Quote from: jdrakehEvery post that you make in this vein shoots a giant hole in any credibility you may trying to establish. I know a great many people who are not communists, simply realistic (and therefore disallusioned) Americans who don't want to vote for any of the established candidates specifically because none of them have a clearly defined platform past "Beat the other party!" (which apparently doesn't seem like a goal worthy of support). Also, I'm not certain that Obama openly admitting to smoking crack is what most people would describe as "aesthetically pleasing" in terms of running an untarnished campaign.

You're looking only at a superficial level here. I'm talking about how no candidate could stand a chance of winning the presidential election without TV commercials, a relatively polished public presentation, a suitable narrative, engineered mass spectacles to drum up support, etc. It's theatre masquerading as politics. For example, whether Obama smoked crack or not is irrelevant to what he is going to do in office.

Edit: Here, for example, is a well-respected American political web magazine posting about a YouTube contest. It very clearly shows how aesthetic considerations triumph over politics:

http://www.slate.com/id/2171005

Quote from: jdrakehIs it just me, or does her head look dispropotionate when compared to the rest of her body?

I've had the (needs a word that is neither supportive nor dismissive) of meeting her. She's like, five feet tall. Most people that size look like their heads are too big.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineYou're looking only at a superficial level here. I'm talking about how no candidate could stand a chance of winning the presidential election without TV commercials, a relatively polished public presentation, a suitable narrative, engineered mass spectacles to drum up support, etc. It's theatre masquerading as politics. For example, whether Obama smoked crack or not is irrelevant to what he is going to do in office.

Good lord man, politics has been about popularity, perception, and strange bedfellows since Plato was a Greek. The only thing new is the technology and how it is applied.

Quote from: jeff37923Good lord man, politics has been about popularity, perception, and strange bedfellows since Plato was a Greek. The only thing new is the technology and how it is applied.

That's being ahistorical, at best.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThat's being ahistorical, at best.

 NO - he's being historically accurate.

 Even the Romans whined about popularity contests and politics.


- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarNO - he's being historically accurate.

 Even the Romans whined about popularity contests and politics.


- Ed C.

The means, the situations, the concerns, and the discourses were very different, and can only be made to seem analogous or identical only by slapping vacuous labels or expressions like "they were concerned with popularity" that say nothing concrete about either us or them.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThe means, the situations, the concerns, and the discourses were very different, and can only be made to seem analogous or identical only by slapping vacuous labels or expressions like "they were concerned with popularity" that say nothing concrete about either us or them.

Would you mind fully sharing the thought process that brought you to this conclusion?

It is the sheer mass of differences that does it. I'll list only a few:

1) American politicians do not raise and equip private armies, then engage in wars of conquest and bring the slaves home for sale as a way of boosting their popularity. Roman politicians did not make television commercials nor consult opinion polls.

2) Americans do not go to honour their patrons each morning, forming into a line where priority is established by reference to social class, with slaves and metics at the rear and plebs behind patricians. There are no slaves, metics, plebs and patricians, and the concerns of these groups do not match up with any modern groups. Frex, what is Barack Obama's opinion of how to improve grain imports through the Ostia?

3) How many American politicians need to fear angry mobs chasing them into the capitol or nearby church and then flinging roof tiles at them until they are stoned dead? How many American politicians need fear being torn to pieces by an angry mob? How many of them need to fear being assassinated by their fellow politicians (not just some lone nutter)? Conversely, how many Roman politicians had to worry about campaign financing laws, or selecting an effective campaign manager? How many Roman politicians had party discipline enforced on them?

There's more yet. It should be no surprise to us that two periods in time separated by almost two thousand years (my examples are almost all from the Republic, not the Empire, for the sake of fairness) should be completely different from one another. Once again, if we go beyond the most vacuous general statements and actually try to say something meaningful and concrete about the two situations, we find analogies much more difficult, and identity impossible to establish.

Edit: Another classic: How many American politicians have to shape their policies to account for the fact that the entire population will walk away if they don't get it right? The Romans did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secessio

Ah, yes.  The lone nutter.  We never have political assassinations in this country.  Just lone nutters.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine1) American politicians do not raise and equip private armies, then engage in wars of conquest and bring the slaves home for sale as a way of boosting their popularity. Roman politicians did not make television commercials nor consult opinion polls.

Although both American and Roman politicians hired people to promote themselves in the media of the day - poets and playwrites in Rome and Bloggers and Internet Sites in America.

Quote from: pseudoephedrine2) Americans do not go to honour their patrons each morning, forming into a line where priority is established by reference to social class, with slaves and metics at the rear and plebs behind patricians. There are no slaves, metics, plebs and patricians, and the concerns of these groups do not match up with any modern groups. Frex, what is Barack Obama's opinion of how to improve grain imports through the Ostia?

However, many democratic presidential hopefuls in the US are attending a convention sponsored by the Daily Kos which also funds and provides media support for the democratic party. I'm pretty sure that the attendees will be formed up based upon social class during the event because we wouldn't want The Common Man to be upstaging any of the potential candidates.

EDIT: Almost forgot, there was that little back-stabbing series of comments between Edwards and Clinton about getting rid of the "lesser candidates" in their own party a couple of weeks ago. Tell me that isn't a form of class warfare.

Quote from: pseudoephedrine3) How many American politicians need to fear angry mobs chasing them into the capitol or nearby church and then flinging roof tiles at them until they are stoned dead? How many American politicians need fear being torn to pieces by an angry mob? How many of them need to fear being assassinated by their fellow politicians (not just some lone nutter)? Conversely, how many Roman politicians had to worry about campaign financing laws, or selecting an effective campaign manager? How many Roman politicians had party discipline enforced on them?

Interestingly enough, many of the democratic party are afraid of the backlash that would entail from ignoring the wishes of the far-left democratic supporters like Move-On.org. Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi have already run afoul of these past patrons.

Politicians have in the past and still do today worry about their popularity and public perception because in an elected democracy, that is what threatens their chances of re-election and thus their power. Issues such as defense, the economy, moral standards, and laws have always been argued over and always shall. Only the technology changes.

In all those examples, you're eliding everything concrete and determinate about them that can tell us anything interesting or useful or insightful, in order to utter vague abstractions that suppress the very things they claim to describe.

How is Virgil's Aenead like a Barack Obama commercial? What similarity in either content or form can you point to in order to establish an invariant statement like the ones you're trying to argue for?

Quote from: PseudoephedrineIn all those examples, you're eliding everything concrete and determinate about them that can tell us anything interesting or useful or insightful, in order to utter vague abstractions that suppress the very things they claim to describe.

That was probably the most verbose way I've ever read of someone putting their hands over their ears and going, "Lalalalalalalala!! I'm not hearing what you are saying!!" :raise:

That's not what I'm doing.

Once again, show me some sort of similarity or identity rather than just asserting that there is one and avoiding details about how. Here, I'll even make it easy for you:

Gaius Julius Caesar wrote the Gallic Wars about how he conducted his war in Gaul. Winston Churchill wrote "The Second World War" about how he conducted World War 2. What similarities are there between how the two men used the circulation of these texts to their advantage?

Saying "Hillary said Dennis Kucinich is distracting from the real candidates. That's similar to the Gracchi being assassinated," is just fucking nonsense. But that's what you just said (perhaps not knowingly) when you claimed that Clinton engaged in "class warfare" just like the Romans did.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThat's not what I'm doing.

Sure it ain't.

 Obviously when you start talking about specifics the situations are different because they happened at different times in different nations, but when you look at history you can find that there are a repetition of situations and general circumstances that become common to all civilizations because they are composed of human beings. You are insisting on picking out specific differences instead of seeing the commonalities which I am bringing up because it would cause you to admit that maybe the point I have been trying to make - that politics has always been about popularity, perception, and strange bedfellows - is actually valid.

Quote from: jeff37923Sure it ain't.

 .......that politics has always been about popularity, perception, and strange bedfellows - is actually valid.

 Yeah - you posted that thought about a page and half ago and Pseudophedrine ignored or didn't agree with you then too. Just it took Pseudo several overly-wordy paragraphs to say that.

Jeff , you're making more sense than PseudoP is.

- Ed C.