We did a great job buying into right wing propaganda. Please read link

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/29/153124/586

The attack on Edwards was clearly coordinated with right-wing bloggers as posts appeared time stamped early on Friday when the article appeared in the John Locke Foundation’s Carolina Journal online. The JLF claimed coyly it was a result of Matt Drudge linking to the story but bloggers apparently had a "heads-up" and wasted no time wandering down the path cleared by the JLF.

I hope we can learn and do better with our next challenge - I'm sure there will be many

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Hey, I didn't buy it.

Wrote it off from the beginning.

[sandnsea]

2. We know it was linked from Drudge

How does that change the facts?

[Supersedeas]

27. Sources and motivations matter

[AtomicKitten]

3. Red meat brought to you by Drudge.

[Adelante]

4. If the story was false, it would be one thing

John Edwards handed this to the right wing and they said thank you, Mr. Edwards.

[madfloridian]

5. You are judging him by his home?

Are you aware that many of us here shy away from posting things that are well-known about all the businesses Clark is connected to and profits from. We don't do it because the posts would get locked quickly.

Even though they are fact. He lobbied Homeland Security about private databases for a company he worked with...I could go on.

[Southsideirish]

6. I'm judging him on his actions and his poplulist talk and I call him a

phony.

[madfloridian]

7. This is so 2003 ish around here. Same song, different victim.

I hate to see it happen.

[Porcupine]

9. Isn't that why it's there?

They didn't build a big vacant space with sliding dividers did they? It's there to impress somebody.

Yes, I judged John Edwards by his home because of the massive use of materials in a world where the limits are leading to species extinction. I'm judging him for his feeble attempt at greenwashing this wretched excess.

If you haven't noticed your planet refuses to attend to it's regularly scheduled weather. What we will have to do to deal with this will be staggering and the cost will beggar anything we have ever done before.

Leaders should be out in front on these issues by personal example.

I'm not nor ever have been a freeper. In fact DU runs a little less progressive than I'd like but I realize the Democratic Party is the only game in town for environmentalists.

Me judging: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=70207&mesg_id=70207

[1932]

16. I have a feeling that Republicans are going to be responding to "true"

stories about their best candidates with a slightly different approach.

They'll be explaining why their candidates are still the best despite "true" things about them.

So, we'll have Democrats hating Democrats when Right Wing Bloggers tell them too and Republicans with supporters who actually have thoughtful defenses of their candidates.

I wonder who's going to win in '08 (and please don't tell me you'd rather have a Republican than a Democrat that loves his family so much that he wanted them to have a home that is his SOLE extravagance in life and that would bring together friends and family).

[Doctor_J]

8. We always do

there are at least as many Limpballs listeners on this board as there are Franken or Hartmann or schultz listeners. Every RW talking point gets at least 100 threads. I have 8-10 people on ignore simply because their threads are overwhelmingly hate radio talking points.

[1932]

14. Double true.

[snowbear]

10. "Who is we?"

[marions ghost]

11. well...OK

tell me how this is really going to be used against Edwards by the reichwing, since none of them can stand too much scrutiny on their own investments. They would look like fools if they tried to push it too much. There's a big class & money divide within the Repuglican ranks. This isn't going to get them very far. After all, it's not about sex.

As for stirring up the Dems, well sometimes that's good. In this John Edwards house debate, there are some issues that do need to be brought up about resources, environmental impact, leadership and the all-important matters of image. We have to get our own house in order, and that may mean expecting our candidates to answer to issues we truly have problems with. I'm proud of the fact that Dems will find fault where there is some, even if it means bringing up sticky issues with their own affinity group. It's the only way real changes will be made. Tough luv. I consider it a "message to John" that I trust he WILL incorporate into his campaign. If he wants to be president he needs to know how much people desperately want attention to the whole complex of issues related to energy, climate, the environment. He must respond to this. No more lip service. I sincerely hope it is a wake-up call to him, early in this race to the Really Big House.

It's ridiculous to be worried about "buying into rightwing propaganda" all the time. This thought, promoted widely, also causes people to stifle their honest thoughts and reactions and try to fit into a black/white mold. You give support to Drudge and co. inadvertently by advocating this. It silences liberals who are so very fearful about doing anything they think promotes the other side. It is easy for these propaganda efforts to backfire on the perps. So let it come out. Let people make their own decisions, instead of telling them how to think. There is another level of existence beyond this kind of groupthink and blind fear.

(larissa's post #10 said it all..."who is this 'we'"?)

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

12. It's not supposed to be used by the Rightwing against their candidates

These type of things are designed to get the left wing to turn on and devour and reject their own candidates - saving the right wing a lot of time and effort.

There are people walking around right now saying, "I used to be for Edwards, but I just can't justify that house of his. Oh well."

I don't think there's any collective pronoun that I can use correctly. "We" with thousands of exceptions.

[marions ghost]

21. there will be some Dem voters

who feel so strongly about the environmental issues that they WILL permanently reject a candidate who is not strong on that. You have to let them go (certainly they are not going over to Repugs). But others like me will see it as an opportunity to make their candidate better. If Gore does not come into it, there is no other choice for those who have made environmental concerns high on their wish list but to pester the hell out of the remaining candidates. We have been stifled and thwarted for way TOO long. We (calling ourselves environmentalists of any sort) have to take every avenue. Sorry if it's too strident for some.

Actually the numbers of people who said the JE house didn't matter to them was large over the last few days. It seemed to spark some healthy debate about the environment and also about what Edwards really intends to do re. the great socio-economic problems facing us as a society. In a world where nothing seems real, it's perfectly OK IMO to ask, "Is this real?--or just another illusion, another silver-tongued politician's laundry list of buzzwords...

Of course this debate was fanned by Freepers. So what else is new. Often you can tell a really hot topic by the numbers of Freeps who jump in feet first, but there were too many on opposing sides to blame it all on Freeps. Division on a topic is not always bad. Fear that people may find out something that would make them reject a candidate should not be a consideration. If they would reject a candidate based on one issue, that is their perogative. You can't control that.

We are living in a time of information explosion, and yet people have a problem getting any real information or opinion they can count on very often. That's why they are here, since people don't talk much about these things in their busy organizational consumerist lives. Reading or discussing controversial topics here at DU does not mean people will suddenly jump off a cliff like lemmings, having been "divided" by the clever tactics of the Reichwing. For the most part I give people here more credibility than that.

My area of interest is mass (or social) psychology. So IMO topics like this are important to discuss and I think it is valuable that you brought it up. I just think this is an unfounded fear--especially now that the Hindenberg has exploded--ie. this free-floating anxiety that somehow the Reichwing can divide and conquer "us" (whoever & whereever we are). Their tactics have been exposed. Nobody knows what to believe anymore. The mouthpieces just can't sell their nasty soundbites anymore. The American public (thank god) seems to have developed a bit more immunity. We are a country desperately seeking authenticity now.

We liberals (or whatever you want to call our affinity group) have power. We have a LOT of power. Once we get rid of all these fears --these are really the fears of a downtrodden constituency--maybe "we" can begin to use it. You have to work to let go of fear once it is ingrained.

:) peace and all that (not trying to give you a big argument--thanks for giving me the opportunity to
say something about this).

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

13. You know what? Forget it.

Nothing is going to stop this.

[Adelante]

15. Maybe stopping the flood of propaganda threads

Just a suggestion.

[1932]

17. I don't think that's going to stop Right Wing Bloggers from spreading their propaganda.

[Adelante]

24. Nothing will stop that, 1932

We've been through 2000. We've been through 2004. We went through the Clinton years. Nothing is going to stop the right wing from doing what they do. Here on DU, however, antagonizing people with sincere beliefs on policy issues and insulting their intelligence with this type of thread will go nowhere. All it does is trigger more response. This was a hot story over the weekend. The only thing keeping it alive right here and now is threads like this one.

[1932]

26. A good argument and a good idea can be very powerful.

And it's a bad idea to embrace RW BS spin.

[kikiek]

18. You're right. It was obvious from the start too. Unfortunately many seemed to not mind. I hope

this causes people to pause and realize they're also puppets when they propagate the stories.

[zulchzulu]

19. I didn't take the bait

People who are making an issue of Edwards' house even before it is finished are either desperate or are a detriment to the green movement by making asses out of themselves like PETA protesters wearing leather jackets...

[marions ghost]

22. hee haw

another desperate Dem ass reporting for duty

:dem: :kick:

[The Count]

20. So there isn't an estate bigger the Central Park then? Okey Dokey.

Maybe now people may pay attention to Edwards new war

The Lobby wants war with Iran

"US presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, John Edwards and John McCain,
along with Newt Gingrich, were in Israel, seemingly competing to see
who can be most strident in defense of the Jewish state during personal
or video appearances at the conference here, just north of Tel Aviv.

"The four politicians called for ways to prevent Iran's government from
acquiring nuclear weapons. While stressing the strong US-Israel ties,
the presidential hopefuls all agreed that the US has to ratchet up
sanctions on Iran and leave the possibility of a military attack ‘on
the table'."

Romney may have won the hyperbole contest, but the big surprise was
Edwards, who came in second with his declaration that preventing Iran
from getting nukes is "is the greatest challenge of our generation." On
the same day he ran an ad in Roll Call calling on Congress to oppose
the "surge" in Iraq, he was telling the Herzliya conference that "All
options are on the table to ensure that Iran will never get a nuclear
weapon."

"At a time when most Democrats in the United States are calling for
less military involvement abroad," notes the Jersusalem Post, "Edwards,
of South Carolina, told the Seventh Annual Herzliya Conference on
Monday that his country must do everything that it can to stop Iran
from possessing nuclear weapons."

When John Edwards, who poses as a peace candidate, declares that we
will go to war with Iran before we'll let them break Israel's nuclear
monopoly in the Middle East, that should tell us something about how
the power of the Lobby has distorted our foreign policy and deformed
the American political process. In paying homage to Herzliya, Edwards
and his fellow candidates are betraying and subverting American
interests.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10399

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. They've had many decades to figure out how to get liberals to turn

against each other, as well as how to get Democrats to turn on each other.

I'll say that sometimes it's a good idea to criticize one another, but temper how far you'll go. Make your point, and end with humor. It will piss the right-wingers off.

[Forrest Greene]

25. Must Caesar's Wife

...be above suspicion?