Why don’t you go plumb the depths of your ass?
There once was a plumber from Lee
Who was plumbing his girl by the sea.
Said his girly, “Stop plumbing,
I can hear someone coming.”
Said the plumber, still plumbing, “Yes: me!”
Her name was Farrah Faucet, if I recall…
I’d tap that.
Really, you have experience as to how the ads are crafted? Can you give us some more details about how you have obtained this knowledge?
It’s classic dog-whistle technique. Write script attack on policy, but use visuals that appeal to the reptilian brain. Prison furloughs are bad policy BUT OH MY GOD LOOKEE! SCARY NIGGER! We’re spending too much and borrowing too much from China BUT OH MY GOD LOOKEE! YELLOW PERIL!
“Dog whistle” is one of the most overused terms on this MB. It’s generally a sure sign that the poster has no actual proof, but won’t admit it.
Oh? So, it doesn’t exist, then? Of course it does, you know it does. But by its very nature, it isn’t explicit, so any assessment of its prevalence cannot be really objective, it cannot be quantified. is this an example? Sorta kinda. Not as blatant as “food stamp president”, but its there.
I divine the intent of political ads by watching and listening to them carefully. You need special assistance, I guess? PowerPoint slides? A blueprint of the ad agency’s cube farm?
Let me know what you require to be brought up to speed, John, and I’ll do my best to oblige. It’s better for the discussion if we’re both on even ground.
Eh. Any actual evidence would do. If you’re going to insist that “of course” something is true, then you should bring something to the table other than speculation about the motives of the people who produced the ad.
If it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I don’t need to see the egg.
Thanks for the suggestion. It does rather stymie the analysis of political advertising and propaganda in general, though, if we need signed affidavits from the architects before we can draw any conclusions about intent. Setting such a high bar certainly works in their favor though, doesn’t it?
Gosh, Vinny, with all the non-partisan cred we’ve accumulated here, you’d think John would be quick to respect our objectivity. But no! Go figure, huh? Huh?
I said something unflattering about Keith Olbermann once. What more do they want?
Here’s the thing… We can all speculate, and we all do. But the fact is, some of what we speculate about is impossible to prove. Sucks, but them’s the breaks. And in those cases, we shouldn’t make emphatic statements about the veracity of our claims.
That’s all.
Wait, I think I see what’s going on here.
Are you perhaps thinking that if a claim of racism or bigotry can stick to this commercial, there might perhaps be some sort of legal punishment? Or that we’re perhaps hoping for legal punishment?
Surely you don’t object to this particular chain of events:
Viewer watches ad.
Viewer thinks ad is racist.
Viewer does not vote for Hoekstra.
Or this:
Viewer watches ad.
Viewer thinks ad is racist.
Viewer speaks out against ad, attempting to persuade others not to vote for Hoekstra.
Those are both natural consequences of free speech, are they not? As you say above, we can’t divine intent, and that works both ways. We can’t say if he meant to be racist, and we can’t say if he didn’t. So all we can do is divine meaning from the ad itself, and if a particular viewer derives a particular interpretation, how is that interpretation actually wrong? And if that viewer can convince others that it’s racist, how is that wrong?
Judging from this thread, this particular topic is not something that can be argued about objectively. It appears to be something you either see or don’t see, and the people who don’t see it simply don’t accept as compelling the evidence that the people who see it do.*
So, fine. Some people see the ad as bigoted, some don’t. If enough people believe it’s bigoted and refuse to vote for Hoekstra, again, how is that wrong? This is a political ad. It’s all about public opinion. Right and wrong simply don’t enter into it, except insofar as public opinion determines what works and what doesn’t.
In summary: This is not an issue where the veracity of a claim is determined objectively, but by consensus.
*It’s worth pointing out again that this isn’t a party line issue. There are at least some GOPers who find the ad bigoted.
I would never have gotten any racist undercurrent from the video. But since some people are really up in arms about it I decided to watch it a few more times and …still see nothing racist, only a poorly crafted message.
I find this funny, because you’re not the first person to dance around it like this.
It’s poorly crafted because it relies on a stereotype. How offended you are by the stereotype determines whether you’re willing to call it racist/bigoted, but the reason you call it poorly crafted and the reason we’re calling it bigoted are the same.
Still can’t understand the mind set that hires an American actress of Asian extraction who speaks entirely unaccented American and then shoehorn in some grammatical stupidity to make her seem…what? more authentic?
You karate training!