The aforementioned opinion-letter about how terrible Governor Palin REALLY is, was originally written by Alaskan resident Anne Kilkenny on August 31, and sent out to her brothers, sisters and friends. It has since reached about 200 web sites. I have no idea if this person has an ax to grind, if she is being paid, or what. What I DO know is that the letter is making its way around the globe and been modified to fit the hate agenda by far left liberals. I am hearing the radical left are pulling out all the stops to get Palin's name off the ticket within 2 weeks.

Are they making progress? Hmmmm

Governor Palin is by no means perfect, but I have a feeling there is much more to this letter than meets the eye.

Resource for original letter: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/kilkenny.asp

I asked my husband (who just arrived home from work) to read this "letter" from a small town Wasilla housewife to her 40 brothers, sisters and friends. His opinion? "This is no private letter written by someone to their family members, most of whom would have already known of her obvious long-term hatred of Sarah Palin. And why would this Anne Kilkenny person need to advise her very own relatives to google her name and her state to find out about her own local government, education and PTA affiliations?"

Kilkenny may have a poor opinion of Governor Palin for whatever reasons, but she is putting out high school nonsense on the Internet under the guise of writing "privately" to family. This fish is smelling fishier.

Since Governor Palin has an unprecedented 80% popularity rating among Alaskans, I guess the remaining 20% do not like her. Oh well. You can't please all of the people all of the time.

Same thing with Obama. People have been putting out slam stories over the internet since he started running. You shouldn't believe ANY of them.

PS: I'm a Democrat for Obama.

She's 1/2 sleezy, too...Uh huh...sure nuff. Right, DD?

Whatttt? Okay, okay, I'll stop. <teehee...>

Hi Dancing Dolphns. I'm all for voting your conscience. Thanks for voting. We boomers are putting others to shame. We have SUCH a good turn out!


Hurray for Voting-Boomers!!!!!!!

I'll drink to that!

Okay,
Love reading everyone post on this thead and some good thoughts. I did want to say my final message on Palins speech . She mention that if McCain is elected she will make sure that the special needss Children will be taken care of . I was inpressed my this also. We had down syndrome child across the street when my daugher was little and I taught her to repect him and be kind to him . He would come over and play with her at time . Kids would tease him and one day they took his basketball away from him . A lot of training and help that goes into helping these people for they need group homes to go to when the parent dies and their is no one else to care for them . Some of us maybe have a special needs child or know of someone who has one . My neighbors boy died several years ago and we all miss him .

My hubby and I watched MaCain's speech and thought it was very well done I like MaCain and always did . Didn' mean to repeat myself .

Some really good opinions here .

Best,

Renee

When you watch it more than once, you see the errors of their ways... While I was throwing 'atta girls' at different speakers, and smiling triumphantly here and there during the first viewing, I found myself more critical on the second.

I'm still undecided and going nuts. Quite honestly, I'm afraid to vote for either at this point. I wish all the negative emails could somehow stop. I've gotten many against both parties. It's sickening. I have one friend who assumes that everyone votes as she and her hubby do, and she flings these neative things around all the time. I don't forward them. Occasionally, I'll save them and show them to Ross to get his opinion, or I'll Google to see if there's any truth to them. The saddest part is, how do you know what's true?

My question is this:

Whether you're a democrat or republican, where do you get your news, who do you listen to and believe, and do you have any political Web sites that you respect?

Dots,
I listen a lot to C-Span Radio, which is available in this area, as I drive to and from work (can't pick it up in the house though) 90.1 FM. It's the same as one of the broadcast Cspan channels. I think this is the best public forum that still exists in this country. CSpan is funded by a consortium of cable TV owners. Its purpose is to cover speeches and events (like sessions of the House and Senate, etc.) It can be excruciatingly boring at times. They allow people to call in to ask questions, if they have a guest speaker. At other times, the program host simply answers the phone and people call in to voice their opinions. The host doesn't comment or answer questions, but says that they'll try to find someone with the answer.

Because I drive a lot commuting to work, I listen to every possible talk show besides Cspan -- NPR's talk of the Nation, morning edition and all things considered, Terry Gross, the Diane Ream show (from Wash DC), Maryland Morning, The Cojo Nambi show (also DC), Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dr. Laura, the Christian network, the local Ron Smith Show, DC 101 (I sometimes listen to the raunchy hard rock DJs. Ew!) In other words, I listen to a lot of sources. I also read the local papers (though I just canceled the Baltimore Sun out of protest for how they're destroying it since it was bought by Chicago real estate mogul Zell. Now I read it online. And can you believe I can't get the Baltimore Examiner to deliver their free paper to my house? Not sure why. All my neighbors seem to get it.) I also read the NY Times at work.

The problem with journalism is the way it has evolved so that journalists only interview the "experts" on things. It becomes a sort of game, in that the experts will put out official press releases, or give speeches focusing on certain events, and the reporters aren't allowed to bring up topics the experts haven't mentioned. On TV occasionally you hear from the "(wo)man on the street" and how some particular thing effects them.

As I said elsewhere in the forums, I'm teaching a course about propaganda in the United States. I define propaganda as being manipulated without your knowledge or consent. (Thus, a polemical piece or editorial, or advertisement wouldn't be propaganda. However one-sided it is, if it's well reasoned, then it gives you a choice). This summer I read 50-60 books preparing for this course. The books weren't all about propaganda per se, first of all, because there aren't very many of those and the best ones are from the 1920s and 1930s which have been long out of print (I've got them too though). But I've also read about the early 20th century push to give more power and rights to corporations -- in my research I found that most of the propaganda we're subjected to in this country is from big corporations. Remember -- I define propaganda as manipulating without our knowledge or consent, so I'm talking about strategies to prevent us from getting information. Big example: hormones in milk products. Monsanto has pushed legislation in various states to make it illegal to "slander" hormone-free milk. It sounds absurd. The beef industry did something similar in Texas (remember when Oprah was sued for "slandering" beef?)

I also look at FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) which is an independent press watchdog group.

The idea of experts in charge goes back to the Hamilton-Jefferson debate at the founding of the US. It was re-invigorated in the early 20th century because the wealthy elite thought the new immigrants were too stupid to make their own decisions.