From: skywalker@DINO.QCI.BIOCH.BCM.TMC.EDU (Timothy B. Reynolds)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: The media will choose the next president
Date: 31 Aug 1992 20:41:39 GMT
Followup-To: alt.politics.bush
Organization: X-Ray Crystallography / Howard Hughes Medical Institute

In article <1992Aug31.183835.29002@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> mulac@daystrom.lerc.nasa.gov (Richard Mulac) writes:
>
 
I have to take this one.......


 >    The number one factor in determining who will be the next president of
 >the United States is the impression the media gives us of the state of the
 >country.  Certain economic factors are down, but all things considered most
 >people in the US are living under the best possible conditions. 

Excuse me but just what country do you live in ? 10+ % of the Country is on 
food stamps more than that on welfare. 71,000 people a week file NEW unem
ployment claims. All these are symptoms of a problem that needs to be 
fixed, should we wait until the problems are unsolvable ?


 The media,
 >though, has the power to make people believe that even if you yourself
 >are doing well, the rest of the country is suffering. 
 
You are part of the problem, Im okay right ? People need to start saying 
how is my neighbor ? how is the Country, not how am I. Let me guess 
a Reagan supporter.

 > If you watched
 >Nightline after Bush's acceptance speech, they set up remotes with
 >different random groups throughout the country to gather their responses.
 >One group consisted of firemen from Houston, another group consisted of
 >former Perot supporters on the east coast, etc..  They had these same groups
 >on after the Democratic convention and now wanted to find out who they would
 >vote for.
 >    Though ABC probably expected the responses to follow the current polls,
 >75% said they would vote for Bush with the remaining 25% saying they would
 >wait until November to make a decision.  When asked to explain their
 >choice, most responded that even though they HEARD things were bad out
 >there, their families were doing ok.  They said inflation was staying down
 >and with interest rates low people were now able to afford to buy their own
 >homes.  These people had been TOLD that the economic conditions were
 >terrible throughout the country, but when asked to cite personal experience
 >they did not know anyone who was unemployed.

What crap, Im in Houston. I don't think you can hardly live here and 
not know someone that hasn't lost their job. Sure intrest rates are low,
then tell me why housing starts just tumbled. I'll tell you why, when people
dont have jobs they don't buy houses.  


 >    This country is simply reaping the fruits of cultural trends which
 >really took hold in the sixties.  I went through a public school system in
 >a blue collar, middle class suburb in the sixties and seventies.  Only
 >about 15% of my graduating class took school seriously, with plans to go on
 >to college.  Over half my graduating class (which didn't deserve to
 >graduate) came from blue collar union groomed families which had fathers
 >getting high pay for low skill jobs.  They went through school with their
 >'D' averages thinking that the unions would always be there to provide big
 >bucks jobs for illiterates.  Their parents never pushed them to get an
 >education.  Now with those jobs gone they are crying the blues and trying
 >to pin the blame on someone else.  These people were NOT poor and did NOT
 >come from broken homes - they simply wanted $$$ and did not want to work
 >hard to reach that goal.

This may be true I grew up in a non union area.
I always went to public schools. The problem now is the schools have some 
major problems but the biggest problem is, that when I was young my parents
educated me before school started, we don't have dumb schools we have dumb
students. The best teacher in the world can't teach a fence post. 


 >    This country already provides some of the best educational
 >opportunities in the world (ask all the foreign students who come here to
 >study) - our people just don't take advantage of it.  Every time I here
 >someone bitching because there is not enough student aid or loans available
 >I recall all the people I met as an undergraduate whose primary purpose in
 >going to college was to avoid going to work and keep the party from high
 >school going.  For every person I knew that graduated, I knew five who went
 >out drinking seven nights a week and were booted out by junior year.  It
 >makes me ill to think of all the aid and loan money that is wasted by those
 >idiots.  I've met a lot of people from around the world and I wish they
 >could transplant the high regard that other countries have for education.

True to a point, we have great upper education, pre-school - 12th grade sucks.
We demand nothing from students. I went six years ago and got my GED. I
had learned enough in the sixth grade to pass this test. Sure our system
fine,... right


 >    In regard to my original point, most people think that 5% unemployment
 >is very good and the people who are left are those who are basically
 >'unemployable'.  With national unemployment running at I believe 8%, I
 >would like to know how the other 90+% would even notice this difference in
 >their daily lives.  The only way they 'notice' it is when it's rammed down
 >their throats by the media in a gloom and doom fashion.  There are people
 >who need help out there.  A lot of them are in trouble because they went
 >down the wrong path early in life.  The rest of the country can't be
 >expected to carry them the rest of their lives.  They might have to go the
 >traditional route which a lot of immigrant families take when they get to
 >this country working 80 hours a week at McDonalds, scraping money together
 >for an education for the next generation.

Screw you, My mother after working 26 years in a bank and paying her fair 
share of taxes has lost her retirement and just went on foodstamps, she's 
66 years old. Let your mother go flip burgers at 66, my mom played by the 
rules and got the shaft.  

 >    Bush has a LOT of faults, but Clinton's economic plan puts a big
 >emphasis on giving jobs to people to rebuild our infrastructure (i.e.
 >shoveling tar on roads).  This will not produce workers with needed skills
 >and will only increase the deficit.  Both parties claim to support 'family 
 >values', but to me that's going to have to mean the current unskilled,
 >uneducated generation sacrificing their lifestyle goals so that the next
 >generation can get ahead.  Just my $.03 .
 
Do you have a clue how much a Texas Highway worker makes a year, it's not
tossing tar or asphalt. Let me get this straight, putting people to
work increases the deficit, because they get off entitlement programs
and pay taxes. 

Like you said it's the "media"
Ya, right

tim

CLINTON/GORE