nichomach (09-03-2016)
Cruz campaign ad. Not exactly how the British would do it.
If I were voting I'd be having a long, hard look at Cruz, but personally, I found this ad off-putting (and I would never, in a million years, vote Hilary).
Not sure if this crosses a line so warning on the audio which repeatedly uses the word 'Damn'.
Last edited by Galant; 07-03-2016 at 05:44 PM.
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. However, many electrons were displaced and terribly inconvenienced.
Reminds me of a pic I seen a few days ago on Twitter I think it was
007.jpg
Whatever else might be the problem with Cruz that video hardly seems informative - sinister music and about 10 seconds worth of actual footage of Cruz? I'd even fact check the Swanson clip since the editing could be cherry picking. Either way, it doesn't surprise me that potential candidates would take any opportunity to try to secure votes by showing up at events of those who are deemed to be more likely supporters.
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. However, many electrons were displaced and terribly inconvenienced.
If people think our politics is right wing,then you need to consider that BOTH the Democrats and Republicans are far more right wing than even the Conservatives over here,and a number of the Republican candidates like Trump and Cruz are so to the right they make people like Clinton look like the Green Party and she is still very right wing in comparison.
FFS,even Nigel Farage has criticised some of what Trump and co have said and UKIP is more right wing than the conservatives.
US politics is extremely petty and they just seem to want to outdo themselves in the gaffs and attacks they put on their competitors,which makes what we see here look very mild in comparison. Add all the outright lies and distortion of facts heaped against competitors on both sides and even Putin would be proud.
Its incredibly scary when this is all for the presidency of a country that can destablise or destroy any other country on the planet at ease and has the biggest nuclear weapons stockpile too,and the most foreign bases of any military on the planet. It has the largest expeditionary forces of any country and has more aircraft carriers and nuclear attack submarines than the REST of the world combined. The US Navy itself is one of the biggest airforces in the world.
It only takes one entire nutjob to get into power, who can use events and the media to twist public perception ,and I hate to think what the US could do.
After all Dubya got voted into power and got messages from God apparently(his own words) to invade Iraq,which didn't make a bad situation even worse at all,did it??
But on the flipside he didn't seem as bad as some of the lot which are running for the presidency now. That's not a good thing.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 08-03-2016 at 01:18 AM.
nichomach (09-03-2016)
It was a real event, and the footage is accurate: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/op...ay-pastor.html
This is a side track, but I'm not convinced by that video of anything other than the fact that Cruz, along with others, spoke at an event centered around a debate on religious freedoms and which featured a speaker who holds politically incorrect (but not, as far as I can tell, murderous) views. It just strikes me a mud-slinging attempt during campaign time where, as they say, if you throw enough you hope some of it sticks. I've neither seen nor read anything that specifically ties Ted Cruz to any particularly scary beliefs. It just looks like media spin. Even Swanson's views look like they could have been misrepresented. All in all, I find little that would condemn Cruz here. My guess is that at events with multiple speakers the speakers aren't there to listen, they'll show up, say their bit, and then leave. I doubt they'd be interested in listening to what all the other speakers had to say.
Last edited by Galant; 08-03-2016 at 12:16 PM.
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. However, many electrons were displaced and terribly inconvenienced.
While I would agree that America, in general, is to the right of the UK I would add that I suspect there's also a question of the playing field being wider. There are those who are as far to the left as the UK or further, but lots of people further to the right.
Then there's the question of left/right culturally, economically etc.
All in all, I'd say it's worth noting that the political landscape in the USA is more diverse than in the UK.
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. However, many electrons were displaced and terribly inconvenienced.
But also unlike the UK,two major parties dominate to the extent that the others are minor - Labour and The Conservatives don't dominate to the extent The Republicans and The Democrats do in the US,both of which are more right wing than The Conservatives.
You only need to look at how Obama was portrayed as some sort of communist by both parties for enacting healthcare reforms for poorer people so they had better access to healthcare.
These sorts of things would not have even batted any eyelid under any conservative or labour government in the last 30 years here.
FFS,Farage wouldn't be considered far right by US standards.
What the healthcare reforms in the US actually did was to require everybody to buy health insurance or face a financial penalty. The people who really benefit are the owners of insurance companies. If an extreme right, conservative party developed a healthcare plan, this is what it would look like. Obama took the worst healthcare system in the developed world and made it worse. Why he's painted as a communist I have no idea.
What the US needs is a well-run single payer healthcare system, but that's something it will never have.
nichomach (09-03-2016)
I agree that single payer would be much better, but sometimes politics is the art of the possible. I don't think *anyone* in the US could get a single-payer scheme through. Look at the number of states that flat out refused to implement the expansion to Medicaid (which was federally funded) and would have meant health coverage being extended to thousands that couldn't afford it otherwise; that was purely ideological. I think the telling fact is that ObamaCare basically took a Republican policy from Romney in Massachusetts (partly, I think, to come up with something that the Republicans would at least not oppose too violently) and attempted to expand it; at which point it became (according to Republicans) a Communist plot, the advent of a Fascist dictatorship, or the final victory of the Lizard People. OK, I made one of those up, but spotting which isn't as easy as you'd think, eh?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)