Children of the Sun: Star Nation

Please take a moment to read and witness this message:

http://starnationpeople.blogspot.com/2008/10/there-is-prophecy.html

Blue Wave Washes Over US

Democrats Sweep the House and Take Away Majority in Senate...with a possible majority of 51

...all I know is I liked the Libertarian candidate (Guthrie)...

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is reporting the following:

Montana Vote Situation: Jon Tester leads Conrad Burns by approximately 1,700 votes (as of 11am EDT) and counting. In Silver Bow County (Butte), a Democratic stronghold, votes are still being counted but Tester is winning there with 66% of the vote. We expect to gain the majority of these uncounted votes and to add to Tester's margin.

Montana Process: When the counting phase is completed, a canvass will verify the vote tallies. That process could take as long as 48 hours, and must begin within three days and end within seven. Unless the canvass shows the margin to be within ¼ of 1%, there is no recount. As the loser, Burns would have to request the recount. When the votes are all counted, we expect to be outside that recount margin.

Virginia Vote Situation: Jim Webb is up by approximately 8,000 votes and once the provisional ballots are counted, we expect Webb's margin to increase. (Please note that VA absentees were included in the tallies from last night.)

Virginia Process: A canvass is underway to verify the results and we expect that process to finish within a day or so. To be in recount, the margin needs to be less than 1% and Allen (as the loser) would have to request it. Because of Virginia voting laws, the margin would have to be much tighter than it currently is to see any change in the outcome. Given the current margins, that is highly, highly unlikely.

Voter Supression, Dirty Politics, or Just Plain Buying Opinion Fair and Square?

..You decide..and please leave your opinion and reasoning below...

Is it wrong to play psychological warfare with the Voting Process? We have already seen campaigns designed to keep legal hispanic immigrants from voting in California...

...is this the same thing? is smear just good tactics, or dirty politics?



In a Tense Election Year, Push Polls Flourish

In increasingly tight races around the country, voters are receiving telephone "push poll" calls, a classic dirty trick designed to suppress turnout on election day. One calling firm in particular, with White House ties and an impressive ability to fire off millions of automated calls per day, is benefiting from the strategy.

Gabriel Joseph III, president of the robo calling company FreeEats.com, may be the king of the push poll, in which real-sounding questions with ludicrous premises are asked to plant negative ideas in voters' minds. His company, which is better known under its business alias ccAdvertising, has impressive Republican ties: According to a recent piece in Mother Jones, the group has, on at least one occasion, drawn on its White House ties to get business. And its founder, Donald Hodel, is a veteran of the Reagan administration and a former president of Focus on the Family.

Full Article

eVoting

Your Votes Are Completely Safe

Proponents of electronic voting have found themselves again on the defensive following the unauthorized release of software for voting machines used by the State of Maryland and manufactured by Diebold Election Systems.

and in a related article there are eVoting machines that are cutting off the name of the candidate on the verification page for some voters.

The Science of Fear

...so I ran across the free article today from the WSJ about the psychology of fear and how its influence over people, particularly when it comes to voting...

Snippit...

A growing number of studies offer clues as to how terrorism and other deadly events affect people's voting decisions. The latest research shows that because such violent political acts are brutal reminders of death, they make conservatives, but not liberals, more hostile toward those perceived as different, and more supportive of extreme military policies, according to a study in April in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

For 20 years, researchers have been exploring how people manage the fear engendered by intimations of mortality. Reminded of the inevitability of their own death (which happens to a lesser degree by merely walking past a funeral parlor), people try to quench or at least manage the resulting "existential terror" in several ways. They become more certain of their worldview or faith. They conform more closely to the norms of their society. They show greater reverence for symbols of their society, such as flags and crucifixes.

All of these make people feel more secure and, crucially, a part of something larger -- something that will outlive them.

Building up your own worldview requires disparaging (even unconsciously) that of others. If beliefs that contradict yours have any worth, then by definition they call into question the absolute validity of your own. The result is stronger feelings of hostility toward those with different values and beliefs.

This "worldview defense," says psychology researcher Sheldon Solomon of Skidmore College, "reduces the terror that reminders of your own death bring." These results have been replicated in some 300 lab experiments, including in cultures with very different ideas about an afterlife.

Which brings us back to the effect on voters of a terrorist attack and its brutal reminders of mortality. Although some voters would feel betrayed by incumbents who failed to protect them, researchers say, these days that trend would more likely be swamped by a surge toward candidates perceived as hawks on national security.

Interesting no? Psychology, particularly behavioral theories and practices, can be seen in use all over in media, business, and politics. This kind of psychology and tactics are aimed directly at the part of humans that is quite animal because these are such ingrained and inherint hardwired parts of being animal. It actually requires higher consciousness to overcome these simple and ingrained triggers, however it takes conscious awareness of what is happening to do so. Otherwise, by definition, it is unconsciously working on us.

Surely we overcome such impulses daily, and also we follow them daily as well. But to sway large portions of the population what does it really take? appeal, push, trigger the baser instincts that are part of our hard-wired heritage. In other words, treat people like sheep.

The results...you can begin to measure the actual conscious awareness of the population. Aint that sad. Okay, maybe that is simplification. But that is in general how I see it.

The article is saying, apply fear of death and everyone sticks to their guns more, their point of view more. That is interesting. But I think it would take more research to explain why fear of death would drive liberally leaning folks to be more liberal? for me, the effectiveness of psychological manipulation rests within the realm of self-awareness and level of consciousness within the individual and society.