Whats with Al Gore & The Internet?

[QuixotesGhost]

Oh, I enjoy satire as much as the next guy - perhaps even more so.

It just angers me when I see genuine political accomplishments turned against candidates in campaigns (which I believe "I invented the internet" is an example of).

The most heinous example, though, has to be the 2000 Republican Primary. John McCain's sacrifice in the service of this country, his POW experience, was turned against him. The Bush Campaign spread rumors that his internment had mentally unbalanced him, making him unfit for office. They even went so far as to say that he sold secrets to the enemy while in captivity. To be honest, I find that unforgivable.

 

[Crowqueen]

Ditto. You are right to complain about that sort of nonsense. Looks like McCain got his revenge though.

I hardly think it did Al Gore much damage (his personality apparently took care of that) but there is a long way between the nastiness inflicted on McCain (and if you read the British press, Hillary Clinton and Gordon Brown at the moment too) and the mild and satirical nature of pointing out his rather inflated claims to have created/invented/hooked up the first fibre optic cables thereof the internet.

At the moment over here there is a nasty poster going round at the moment with Alistair Darling (=semi-incompetent Chancellor of the Exchequer) being "barred" from pubs because he put the taxes on booze and cigarettes up in the last budget. That tipped the balance from satire to hate speech in my book because it encourages people to discriminate, even if only against politicians. I have to say that it is "my" party that is doing it - it looks as if it is sanctioned by the Conservatives if not actually put out by them - and all it does is cheapen debate and drag it down to where ordinary people are encouraged to participate in dirty tactics. (How long before it gets to "Labour party members are not welcome in this pub"?) It goes contrary to every principle I have as a Christian (do unto others...) and as a Tory and if I see it in pubs I ask the person behind the bar to take it down. The sad thing is that it is the general public being asked to participate in hate speech instead of leaving it to the politicians. When that happened in Germany, we got a world war as a result. I am an amateur satirist who supports neither party over here at the moment (I wouldn't vote Conservative right now if you paid me to do it) but there is a difference between legitimate political argument - questioning whether Gore really had the influence he claims to have had and ridiculing him for saying something daft or saying something that implies he is saying something daft - and hate speech and insinuations about sanity, whether it is about your own side (Blair did the "psychologically flawed" trick with his advisors once too often to Gordon Brown) or the other (the Conservatives said out loud at their conference two years ago that GB was "autistic" and I promptly resigned from the party when the offending spokesman wasn't sacked - I was working for a mental health charity dealing with autistic kids at the time and that did it for me and any links I had with David Cameron's poor excuse for a party). The Al Gore "meme" is fair game, the nastiness crosses at least a boundary of degree if not a logical barrier. As I said, one more step and the Conservatives over here are in danger of becoming a living example of the maxim "he to whom is evil done/does evil in return". They need capable alternatives, not nasty slogans.

 

[Harry Potter52]

Yeah but aren't we going a bit off civ in this thread?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

the creators of Civ4 are Pro Al Gore. It is political reasons why they put his face on the internet.

If that were true, one would expect the Environmentalism civic to suck a little less relative to the others...

 

[Ambidexter]

the creators of Civ4 are Pro Al Gore. It is political reasons why they put his face on the internet.

There is a type of speech called jokes. These are a subspecies of something called humor (or humour if you live in the UK, Canada or Australia). You might want to learn about jokes and humor sometime.

 

[Harry Potter52]

There is a type of speech called jokes. These are a subspecies of something called humor (or humour if you live in the UK, Canada or Australia). You might want to learn about jokes and humor sometime.

I think they know too much of satire..... and too little humour (I live in a commonwealth country)

 

[Grimz101]

Ditto. Intresting Text

Totally agree what has modern politics come to?
Nothing but Spin..