OT: as the political season rolls on ...

I’ve mentioned it before here, that this is a presidential election year in the US, and I expect it to be a nasty one, at best. We in the states largely fall into one of two major parties, with some of us proclaiming independence or preference for other parties in the noise. The media in this country is biased pretty hard in one direction with one solitary exception. Every now and then they admit it (as the NY Times did a few days ago). But you can see it, in operation, when one of the two major presidential candidates gives a major speech, he is completely ignored by the media, while the other is fawned upon. Its disgusting. And its why lots of papers and news outfits in the UK get lots of US based readers. We know our media sucks badly, and we can’t generally believe that the UK media is completely in the tank for one or the other candidate, they are happy to blast both with glee. But we also have these “SuperPACs” which are basically issue marketing organizations, with effectively unlimited funds. Most of the time they loosely align with a campaign. Legally they cannot coordinate with the campaign. But they can share a common goal. And most of the SuperPAC info and commercials are worthy of being tuned out as soon as you hear them starting. But I happened upon one today (its front and center on DrudgeReport right now), that does nothing more than wrap whats happening in the country with their interpretive language about it. That is, they actually aren’t lying about what is happening, though they are putting their spin on it. And whats frightening is that they aren’t spinning hard. There is a very … “Atlas Shrugged” quality to what it is they are saying. If you haven’t read the book (which is anathema for one particular side of the political spectrum here), there is an almost scary parallel between what Rand wrote, and what is happening. Here’s the video:

If you haven’t read the book, the movie isn’t too bad (they skip over much of what happened, and they only get about 1/3 of the way into the book). I don’t know the folks who backed this video, but it seems they struck a nerve. Maybe my view that this is going to be nasty is too limited … maybe its going to be entertaining and informative as well. But the political season is in high gear here in the US. And that means that rhetoric and fur is flying, and we haven’t even hit the real starting line yet. Go figure.