Spintested

Obama Notes Irony Between Nobel Peace Prize, Libya (VIDEO)

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Treat the online support for what Obama has done with suspicion:

[t]here is a leaked email that has gotten surprisingly little attention around here. It's the one where AaronBarr discusses his intention to post at DailyKos - presumably something negative about Anonymous, the hacking group. But that's not the email I'm talking about here.

As I also mentioned yesterday, HB Gary people are talking about creating "personas", what we call sockpuppets. This isn't new. PR firms have been using fake "people" to promote products and other things for a while now, both online and even in bars & coffee houses.

But for a defense contractor with ties to the federal government, Hunton & Williams, DOD, NSA, and the CIA - whose enemies are labor unions, progressive organizations, journalists, and progressive bloggers, a persona apparently goes far beyond creating a mere sockpuppet.

According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HB Gary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Thenvthe team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire Brooks Brothers riot online.

In another Word document, one of the team spells out how automation can work so one person can be many personas:

Using the assigned social media accounts we can automate the posting of content that is relevant to the persona. In this case there are specific social media strategy website RSS feeds we can subscribe to and then repost content on twitter with the appropriate hashtags. In fact using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example. There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas

It goes far beyond the mere ability for a government stooge, corporation or PR firm to hire people to post on sites like this one. They're talking about creating the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader. What has more effect, one guy saying BP isn't at fault? Or 20 people saying it? For the weakminded, the number can make all the difference.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Joe Biden Warned In 2007 That He'd Impeach Bush For Waging War Without Congressional Approval

Treat the online support for what Obama has done with suspicion:

[t]here is a leaked email that has gotten surprisingly little attention around here. It's the one where AaronBarr discusses his intention to post at DailyKos - presumably something negative about Anonymous, the hacking group. But that's not the email I'm talking about here.

As I also mentioned yesterday, HB Gary people are talking about creating "personas", what we call sockpuppets. This isn't new. PR firms have been using fake "people" to promote products and other things for a while now, both online and even in bars & coffee houses.

But for a defense contractor with ties to the federal government, Hunton & Williams, DOD, NSA, and the CIA - whose enemies are labor unions, progressive organizations, journalists, and progressive bloggers, a persona apparently goes far beyond creating a mere sockpuppet.

According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HB Gary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Thenvthe team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire Brooks Brothers riot online.

In another Word document, one of the team spells out how automation can work so one person can be many personas:

Using the assigned social media accounts we can automate the posting of content that is relevant to the persona. In this case there are specific social media strategy website RSS feeds we can subscribe to and then repost content on twitter with the appropriate hashtags. In fact using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example. There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas

Flashback: In 2012 Campaign Reporting, Watch For The 'Sweet n' Blow'

I'm sure if McCain had won we'd be at war with Iran right now.

======================================

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Because unlike Libya, the only support for an attack on Iran would be from neocons. Let's remember that even with Bush's disregard for Congress and what anyone thought, even he didn't attack Iran. And that was something that he and Cheney and Netanyahu were keen on doing.
About 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Flashback: In 2012 Campaign Reporting, Watch For The 'Sweet n' Blow'

Maybe that should be the measure of qualification for the job: If you want it, if your personal ambition drives you to seek the job, there's something wrong with you.
About 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Flashback: In 2012 Campaign Reporting, Watch For The 'Sweet n' Blow'

Given how Obama has reversed everything that he ran on, you should also leave the tired old "McCain-Palin would have been worse"-routine behind.

As an old old liberal Democrat, I'm certainly no fan of either of them, but the fact is that Palin was a centrist puppet as governor of Alaska, working in the same "bipartisan way" with Democrats in Alaska as Obama is doing with Republicans in Washington.

There was a time (before 2000) when John McCain was talking reasonably (even more reasonably than Obama is governing now), so start considering that whatever you hear from politicians during campaigns is a load of bull to appeal to a particular voting bloc right before an election.

Obama is doing what McCain and Palin called on him to do just a week ago. How do you like them apples? I don't much care for them, so if you're going to play that old McCain-Palin fear card, you're now playing it as the Obama fear card, too. Obama is continuing just about all of the Bush-Cheney policies and his legislation is Republican legislation.
About 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Flashback: In 2012 Campaign Reporting, Watch For The 'Sweet n' Blow'

Nobody is qualified for the job until they actually have the job. That's why the qualification should be one's character.

Obama's a politician, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. He got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.

But first and foremost, Obama is a lawyer, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word, in the sense of choosing his words very carefully (lawyer-speak) during the campaign, giving people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote. It's why even among his most ardent admirers, they still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican. The debate should be over: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat".

Blue Dog = (might as well be registered as a) Republican

Ideologically, Obama's a Republican -- More precisely he's a neoliberal (no relationship to liberal at all) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism .

Doing what is good for transnational corporations is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican, "What's good for GM is good for America."

He did a job on everybody.
About 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost