Once upon a time, before Facebook and Twitter and everything else we consider new media, a film documentary had a limited ability to make an impact (as good as some of the older documentaries were.) An audience would file into a movie theater (distribution always being the first major barrier a thoughtful documentary would have to overcome) but then the audience would file back out into the night at movie's end, touched, moved perhaps, angered but with little means of turning those emotions enter action.
Most politics buffs probably watched this ad at one time or another. And after it was over, they may have wondered - how in the world was the daisy ad so effective?
By modern standards, it seems both outdated and completely transparent. The implication is most unsubtle: voting for Senator Barry Goldwater will bring nuclear war. Today's viewer might find it somewhat ridiculous, even laughable. It would be as if Senator Barack Obama cut an ad implying that Senator John McCain would start World War Three.
Yet the Daisy Ad worked. Mr. Goldwater went on to lose the election by a landslide, partly as a result of said ad.
This was because in 1964, believe it or not, many Americans actually worried that Mr. Goldwater might use nuclear weapons.
Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in accusing the Islamic republic of clandestinely building an underground plant to make nuclear fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iranian officials acknowledged the facility but insisted it had been reported to nuclear authorities as required.
Obama should try reading intelligence reports, like 2007's National Intelligence Estimate (the combined consensus report by all sixteen known U.S. intelligence agencies), which stated quite clearly that there is no concrete evidence of a weapons program in Iran. In July and August of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the lack of evidence although it refuses to state anything definitively. Yet still Obama, the D.C. political establishment, and the corporate media continue to lie to the contrary.
We've already been lied into one failed war, lied into ramping up another failed war, are so hurting for fresh soldiers that the Pentagon is now actively accepting white supremacists, yet still the establishment seeks to lie us into another conflict. And some people have wondered why my signature now has an image of Obama and Bush morphed into one unholy beast. Now you know.
I think the United States should not get involved in Pakistani politics. I deplore the absence of democracy in Pakistan, but I think admonitions from outside, injecting exile politicians into Pakistan, telling the Pakistan president what he should or should not wear, that he should take off his uniform, I don't really think this is America's business and I don't think it helps to consolidate stability in Pakistan.
While we have a checkered history in terms of our involvement in the affairs of other countries since World War II, the last seven years have been nothing short of horrendous. We ought to stop the meddling in other countries business until we fix our national security and diplomatic apparatus.
While many OLers were watching our Great Orange Overlord and his DLC counterpart spar on NBC's MTP, presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich appeared on the rival networks Sunday news show.
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