0bama Campaign Chnages Story re Abortion

[AZXD]

I wonder what stopthesmearsDOTcom is gonna post about this subject

Spread the word .... That, if my count is correct, is LIE number 95

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by wombat13

I just hope that McCain is smart enough to use this against Obama. Polls indicate that even "pro-choicers" are appalled by his vote once they have heard the facts.

If McCain is too nice, maybe one of those evil 527s will do the job.

It's also possible that the majority of people who support choice in this country might object to McCain's rigidity.

Watching Barack Obama and John McCain handle pastor Rick Warren's questions about abortion, you could see the whole presidential race in miniature taking shape before our eyes. The clear answer beats the clever one any time ... unless you worry about the chaos that clarity can bring.

Before a friendly but still skeptical Evangelical crowd at Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., on Saturday night, McCain won a roar of approval when Warren asked him at what point a human being gets human rights: "At the moment of conception," McCain replied. The answer was clear, unequivocal and a great relief to restless Republicans who had endured a week of indigestion on the issue. Murmurs that McCain was flirting with a pro-choice running mate like former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman had Rush Limbaugh and his army in full stampede. "The fur is going to fly on this one," Limbaugh warned about the prospect of McCain taking social conservatives for granted.

McCain's straightforward answer, along with his assertion that he would not have nominated any of the Supreme Court's four liberal judges (notwithstanding that he voted to confirm all but John Paul Stevens, who was named before McCain was in the Senate), had social conservatives breathing sighs of relief. "I will be a pro-life president, and this presidency will have pro-life policies," McCain said to cheers from the audience. "O.K.," Warren said, laughing. "We don't have to go longer on that one."

Meanwhile, Obama offered an artful dodge to the question of when a human deserves rights. "Whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade," he said. Like many of his responses that night, it was a long, careful, nuanced plowing of middle ground. He did not suggest that the only rights that matter are a woman's over her body. He also affirmed his moral dimensions of the issue: he noted his willingness to limit late-term abortions, provided there is an exception if a woman's health is at risk; and he talked about finding the resources to help women who choose to keep their baby, and about trying to reduce the need for abortions in the first place. It reflected the careful effort Obama has made to reach out to the ambivalent middle, which is reflected in a Democratic Party platform that unequivocally defends the right to legal abortion but also calls for better access to contraception and comprehensive sex education. This is classic "common ground" language designed to break with past orthodoxy and reach out to independents who don't much like abortion but who don't want doctors and patients being carted off to jail for performing or having them.

Which is why McCain's much cleaner answer may come back to haunt him. It's not just that a majority of Americans favor at least limited access to legal abortion. (I've seen polls suggesting that a substantial minority of Americans thinks McCain himself is pro-choice, which is a natural mistake given his maverick image. Will independents like him less when they learn more?) McCain's construction that life begins "at the moment of conception" opens a whole new set of questions. There is a world of mystery in what transpires between the moment when egg meets sperm and the point of implantation, when that fertilized egg nestles into the uterus and begins to grow.

McCain's position has the great virtue of simplicity: a unique set of chromosomes, having been assembled, has the potential to grow into a unique human being, assuming circumstances permit. As many as half of fertilized eggs naturally miscarry, usually before the prospective mother even knows she was pregnant. But there is a roiling debate over what factors might also affect implantation, with implications for everything from fertility treatment and contraception to criminal law and human rights. I wonder if McCain knows how deeply into troubled waters he has waded.

Consider the obvious implications if rights attain the moment the egg and sperm meet: all kinds of embryo research become questionable, starting with the stem-cell research McCain says he favors. Couples who undergo in vitro fertilization and then choose not to implant all the embryos are surely violating the rights of those that are discarded or frozen. Some forms of contraception, such as IUDs and the morning-after pill, would presumably be illegal if they affect the ability of an egg to implant. Abortion opponents contend that the birth control pill itself, while designed to prevent ovulation so no egg is fertilized in the first place, may also have the effect of blocking implantation of any egg that sneaks through. Suddenly, a whole range of reproductive choices comes into question.

The eternal battle over when life, and rights, begin has been playing out this summer on the blog of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, who sought comments on a proposed regulation to refuse federal funds to any hospital or clinic that didn't respect the "conscience" of its workers. This refers to doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others who refuse to perform abortions or prescribe drugs like Plan B, which they view as equivalent to abortion. By defining abortion so broadly, as "any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation," the regulation set off a firestorm from reproductive rights groups and members of Congress. Slate's William Saletan brilliantly toured the implications in a "letter" to Leavitt, noting that by the same logic, the government should be outlawing breast-feeding (which by affecting a woman's hormones interferes with ovulation and, in theory, implantation), not to mention drinking coffee (can increase the chance of miscarriage), riding horseback (same) or exercising in general.

Four years ago, President George W. Bush was able largely to avoid trudging through this treacherous ground because he had the confidence of his base (this despite a grandfather who served as a Planned Parenthood treasurer and a wife who told Katie Couric she didn't think Roe should be overturned). He talked about promoting a "culture of life" but didn't get down in the weeds about when exactly that life started. McCain enjoys no such benefit of the doubt, and so he had to offer blunt reassurance. But his construction of human rights beginning "at the moment of conception," while theoretically clean, is a practical mess. It throws the entire weight of argument onto one side of the scale; a woman, whose womb and RNA are essential to the development of a fertilized egg, would be obliged to do nothing that could even inadvertently interfere with the progression from zygote to newborn. This would have, among other effects, such immense impact on access to contraception that it would all but guarantee an increase in unwanted pregnancies — and the abortions that McCain opposes. I suppose this counts as definitive leadership; I just wonder if McCain's definition takes him in the direction he really wants to go.

McCain and Obama on Abortion - TIME

[AZXD]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

It's also possible that the majority of people who support choice in this country might object to McCain's rigidity.

McCain and Obama on Abortion - TIME

Sure it is ... Anyone can object to McCain's rigidity.

Wanna put the topic of abortion to a vote ???

File the paperwork to get it on a ballot .... I'll pull a lever, punch a card, fill a bubble .... Heck, I'll even dip my finger into an inkwell so those doing the count will know I didn't cheat.

YouTube - McCain and Obama on Abortion
The man sidestepped big time.

[wombat13]

Originally Posted by AZXD

Sure it is ... Anyone can object to McCain's rigidity.

Wanna put the topic of abortion to a vote ???

File the paperwork to get it on a ballot .... I'll pull a lever, punch a card, fill a bubble .... Heck, I'll even dip my finger into an inkwell so those doing the count will know I didn't cheat.

YouTube - McCain and Obama on Abortion
The man sidestepped big time.

Of course, that was the whole point of Roe v. Wade - circumventing the vote, wasn't it?

[wombat13]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

It's also possible that the majority of people who support choice in this country might object to McCain's rigidity.





McCain and Obama on Abortion - TIME

You should scroll through this compendium of national polls on abortion.

Abortion

Yes, a majority of people claim that they are "pro-choice" when polled, however, a majority of people also think that abortion should either be allowed only in the cases of rape, incest, and threat to mother's life or should be always illegal. That is actually the "pro-life" position. You will also notice that a majority of people believe that abortion is morally wrong. That doesn't sound like NARAL's talking points to me.

[Brickboy240]

And once again...we get bogged down during election time on.....no not gay rights....but....abortion!

Sorry, but there are many other very pressing issues out there and we can't afford to get bogged down on abortion.

Doubt me? Well have you bought gasoine or food lately?

- brickboy240

[AZXD]

Originally Posted by wombat13

Of course, that was the whole point of Roe v. Wade - circumventing the vote, wasn't it?

The real threat to human life is not a gun

[Sirius1963]

Originally Posted by Brickboy240

And once again...we get bogged down during election time on.....no not gay rights....but....abortion!

Sorry, but there are many other very pressing issues out there and we can't afford to get bogged down on abortion.

Doubt me? Well have you bought gasoine or food lately?

- brickboy240

We don't care about the price of gas, or how much milk costs, it's about saving babies! Or having the choice to not save babies!

Don't forget about "undocumented residents" aka Illegals, crime, taxes. But those will all take care of themselves after the abortion thing is settled once and for all.

[AwPhuch]

Misdirection

Rules of political misdirection


Added August 11, 2006


Magician's rules of misdirection:
1. The spectator's eye will look where the magician looks.
2. Use a broad motion to cover another motion you wish to conceal.
3. Keep the audience occupied with patter and direct their attention....

Like a magician working his sleight-of-hand deceptions to deceive and misdirect the eye, political sleight-of-hand artists work their deceptions to deceive and misdirect a society's collective mind and attention. The mass media provide the stage on which the theatre of deception unfolds and on which the audience's rapt attention remains focused. It's large scale spectacle, full of drama and emotion, fear and prejudice, ideological politics and dubious aims, but ultimately hollow and bitter as these magicians are not working a benign entertainment but applying deceit and duplicity with devastating mendacity. It's worthwhile then to speculate about some of the procedures of 'legerdemain' (sleight-of-hand) adhered to by the political magicians of our time - what set of practices allow them success in managing their audience while they unswervingly pursue their strategic goals.

Note: It's important to realize that political performance is primarily for the home audience - it's not essential for the other side (the enemy) to buy into the viewpoints being peddled - but it is important to sell these at home in order to obtain acquiescence or at least limit domestic resistance to a particular policy or course of action. (The other side (the enemy) will be handled through other, more 'vigorous' means.) The homefront is key as it's through domestic movements that resistance to a particular policy or action might emerge. So, limiting the effectiveness of that resistance is crucial.


Here then, structured loosely along the lines of a magician's guide to audience misdirection are the rules of political misdirection:
Rules of political misdirection and deception:

1. The people's minds will follow the media's focus and the media will follow the official focus. Whatever crisis the official spotlight illuminates is where the media will focus. Wherever the media looks – the people look. Guide the media's attention and the people's attention will follow. So direct their minds towards issues of your choice and away from your key moves and strategies - from the things you need to get away with doing.

2. Hide one movement with another.
Use a large, dramatic movement to draw their attention. Use it to cover other movements on which there is too much heat or which are not executed well due to your lack of skill and ability or due to difficulties encountered (but which you still desire to accomplish).

3. Keep them occupied with your interpretation of events.
When brutal deeds that need doing are underway keep the media occupied with your justifications - tell them over and over again that your actions are only a measured but necessary response for the protection and greater benefit of the people. Use rule number 1 (feed selected information to the media) to accomplish this. Repeat this claim incessantly and emphatically.

4. Make them afraid.
Do something (anything) to maintain in the population a general sense of fear or dread (of imminent danger from enemies). When they are fearful - you can do your thing. When they become afraid, their critical faculties and overall awareness is low. Even if they are doubtful about your claims, they will acquiesce to most of what you do simply because they can't be completely certain that what you say isn't true.


5. Use broad, sweeping generalizations in your declarations.
Create trepidation in your opponents, enemies, and everyone else by using vague but ominous descriptions when profiling your enemy and their aims. People will duck and keep their political heads low to avoid fitting the profile or even associating with those who might fit the hazy descriptions you provide. When they're busy trying not to be noticed they'll stay away from words, actions, demonstrations and open opposition to your goals.


6. Conceal the crucial information.
Secrecy is good. The art of ruling requires maintenance of secrecy. Restrict access to information for security purposes - tell people this is for their own protection - now you can make whatever claims you like since it is always possible that you have information unknown to others and therefore your opponents cannot determine with certainty whether your actions are based on lies or whether they are based on "classified information" only available to you. By the time it is discovered whether they are based on falsehood or fact, it's too late - you would have accomplished your deception and the discovered information is largely irrelevant to the situation now at hand.

7. Spin a good story.
It doesn't have to be the truth, so long as it's plausible and captures their attention. Feel free to mix lies with truth - it really doesn't matter if you're caught. If they point to the lies, you point to the true parts - blame the lies on faulty intel. Use the true parts to justify your actions.


8. Keep the momentum going no matter what.
If they discover a part of your deception, deny their explanations and keep going on with what you're doing. They're unlikely to uncover all your trickery for quite some time, and the momentum of events will act as misdirection from what's already been exposed.


9. Restrict their freedom.
First take care of steps 4 and 5. Then tighten the screws on political and legal rights - institute monitoring and surveillance on a widespread scale - grant your government special powers to circumvent the existing legal and justice systems. Tell people this is for their own safety and protection. After all what do they know - you have all the information.


10. Always keep a few aces up your sleeve.
Hold them back for when the show goes wrong and the audience grows restless. Produce an ace as and when necessary (but make sure your timing is good) - the "foiled terror-plot" ace is always good for regaining political ground, pushing back the opposition, and distracting from weak areas in your performance. Always make a big show of the ace production - milk it for all you can. This will allow you to move forward on the other points and may make it possible to salvage a show that is going wrong.


11. Stay one step ahead of the media.
This one's easy, since you have all the intel and information and they have nothing except what you tell them. And they're mostly inefficient at actually doing any real investigating - it's much easier for them just to attend briefings and report what you tell them and then call in the "experts" to speculate on what it all means.


Like the audience at a magic show, many of us willingly suspend our disbelief and accept the illusions (even the poorly executed ones) - and if we're somewhat skeptical of the performance it's still hard to look away from such vigorously audacious spectacle. Perhaps it is only through letting ourselves be deceived, through taking sides and falling into line in order to soothe our fears, that our consciences can accept the actions carried out in our society's name.


Perhaps, as a society, we have lost (or thrown away, or drawn a heavy curtain over) the ability to see and judge things according to a realm of supernal values and ethics (which requires a compassionate connection to the wider world and a more elevated viewpoint). Instead the realm of desire and will allied with technical, instrumental, manipulative ability has come to supersede any impetus among the powerful to move and interact with the world in accordance with humane values and non-exploitative means. The faint shadow of understanding of ethics that remains has itself become a thing to be manipulated - useful for purposes of propaganda or as a mental instrument to be used to gain the acquiescence of people for the support of certain goals - goals which are ideological, power based goals, which, if they carry any value, carry a negative one - a negativity that arises not only from the relentless pursuit of acquisitive ends but from the heartless and mechanistic use of degraded, amoral means to achieve the end.

Rules of political misdirection

[Reeek]

He is such an ass! Damned flip flopper!