OP/ED: Dirty Politics

Well voting gets underway in a few hours. As a Canadian living in a border city I’ve heard about US politics all my life.

I understand primaries, conventions, the electoral college, differences between governors, senators, house representatives, issues such as redistricting, voter registration, constitutional basics etc.

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What's frightening to this international contributor is the process of making that framework actually work. In what is the self-professed role model to the world of democracy it comes down to nothing but personal dirty politics.

Gay marriage is an issue during a time of war, record oil prices, record debts/deficits and freak weather? Really?

More press ink and kilobytes went into examining every minutia of military records during a war fought decades ago than finding out what is going on this century.

The debate "show" was interesting. I hope it gets picked up as a regular sitcom, got to love that "reality" television sandwiched in-between blatant attack ads.

Marketing works.

Real issues were not discussed. You know, like the ones affecting the weather, the economy and civil society.

But fear not, "help is on the way" and "freedom is on the march".

Lao Tse Sung's "divide and conquer" was demonstrated beautifully in the unapologetic mud-slinging that is characteristic of American campaigns. It was even apparent right here on ATS.

This is not an attack on the American people. Take heart, we're all in the same boat with our own dirty corrupt electoral processes and leaders.

I can't believe what passes for politics anywhere in the world.

Now where did I put that blue pill?

What do other members think?

[edit on 11/2/2004 by Gools]

Why are politics dirty anywhere? The US isn't nearly the only country with this problem, and it's not a new problem either. The only thing that's different this election is the coverage, both domestic and international. With more people paying attention to the elections, you have more people recognizing the flaws of the candidates and of the system itself. Also, the closer that a presidential race is (like this one is neck and neck), the more "dirty" politics you can expect to see as the candidates try to win over the last of the so called "undecided" voters.

Kind of a weird question to me, because these days I associate all politics with the word "dirty".

Yep...isn't it just amazing!? people are being beheaded...beheaded! People being killed...gas is ridiculous, oil prices are sky high with winter coming...but be damned if two people of the same sex that love each other should be married and pledge an oath to each other, uh uh...can't have two people doing something like that....better to keep in in the "nasty fornication" department....

Believe it or not, gay marriage is a BIG issue to a lot of people (although I'm not one of them). Just because it's not a big issue to you or me doesn't mean that it's not a big issue to others. There are A LOT of fundamentalist Christians amongst other religions here in the US who truly believe that any gay activity at all is sinful. Seems like that topic is far more a cultural one than it is dirty politics.

I can only see TWO.

1. The FACT that Bush and Kerry are FRATERNITY BROTHERS who have both taken a vow of obedience to a Satanic Skull and Bones fraternity is not being allowed to be discussed anywhere. This means, whoever wins, it's the same group of people in power.

2. The FACT that the Media are not permitting any publicity for Third Party candidates except very local press MEANS that the larger nation has no concept of what the Third Party alternatives ARE--narrowing the (s)election to the 2 Satanist Frat Boy candidates.

Both of these factors narrow the options of voters to the extent that it is a rigged contest among blood brothers.

Sickening.

and I loved your close...

Dirty Politics <---- Isn't that redundant?

Mud in public office has been around since Greek Democracy. Things got real dirty there, interesting to read.

I don't think that character assasination HAS to be part of any political process. Just because it has been present throught history doesn't make it right or mean that it has to keep going that way.

The higher the level of personal dirty politics the more you can gleen about the political maturity of the populace.

In the case of the US in 2004 that maturity seems almost non-existant.

I like how this has turned into an attack on the American people. Classy!

I still don't see how our situation is all that different from those across the planet. The real point is that NO ONE REALLY CARES about most elections in other countries as much as people seems to care about ours. They don't get the coverage so they usually don't get as intense. I'm not proud of our situation here, but it's not much different than any of the so-called "democratic" nations across the world.

[edit on 14-11-2004 by pip_gazebo]

[edit on 14-11-2004 by pip_gazebo]