the sitch on super pacs.

there's been a lot of discussion in my little niche of the world about the upcoming election. my social psych class has been buzzing with it. the gop candidates are all over the news at every turn. and i was talking about my momma about super pacs last night and i want to throw some info up on this blog in the hope to stimulate some discussion and get people interested. (and maybe to keep up interest for myself)

so this whole super pac business began with the Citizens United case (which I linked to the wikipedia article, just click on the words). the ruling itself might seem kind of jargon filled, causing one's eyes to glaze over, but it's the application to real life, mostly in the political campaigning realm, might cause those same eyes to pop open once again.

since we were discussing the difference between one sided and two sided arguments in my social psych class let me utilize a little two sided argumentation to get some facts out there...

this first video, shown in my psych class, is from a more liberal standpoint...



the second, which i found on my own, just perusing youtube, i'm assuming is a more conservative standpoint, although i'm not positive. it might just be opposite. in any case, it's the other side to reich's argument...



now i have to say i have my disagreements with both videos. in reich, i don't agree that it was completely billionaires and corporations that have ruined our economy and caused people to foreclose their homes. a lot of that was due to average people choosing to spend money they didn't have. own your problems kids. but with reason.tv, i do think he is downplaying the amount of money in play with this election. and his argument that negative campaigning works with elections? well, cocaine creates an escape from your regular life. does that mean i should become a coke head? no, because the further implications would not be good. (a huge understatement) i'm not a fan of negative attack ads because the implications of the type of candidate, or even their supporting base (since super pacs are not "affiliated" with candidates). keep it clean, stay off drugs.

as for super pacs not being affiliated with the candidates they support? stephen colbert, in all his crazed glory, has made me a huge skeptic about that little detail. as shown by this video...

The Colbert Report
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if you got through this entire blog post, props to you. i hope you found it entertaining and informative.

over and out. happy wednesday!