quote:

Originally posted by Smaug:
I'm supprised it's that high!

A solution!

bwhahahaha!

Love It

quote:

a fifth of the adult population not only trust our political leaders but believe they are about to earn a multi-million pound commission after helping a Nigerian doctor transfer money from Andorra.

*sigh*
The problem is that those people with an undifferentiated negative view of politicians ("they're all out to get me!") are equally if not more likely to believe in the Nigerian scam.

Because, obviously, being so much cleverer than everyone else as to see right through their own government's scams, ha!, they have also discovered one of the many hidden things dumb people would be too lacking in individual initiative to understand (i.e. how to get rich really fast by shady means). And they are far too clever to fall for a scam, so this must be real! Sadly, a lack of trust in offical places often means people put their trust in places that seem more reliable to them precisely because they are outside of the "safe" spectrum followed by the mainstream.

Far too many people tend to mistake uninformed sweeping cynicism with clarity of perception. And they tend to mistake bitching about a problem for solving it.

Politicians may be seen as trustworthy or not. But dumb people will always be dumb.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: His Noodle Girl,

dude, it's only a joke

I for one don't think all politicians are bastards - I've done enough political history to know there are a metric fuck-tonne of reasons why promises aren't kept in office, and most people don't enter politics so they can twirl their mostache and be terribly evil.

Because they don't have moustaches?

they would not get elected with a moustache!

Yeah I know it's a joke!

But I'm surrounded (IRL) by people who want to show their cleverness by waxing eloquent about how corrupt government is and how there is this conspiracy and that. And the dumber and less informed they are, the MORE likely they are to be sweepingly negative about it.

I haven't met a single person yet who trusted politicians, so the former problem FAR outweighs the latter in my annoyance scale.

And the word "Nigerian Scam" just sets my blood boiling. People are so damn stupid!!

Anyway, I didn't mean you because I know you have a differentiated view of things.

On a different note, I was wondering if people here feel that they trust Obama (and how far they trust him).

Urk, this is an awful highjack, isn't it? Don't mind me, my brain is all over the place. I was just thinking that how people talk about Obama is the closest I've seen to people actually trusting a politician. But I suppose people do actually trust individual politicians, secretly, at night.

quote:

Originally posted by Domitella:
I for one don't think all politicians are bastards - I've done enough political history to know there are a metric fuck-tonne of reasons why promises aren't kept in office, and most people don't enter politics so they can twirl their mostache and be terribly evil.

I was hugely pleased and surprised when I started actually working with politicians at close quarters about how many I actually did like and trust. One (my boss who died last year) was one of the finest human beings I have ever been privileged to meet, and I've known some pretty remarkable and fabulous people over the years.

Of course I have been let down a lot by politicians, too, but I think that is rather inevitable. Doesn't mean we don't have to keep on calling them to account - we do, we really do - but it helps to remember that they are (unfortunately) no better, for the most part, than the rest of us. And of course if we think we can do better, we should consider giving it a go ourselves.

I don't trust politicians, especially not anyone as good as Obama has proven himself to be. (I don't know any personally either) I don't think most politicians are bad, I think Obama is probably a good certainly smart guy. But he's playing a game, like everybody else, a game he has to play to be where he is.

I look at the trails of paper and blood and semen, try to triangulate stories from different parties, factor all that into the model and make judgements from there.

Show me your budget. Show me your strings.

Show me the money.

I don't trust politicians, but I trust their motives.

Hey, where'd my 700 billion go?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TwiliteMinotaur,

Thing is, Obama will be to the Right as Bush was to (most of) us Boardies. He'll eternally be seen as this evil, scheming leftie no matter what he does. He's probably being blamed for things going wrong already despite not taking over until January.

I must say South Park's election special last night was inspired, though

Oh, I've already seen some really, really vile lj communities who loath Obama and are not afraid to say it in really unspeakable ways - he's a "child" and a "boy" and so on, as well as an evil socialist. The truly peculiar thing is that the people on these sites seem to have no concept of how extreme they are. There was enthusiastic agreement on one for the idea that when during his term some companies will have to make job cuts, the employers should go round the staff car park, note who has Obama bumper stickers, and sack them first. Because, you know, it will be their fault and so they should be the ones to suffer the consequences first. (Because, you know, he will time-travel backwards after inaugeration to set in motion a world-wide recession.)

Dickheads. Utter utter morons.

quote:

Originally posted by D M:
He's probably being blamed for things going wrong already despite not taking over until January.

Yup, that's what the first press conference was about, reading between the sound bytes. "We only have one President at a time," was Obama removing himself from the driver's seat and saying to the Bush administration, "When we hit the ground, this crash is all over your hands, fuckers." Because Obama knows the real pain is going to come some time in the next two months when Paulson and Bernanke's charades come to an end.