From: mulac@daystrom.lerc.nasa.gov (Richard Mulac)
Subject: Re: The media will choose the next president
Followup-To: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.elections
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center [Cleveland, Ohio]
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 04:33:59 GMT

In article <14449@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> skywalker@DINO.QCI.BIOCH.BCM.TMC.EDU (Timothy B. Reynolds) writes:
>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 ?
 
    I am not disputing your figures, but my point was that if you apply the
'are you better off now than you were 4 years ago' test, the MAJORITY of
people in this country would choose Bush again.  Only if they were
convinced that their standard of living would soon take a plunge would they
vote for Clinton.

> 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. 

   I agree totally.  People should elect those who do what's best for the
country, not those who bring home the pork.

> > 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.  

   Some places (like Texas) are doing worse than the national average, but
on the whole national unemployment is around 8%.  Besides, Texas has been
doing badly since the early eighties, yet they still elected Reagan and
Bush with a clear majority.

> >    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

   So I guess you support Bush's plan to allow parent's to choose which
school they would send their children to?  {:^)

> >    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.  

   Those who run businesses which try to break a pension contract they had
with their employees should be thrown in jail.  I've heard of a lot of
examples of this and that's why I am not going to count on getting a
company pension or social security.  Thank god we now have IRA's and 401k
plans.

> >    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. 

   A guy I knew from high school got a job filling chuckholes with tar for
the state of Ohio and was making more than $30,000 when I got out of
college.

>Like you said it's the "media"
>Ya, right
>
>tim
>
>CLINTON/GORE 

  Never!  But I definitely would have voted TSONGAS / ?

-- 
Richard Mulac                                     mulac@daystrom.lerc.nasa.gov
NASA Lewis Research Center, 21000 Brookpark Road, MS 5-9, Cleveland, OH  44135
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"Well, judging by his outlandish attire, he's some sort | These pontifications
of free-thinking anarchist." - Charles Montgomery Burns |      are my own!    
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