February 16, 2012

Speak for Yourself, 'Nos Populus'

A conservative relative who shall remain nameless sent me a link to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=JVAhr4hZDJE&vq

This video just came out & it already has over 6 Million Hits

This is without a doubt the best video that has come out and apparently 6 Million others think so too because there have been 6 million hits in 4 days
.


Ahh, yes, a lot of people looked at it, therefore, they must support it and adore it.  Of course, Castro stormed Cuba with less than a hundred men, and had the entire country behind him within a week, and you might have heard something about how that turned out. But I digress.

So of course, I have to dissect this little propaganda video created by the great scholar, Nos Populus.

I'll use screen caps, so you don't have to run the video while reading this. 

Cue overtly patriotic music, and zoom in over the Constitution of the United States.  Scroll text!


The problem with this is that Nos Populus don't speak for all people; and come election day, we'll see if they even speak for most people. If they didn't want to lie, they should have stated "We, SOME people..."  Because based on this video, he sure as shit doesn't speak for me.

My relative scoffed back at me; "Well, the Constitution reads 'we, the people.'"  And yes, the Constitution does in fact start with the phrase "WE, The People..."  But the people who wrote the Constitution were duly elected representatives of The People. They were given the right to speak on our behalf.  Nos Populus is some right-wing conspiracy nut with access to a computer; he or she or they can only speak for his or her or their own self.

But since most every thing else they claim wanders from merely vague to outlandishly false, I guess we can't be too surprised.


Isn't this from the cover of Dianetics?  I'm sure it's off some religious tract.  But at least we're starting from a point we recognize; hope and change.


Subjugation?  Who the hell is being subjugated?  I mean, besides this vaguely fake looking guy in the photo. Are they talking about those (current) Iranian hostages?  The Cuban people?  Chinese academics?  They never say.  But we'll stipulate that no one likes subjugation.  Well, except for those crazy whips and chain people fetishists.  They actually like it to a degree that I'm personally uncomfortable with, but to each his-or-her own.

So what's next?


He "violated the Constitution." How did he do that, exactly?  This pale Ann Coulter impersonator giving us a "thumbs-down" isn't a terribly compelling argument.  In fact, it's not an argument at all.  It's just a claim without any foundation.

After all, it's not like he's trying to get prayer into our taxpayer funded public classrooms, which is a clear violation of the Constitution.

My relative stomped and snorted that there so many examples of egregious violations "I don't know how he hasn't been impeached."

My relative has a point; Clinton was impeached, and he didn't even violate the Constitution once.  He did, however, violate his wedding vows.  Which also isn't impeachable.

And here's Obama, who has committed "so many egregious violations of the Constitution" that my relative could not list even a single one, and no one has tried to impeach him.

Perhaps they should play louder patriotic music, dress the model in Revolutionary costume.  That ought to do it.

What do they got next?


They claim he's "seized private industry" but again, fail to list even a single example of an industry he's seized. You'd think it would be hard to miss this, but I can find no record of it. If he has actually done this, I'd condemn it, but somehow it's never made the news.

I have a friend whose family fled Cuba; her grandparents owned a factory.  Castro seized it, and then put a price on their heads for having the audacity to claim that he was stealing it.  A "dead-or-alive" price, which is just what that sounds like.  Which is why they had to flee, of course. 

I find it hard to believe that our government could seize an entire industry and not one news outlet caught wind of it. But you can't argue with the strident voice over patriotic music and a woman with TWO thumbs down.

They also claim Obama's "destroyed jobs" and "perverted our economy" (whatever THAT means).


Again, a pretty woman giving us the "thumbs-down" doesn't actually tell us anything about how he's "perverting" anything.  Did he pull a Rocky Horror on our economy?  Did he get it all tramped out in fishnets and high-heels?

And yes, we've lost jobs, and might have lost a lot more if not for some of his actions. But "destroyed?"

Here's a subject near and dear to my heart:


Since Obama has been elected, I have marched three times to support free speech; once against the City of Fort Lauderdale's misguided attempt to make a movie production happy, and twice against a private security company who failed to read directives from Miami-Dade County. No connection to anything Obama has done. Did someone finally arrest Rush Limbaugh?  Glenn Beck?  Howard Stern?

Republican Governor Rick Scott has kicked the shit out of free speech - he booted all the non-Republicans from one bill signing, and spent much of his first year in office avoiding the press - but I haven't seen one example of Obama or his administration "curtailing" free speech.

And the wildly unfounded claims march on;


He's "corrupted our currency." Again, I don't even know what that means. Did he get our currency drunk and take its virginity?  Did he get it strung out on Ecstacy and drop it off naked at a frat party? Did he wipe his ass with dollar bills and then buy ice cream with them?


My personal favorite bald-faced lie: "he weakened our security." Let's see if we can figure this one out, shall we?

Did he do it by killing Osama Bin Laden, the biggest threat to our security, perhaps? Bin Laden, of course, is the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, who eluded President Bush during his administration.  But Bush bravely vowed he would find the murderer, and searched every golf course in California.

No, wait; that was O.J. Simpson.  Sorry. Honest mistake.

Oh, wait, it's got to be when he helped Libyans overthrow General Mohamar Ghaddafi, the tyrannical dictator who helped terrorists blow up Pan Am 103. Yeah, freeing a country from a fascist dictator who sheltered terrorists certainly made us less safe.

He was also killing his own citizens if they said anything negative about him.  Things like "Our town's well ran dry"  or "You killed my mother for saying the well ran dry."


HEY!, I just realized - THESE must be the jobs Obama's destroyed; "despot," tyrant," "evil dictator" and "terrorist leader."  I have to admit, he certainly destroyed the fuck out of Osama Bin Laden.  And the Taliban has taken a beating, too.

Gotta say, though, I'm just fine with that.  Maybe we can destroy those Somalian pirates, next.

As the music swells, the action is too fast and furious for screen caps to make sense of it.

They claim he's compromised "cultural, legal and economic institutions" which directly results in children not leading our quality of life. Again, do they mention which institutions those are, and how they are compromised? No.  I do have to point out that it wasn't Obama or his party who keeps trying to cut funding to one of our greatest cultural institutions, the National Endowment for the Arts.

"Generational theft?" I've been watching conservatives rail against the EPA, which has reversed the pollution that was choking us.  A couple of Republican candidates have promised to shut the EPA down; if that isn't attempting to steal our future, I don't know what is.

But they are correct about our military. Yes, the brave souls of our armed forces absolutely lay their lives on the line to protect our freedoms. Something Obama has certainly acknowledged in no uncertain terms. And I for one am glad that he's getting them out of the morass of Iran and Afghanistan and bringing most of them home. I have very good friends serving over there.

The most "coercive government" in living memory - and I'll specify the most coercive US Government - has to be the one we had during Senator McCarthy's hearings on Un-American Activities (which, of course, I only know about from historical accounts).  They were so vile that they are now known as the McCarthy Witch Hunt Trials.

McCarthy would force you to testify before Congress.  He'd demand that you describe all the political leanings of your friends.  If you didn't, he'd accuse you of being anti-American, and you'd be blacklisted.  People wouldn't hire you, because maybe you were a Commie.  But even if you weren't, if they hired you, people would think they were Commies, and stop doing business with them.  Better not to hire you.  Or be seen with you.

That's what I call "coercive." What do the makers of this video consider coercive? They don't say.  They simply make the claim over patriotic music, and you're just supposed to accept it.

The sleazy weasels who authored this little musical smear are masters at pulling heart strings; they know full well that no one can dispel vague accusations with the harsh light of reality. While it's clear that they don't have any facts to back up their claims, the fact that they don't supply any facts means that there's nothing solid for anyone to dispute.

Setting their unfounded accusations to patriotic music and compelling images, speaking their gibberish in strident tones may give the illusion that they make a credible case, but in fact, this video makes not a single coherent argument. It's only gibberish.

I promise to stand up for liberty, too. And I'll do it by fighting against the sleazy lying scumbags who created this video, and those who swallow its hollow bile as some sort of valid manifesto. Those people are the real threat to our freedom; because they believe any empty lie they are told without question.

16 comments:

  1. You are a Verbose Foolish Person. I hope I am the one to cancel out your vote. See how simple it is to be pointedly concise.

    "And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude." ~ Thomas Jefferson

    Anonymous because I don't really care to have any further contact with you.

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  2. I see your Thomas Jefferson,

    "The last hope of human liberty in this world rests on us. We ought, for so dear a state to sacrifice every attachment and every enmity." ~ Thomas Jefferson, 1811

    and raise you George Washington.

    "One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection." ~ George Washington, 1796

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  3. Thanks for your post. I'm sickened by this video and also received it from a conservative relative of mine. What probably sickens me most is how this "Nos Populus" and his following uses pictures of soldiers to manipulate "patriotism" into his own twisted definition. Soldiers have minds of their own - their pictures should never be used for propaganda like this.

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  4. I was hoping to find some type of rebuttal to this inane video. This video has absolutely nothing to do with President Obama. It is the same dumbed down talking points that the talking heads of the republican party have been spouting since the Clinton years. What makes this worse though, is that it was released in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. Unemployment is down and dropping, the economy is up, some of the worst enemies of the United States are gone. Military spending has actually increased under Obama!? The only thing these republicans have to complain about is the fact that a non-republican president was able to get things turned around. They really really wanted him to fail and even though the facts point the opposite direction, they are going to pretend he failed anyway as hard as they can.

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  5. Thanks for giving me a way to find out what was in that pesky vid without giving it another click. I love that the "four days" claim is growing steadily less true. (And I repaid the person who sent it to me with a Rickroll.)

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  6. Thanks for taking the time to express your alternative views and bringing to attention those unfounded facts which are presented in this very biased video.

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  7. I worked all day yesterday trying to find the words to say what you just said. Thank you so much! Here is the beginnign of my 2cents...The video “We The People” (nospopulus) is disingenuous. While offering patriotic music, and Norman Rockwell like photographs the video message makes claims that have no bases in fact. The use of buzzwords: subvert, liberty, freedom, tyranny, violated, corrupted among others, are used solely to tap into the readers emotions. There are no specific references that can be questioned or verified … regurgitated talking points.

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  8. Thank you for your rebuttal to that video crap.

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  9. It's unfortunate that many will view the video in question and be moved by it. I trusted that US citizens are capable of making informed decisions until I consider they might think this video has some informative quality. Propaganda isn't new, welcome to the misinformation highway where facts are not required, figures are not considered relative and decisions are made solely on emotional response. Are we really UNITED?

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  10. "WE THE PEOPLE"???? This video is trash!! I dont agree at all so you can not speak for me. This country has been in the toilet before President Obama so don't blame him.

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  11. Even a fiscal conservative/libertarian like me finds little fact or substance in the video. That having been said, I find it sad that someone unable to use the English language correctly and needing to use profanity would be listened to either. "We The People", have become lazy, ignorant, and selfish. When so few even vote, it is a commentary on the worth of Americans. Read newspapers, watch the news (Fox included), google the internet for information on issues and voting records, and learn for yourselves what is going on and who is doing good and who is doing bad. Do this at local and state levels as well as at the national level. Then make your own informed decision as to how you will vote. You can ignore most videos such as the one being discussed (trashed), as well as the ignorant, profane people that rail, one way or another. God bless and see you at the election booth.

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    Replies
    1. The problem with the assertions that "We The People" "have become lazy, ignorant, and selfish" is primarily with the fact that the voters routinely change the party in power in an attempt to get a change, but nothing ever changes. It doesn't matter whether it's the red wing or the blue wing on top, the bird's body continues on its course without so much as a hiccup. I've watched this scenario over and over for more than 45 years as an adult who actively participated in politics (convention delegate, etc.). When people try repeatedly and nothing changes, who can "legitimately" blame them for tuning politics out?

      And then there is an instruction: "Read newspapers, watch the news (Fox included), google the internet for information on issues and voting records, and learn for yourselves what is going on and who is doing good and who is doing bad." Doing this will NOT prevent the elected officials from doing precisely what they are supposed to do when they get elected -- trying to enact their party's platform.

      A political party primary or caucus is the process by which that party's members selects the person for each office who will carry their "banner" (platform/legislative wish list) to the general public in the general election. The party's nominees are charged with winning the general populace over to the party's viewpoints and thereby winning elections. And nothing -- absolutely nothing -- will change that fact.

      Political parties are nothing but a group of people with common political objectives who have banded together to try to get those objectives enacted into law. People ought to read each party's platform and vote for that party's nominees if they want to actually be represented - well, unless you find an "independent" (no party affiliation) to support for that one election (independents have nothing to build on for the next election).

      The "2 party system" is killing this country. Every election comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils. That's ridiculous - and it's un-American on its face. This country is a hypocrite when it goes to foreign countries talking about democracy when there is no such thing here.

      We need more parties - so there will be more choices -- candidates people will want to vote "for" instead of against. A simple federal law would work wonders -- a mandate that all federal candidates of every political party that has obtained national party committee status (difficult criteria, but there are currently four with that status) appear on the ballots of every state would fix our broken political system. And it wouldn't cost a cent.

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  12. Thank you for your rebuttal to this ignorant and offensive video. I just wish I'd seen your synopsis before I sat through this 5 minute trash. Why do people send out mass mailings of this crap, unless they are absolutely sure the recipients will agree with it?

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  13. emails linking to this video are still going strong after 3 years. A conservative friend just sent it, but somewhere along the line it has been attributed to Oklahoma State University. Even Nos Populus had to post a disclaimer on his site saying it had nothing to do with OSU.

    This is what pure propaganda looks and feels like. It contains only platitudes and emotional labels, and not an ounce of context. The context is assumed because the conservative mythology making has been hard at work for decades now.

    You have to understand that stuff like this really only appeals to people who are steeped in the world of right-wing mythology, and that the people who believe this way are a minority. Everyone else just rolls their eyes and marvels at the extent that 'someone' went to to create slick propaganda like this.

    AND... the people HAVE spoken. They re-elected Obama.

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  14. Yeah...I just got this the other day as well. From a conservative friend. I love how they are willing to forward along things like this without even taking the time to investigate the source.
    This is what was passed to me:
    OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY MADE THIS AND IT JUST CAME OUT 4 DAYS AGO AND HAS HAD 6 MILLION HITS.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=JVAhr4hZDJE&vq=medium#t=19*

    Thank you, Oklahoma

    I hope 100 million watch this! Oklahoma State University is located at Stillwater , Oklahoma . This is without a doubt the best video that has come out and apparently 6 million others agree because there have been 6 million hits in 4 days.
    Please watch it again and again and send it on to others. I believe the pendulum has started to swing so let's keep it going. This is very well done."

    I love the ALL CAPS at the beginning. The only "true" statement in this is the last sentence - "This is very well done." No matter what you say about the message, this person has some mad video skills - his only other YouTube post is something called "America's Rap" a pseudo hip-hop video with the same vague and unsubstantiated rants, but aimed at the youth market. (I'd love to see that one broken down!)
    Anyway, the claim that Oklahoma State University just made this 4 days ago and it already has 6 million hits is obviously false just by looking at the YouTube video itself - nos populus states clearly that he has no connection to Oklahoma State University or any other institution of higher education. It also shows it was uploaded in Feb of 2010 - shattering the claims it is only 4 days old. It is standing at about 10.6 million hits as of today...and that's hits, not individual people - a big difference (the video only has 23k likes) . Also, he's only posted two videos and has been inactive for the past two years.
    I sort of love that the conservatives use this sort of thing as their touchstones. Because it shows how out of touch they are.

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