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> I wonder what kind of such campaigns are going on today, changing our thoughts without us noticing. Political campaigns are usually comparable in scope. Oba

by rdtsc 7y ago

> I wonder what kind of such campaigns are going on today, changing our thoughts without us noticing. Political campaigns are usually comparable in scope. Obama, for example, beat Nike and Apple to win the "marketer of the year" award https://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-marketer-year/131810 https://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-marke... I remember being so excited and enthusiastic. People were banging pots and pans in the streets and celebrating. But looking back, I am not sure what happened. I don't even know why I was excited. And that's the power of propaganda and marketing, it presents a fuzzy abstract canvas and allows everyone to imbue their own, private hopes and dream onto it. In the more recent history, the "Russian collusion" is probably another campaign where so much effort was spent on, families were torn apparent, a lot of mental energy put into it, and then it kind of fizzled out. All of the sudden everyone stopped talking about it. It went from "it was a sure road to impeachment" to everyone at the same time deciding to ignore it.

SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
It's a conclusion that you can reach from publicly available financial information, transportation logs, and behavior of the accused. It's not like there's nothing there, it just hit a dead-end because you have a situation where the complicit and co-conspirators are now responsible for the sentencing aspect of proceedings, so the house is basically going to sit on the continuance of the investigation. Additionally a lot of the relevant investigations were handed off to the relevant state prosecutors so the accused can't pardon himself and his underlings. My point is, it's not so much a propaganda campaign as an obvious juicy news story to be written about and it's predictably not reported on lately because nothings happening out in the open right now, but watch by October 2020 it'll be a thing again, because it'll be politically expedient again.
checker 7y ago
Obama's election was a positive milestone for race relations in American history. If that's not worth getting excited about politically then I'm not sure what is.
- rdtsc 7y ago
  Was it though? Did race relations improve during his 8 years. I guess, but I am not too sure...
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    Obama's election was sold as a positive milestone for race relations. Once he was president he devoted almost no time at all to race relations, and conditions for many PoC actually deteriorated, because he discarded his popular base instead of creating an integrated social movement. (Ironically - if that's the word - Trump has been far better at creating the latter than Obama was.) A lot of people actually believed the Hope and Change slogans. But it turned out there was no real cause for hope, and very little significant change. And that's marketing for you - illusion over substance.
  - checker 7y ago
    Before 1972, there were 0 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Now there are 33 and nobody bats an eye - but it's taken 50 years to get here. I find it hard to believe that this important first step is not to be celebrated as something to be a part of. Results are not instant.
pjc50 7y ago
Like the Clinton impeachment, it went from substantive issues to arguing about the meaning of words. A large number of people were indeed prosecuted for various offences: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/m... And it was proven that the campaign received help from Russians. But the help appears to have been one-directional; no proof that it was requested or directed explicitly by Trump. He just let it happen, which is apparently fine.
ehvatum 7y ago
After eight years of Bush, people were prepared to believe just about anything would be an historic watershed of honesty and good governance. For the last of the Bush years, every day seemed to bring an unprecedented new scandal that overshadowed all previously unprecedented Bush scandals by such magnitude as to render them meaningless. Finally, we had the Attorney General of the United States testify that he could remember nothing to do with why he fired numerous US Attorneys on the eve of an election. And then Cheney shot somebody and his victim apologized. And so many other things. It was easy to believe that Obama wasn't controlled by the exact same people.

by rdtsc 7y ago

SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago

It's a conclusion that you can reach from publicly available financial information, transportation logs, and behavior of the accused. It's not like there's nothing there, it just hit a dead-end because you have a situation where the complicit and co-conspirators are now responsible for the sentencing aspect of proceedings, so the house is basically going to sit on the continuance of the investigation. Additionally a lot of the relevant investigations were handed off to the relevant state prosecutors so the accused can't pardon himself and his underlings. My point is, it's not so much a propaganda campaign as an obvious juicy news story to be written about and it's predictably not reported on lately because nothings happening out in the open right now, but watch by October 2020 it'll be a thing again, because it'll be politically expedient again.

checker 7y ago

Obama's election was a positive milestone for race relations in American history. If that's not worth getting excited about politically then I'm not sure what is.

rdtsc 7y ago
Was it though? Did race relations improve during his 8 years. I guess, but I am not too sure...
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Obama's election was sold as a positive milestone for race relations. Once he was president he devoted almost no time at all to race relations, and conditions for many PoC actually deteriorated, because he discarded his popular base instead of creating an integrated social movement. (Ironically - if that's the word - Trump has been far better at creating the latter than Obama was.) A lot of people actually believed the Hope and Change slogans. But it turned out there was no real cause for hope, and very little significant change. And that's marketing for you - illusion over substance.
- checker 7y ago
  Before 1972, there were 0 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Now there are 33 and nobody bats an eye - but it's taken 50 years to get here. I find it hard to believe that this important first step is not to be celebrated as something to be a part of. Results are not instant.

pjc50 7y ago

Like the Clinton impeachment, it went from substantive issues to arguing about the meaning of words. A large number of people were indeed prosecuted for various offences: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/m... And it was proven that the campaign received help from Russians. But the help appears to have been one-directional; no proof that it was requested or directed explicitly by Trump. He just let it happen, which is apparently fine.

ehvatum 7y ago

After eight years of Bush, people were prepared to believe just about anything would be an historic watershed of honesty and good governance. For the last of the Bush years, every day seemed to bring an unprecedented new scandal that overshadowed all previously unprecedented Bush scandals by such magnitude as to render them meaningless. Finally, we had the Attorney General of the United States testify that he could remember nothing to do with why he fired numerous US Attorneys on the eve of an election. And then Cheney shot somebody and his victim apologized. And so many other things. It was easy to believe that Obama wasn't controlled by the exact same people.