HILLARY, THE TONKIN GULF AND 1984

OK, those folks who run TypePad and YouTube haven't found a way to add this blog host to automatic video posting so I'm hooking a link in right here  so you can watch this.  I can't decide what I think - it's funny and clever and a perfect definition of a mashup but it's also mean and off-mark.  While many, including many feminists, have issues with Senator Clinton - this 1984/Apple Commercial version isn't representative of most of them.  Accusations of opportunism and flabbiness on the war are not the same as totalitarianism.  True, she voted for the Patriot Act, but so did all but two Senators - and one of them didn't vote at all! 

Now, I remind myself - we still remember who voted against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska) and that was in 1964 so maybe this vote will last too.  Anyway, I don't know where I'll land politically this year - I'm really just thinking about the power of the kinds of media manipulation (in the technical sense) that are possible today.  How will we ever help newer voters figure out how to determine the truth?  Are they so much more evolved than we are in a media sense that we needn't worry, or is the dismal lack of critical thinking work in current No Child Left Behind education going to affect how people think in the voting booth as well as our educational standing in the world?

Thoughts?

Comments

[Liza]

Something about the meanness of the mashup seems personal, to me. If we ever do find out who did it, I think they're going to turn out to be one of the people who just hate Senator Clinton and have for years.

Your point about who voted for the Patriot Act is well taken, though. That's one of the many reasons I love Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI).

I haven't fully figured out where I am in the Dem primary either. I loved Obama's NPR interview a couple of weeks ago, but then both he and Clinton gave such weak, mealy-mouthed answers in response to General Pace's homophobic remarks. I'm not a single issue voter, but it took the wind out of my sails.