pathetic $2,168 to spend.  Over a million compared to two thousand...no wonder Eric Cantor comes to look so professional!  However, there are two sides to this...all of Cantor's money is financed by individual donations and the PAC, while Waugh had to put in $805 of his own money to to finace himself, but the majority of his money ($79,000) comes from individual contributions.  In short my point is:  Money makes you look better, but that money probably comes from supporters.  The more supporters you have, the more money you get, the better a candidate will look to the public. 

C)  The politics and entertainment of today correlates with the funding of a campaign.  The more funding, the more professional, the more entertaining.  It all correlates with each other to make a successful campaign.  Barack Obama would not have won without such powerful campaigning, as is the truth throughout all campagins.  Why are people attracted to the new political parties forming, such as "The Tea Party" and "The Rent is Too Damn High" party?  Because they're entertaining!  Neither party will ever make a serious effect on the political scene, but their entertainment, slogans and even the names of their parties draw people's attention. 

Question for Next Week:
Find out about the Tea Party and Rent Is Too Damn High Party.  What are their platforms? Who are their leaders?  Why are they formed?  Will they make an effect on the the elections?

Sources:

"Congressional Elections: Virginia District 07 Race: 2000 Cycle | OpenSecrets." OpenSecrets.org: Money in Politics -- See Who's Giving & Who's Getting. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?id=VA07&cycle=2000.

Drake, By Bruce. "Virginia 7 House Race Tag at Politics Daily." Politics News, Elections Coverage, Political Analysis and Opinion. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. http://www.politicsdaily.com/tag/Virginia%207%20House%20Race/.

The American Pageant. Houghton Mifflin College Div, 2006. Print.

Journal 1_5

Question from last week:
"I want to know more about the Iran- Contra scandal.  I will learn when it was, where it happened, and who was involved.  What did Oliver North do?  How was he convicted on trial? "

The Iran Contra Scandal took place in November 1986 under the Reagan Administration.  In 1985 guns and other weapons were sold to the hostile Iran government in secret in order to retrieve hostages from the Lebenon Hostage Crisis.  Americans, when they found out that there was an arms-deal between Iran and American from a Lebenon magazine that later lead to search of the American government, they were outraged.  Not only had their government sold weapons to a country that to this day, is the singlemost threatening country to the United States, they did it without congress's permission.  It was an unconstitutional act.  To make matters worse, all of the profits from the arms sales went to aid the Nicaraguan guerilla "Contras" in a civil war they were fighting in their country.  Congress had issued a statement that had decided not to get involved in world affairs such as these, but some members of the United States Military decided override this issue and filter millions of dollars and guns to aid the Contras.

The main men involved in the scandal were Lt. Col. Oliver North, who later ran for the Virginia senate seat in 1994, National Security Advisor John Poindexter and Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, as well as many other high ranking officials.  President Regan was stated to never have known nor been involved, and no evidence could prove differently.  North had been the main negotiater of these deals as an aid to the National Security Council.  In May 1989, North was convicted of misleading Congress and unlawfully destroying government documents.  At first, North stated he was under command of his superiors to do so, and then later, he stated he was doing it for the betterment of our country.  That is the greatest argument of the Iran-Contra Scandal.  All of the three majmor players in the scandal were convicted, and later were issued presidential pardons from George Bush in 1992.  They were pardoned because the were acting in patriotism, accoriding to Bush.  Later in the 1994 elections North used Iran-Contra as a campaigning line by saying "lives were saved" in the scandal.  That is true, 36 hostages had been taken by Lebenon during the Hostage Crisis, and because of Iran-Contra, 28 made it home.  But how do you justify the Nicaraguan scandal?  Going against are highest government power's decision to benefit the military?  It is possible that the men who decided to issue the guns didn't no all that was going on in our government at the time?  Why is it okay for a few men to take control of our country without the consent of the governed?  Or were they acting patriotically and hoping for the betterment of our country by being upstanding citizens?  These are the questions that are the basis of controversy concerning the Iran-Contra affair.

In class this week:
 A)
We began this week studying the principles of propaganda in order to highlight then in Chuck Rob's and Oliver North's campaigns.  The principles were easily saw and very common in campaigns around the nation.  For starters, the simple issue of "name-calling" where one person links someone to something with a negative connotation.  Rob's speech right before voting day in the Perfect Candidate is a perfect example of this.  Then, glittering generalities come into play.  Politicans use this technique more than any, with "virtue words" that people can take many different, but positive, meanings to.  Obama's campaign this year was full of "Hope" and "Change" both seriuosly glittering generalites.  We also studied false connections, which is kind of like "slippery slope" and name calling fallacies, and special appeals.  When a politican dresses in flannel and jeans to go huntin' with his voters, he is making a speical appeal to the people.  Politicans do this to say "hey im just a normal guy like you" because it makes them more likeable.  We also discussed bandwagon, which has become a major way of campagining because of the show the media puts on at rallies, showing thousands of people screaming one candidates name.   After discussing propaganda methods, we finished "The Perfect Candidate." 
 B)
I thought the film's main theme was to show the people that campaigning is entertaining instead of honest.  Why has a political race become all about the glamour and action instead of what each candidate is actually going to do for our country.  This film was filmed in 1994, what do you think a political race is like now?  Showing Oliver North's campaign headquarters brought a unique insight to a campaign the voter never gets to witness.  The bloodthirsty competition and negative campaigning are especially brought to life.  According to sources, there are conflicting effects on negative campaigning and voters.  Some studies say that negative campaigning enhances a candidates chances of winning and increases voter turnout, while other studies have found that negative campaigning makes candidates equally likely to lose and decreases voter turnout.  From these studies, my guess is it depends on who are the voters, what you are voting for, and the nature of each election.  Voters only consider a few things to be "personal attacks" at voters, for example: lack of military service, past alchohol or drug abuse, past finacial issues and family problems with the candidates are all considered "low blows."  Everything else, from the voters' mind, is fair game.  Another interesting statisic I found was that voters mostly do not trust Washington.  Here are the statistics conducted by a survey of voters corcerning the trusting fo candidates and negative campaigning by "thenation.com":

• 59% believe that all or most candidates deliberately twist the truth.
• 39% believe that all or most candidates deliberately lie to voters.
• 43% believe that most or all candidates deliberately make unfair attacks on their opponents. Another 45% believe that some candidates do.
• 67% say they can trust the government in Washington only some of the time or never.
• 87% are concerned about the level of personal attacks in today's political campaigns.

 C)  These statistics and propaganda can be connected to many different elections and governmental scandals in our nations history.  Not only do some candidates do it at the election time, but also when in office.  Two presidents: Bill Clinton and George Bush have suspectively (though never proven*) lied to congress about the manufacturing or holding of weapons of mass destruction in the last twenty years.  Both incidences resulted in Military action.  This would include Bill Clinton's bombing of the Al-Shifa factury in Khartoum, Sudan as well as George Bush's highly controversial invasion of Iraq.  One things for sure, the movement to keep politics truthful needs to continue on stronger and more influential than before.

Question for next week:
What is the most "honest campaign" ever in politics?  Who was involved? What were the issues? Why is it the most "honest campaign" ever?

Sources:

"ThisNation.com--Do Negative Campaign Ads Work?" ThisNation.com-American Government & Politics Online. 16 Oct. 2010. Web. 16 Oct. 2010. http://www.thisnation.com/question/031.html.

 

"Iran Contra Scandal." Web. 16 Oct. 2010. http://home.snu.edu/~dwilliam/s98/usarab/icscandal.htm.

 

"The American Experience | Reagan | People & Events | The Iran-Contra Affair." PBS. Web. 16 Oct. 2010. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande08.html>.

Journal 1_4 October 10, 2010

Question from last week:
As I looked for Moore's response to comments against him, I really couldn't find too much.  He never made a documentary recanting any of the previous documentaries...even though one of the themes of "Michael Moore Hates America" was to get Moore to respond.  Instead, Moore decides to take the high road on many of these issues and not even acknowledge his critcis.  In other ways, he deliberately denies claims on the news and when he speaks in public.  I found this in several movie clips, but never did I find any kind of statement from Moore coming back at the other side.

This week in class:
This week in class we started the film "The Perfect Candidate" with completing background information on it.  The documentary is about two candidates from the 1994 election, and both of them are terrible candidates for office.  Oliver North was the republican candidate, and also a Luitenant that was involved in the Iran- Contra scandal.  North has been accused and convicted of lying to congress about his actions.  Chuck Rob, the democratic candidate, is equally disspaointing because he was concerned with a family issues where he cheated on his wife.  The film should have the theme: do politicians even have morales anymore?  We began watching the film, and right away there were stereotypes between the Republican and democratic cnadidates, but also there was a similar notion of whether you can trust politicans or not. 

^^Oliver North pledging at Congress on his trial after the Iran-Contra Scandal

Question for next week:
I want to know more about the Iran- Contra scandal.  I will learn when it was, where it happened, and who was involved.  What did Oliver North do?  How was he convicted on trial? 

Sources:

"Oliver North." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_North.

Question from last week:  No one is quite like Michael Moore. That is, I believe, why he has the recognition and celebrity spotlight he does.  No one is quite as obnoxious, as point-forward, or as controversial.  I did, however, find several other liberal ---and conservative—documentarians in my research this week.  None are quite as influential as Michael Moore because none have made such controversy or are as pointed as Moore’s works. Robert Greenwald, a libertarian filmmaker and documentarian is the closest thing I could find to Moore.  Greenwald has made several films and short clips on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the media and the 2000 presidential election.  His main films, “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism,” and “Uncovered: The War on Iraq” both made considerable splashes, but nothing like Moore.  Maybe this is because Greenwald isn’t as talented? Maybe he doesn’t draw as much emotion out of his viewers?  Or maybe he doesn’t create as much controversy?  Maybe he is less likely to twist the truth for entertainment?

Summary of this week in class: 
This week in class we started a new movie, "Michael Moore Hates America" by Michael Wilson.

It was a direct attack at Moore’s film, “Bowling for Columbine”, and even though there were several film techniques Wilson emulates from Moore’s work, I actually agreed with a few of Wilson’s points.  I finally realized that Moore’s films DO make a negative impact on organizations and people, for example, the NRA and Charles Heston.  It was also obvious how Moore fabricated some of the situations and events that happened in his film.  When he supposedly received a gun from a bank in Michigan, just by setting up an account, there was a whole different story behind the event.  In “Bowling for Columbine” Moore makes it seem like the bank keeps 500 guns in the vault at their bank, when in fact, it was made clear in Wilson’s film that they are shipped in, one by one, from a vault in a separate location.  In Wilson’s work he interviews one of the bank clerks featured in “Bowling for Columbine.”  She explains how Moore lied about his intentions when filming, called ahead asking the gun to be transported from the vault in advance to the bank so he could pick it up the day of, and left out several other points that were made by the bank before handed the gun.  Some argue that the point is Moore still received the gun in the bank that day, and there is a small amount of validity to that point, but where is the truth in Moore’s work?  Why would it take such a scheme to come up with a three minute part of his documentary?  Why is there a need to twist the truth? Wilson, most likely, does some truth-twisting in his film, too.  That’s when I realized how great it is that we have two documentaries to watch, two people with two different views, that check themselves on the truth of their beliefs and work.  You have to appreciate the two perspectives you are handed when watching these films, take the best out of both and form your own opinion.

Question for next week:

I want to know more about the counter-films after Moore.  What were the reviews for “Farenhype 911” and “Michael Moore Hates America"?  Did Moore ever respond to these films?  If so, how?

Sources:
Robert Greenwald. Web. 04 Oct. 2010. <http://www.robertgreenwald.org/>.