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LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

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Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#211

Post by colemannugent »

existencebox wrote: post #184
colemannugent wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who also has friends and family in middle America I honestly believe that the best way to ensure that Trump gets re-elected again in 2020 is maintaining the "only redneck bigots voted for Trump" argument. Roughly half of Americans voted for Trump, to insinuate that they are all bigots is to insult half of the country. Obviously most of the bigots voted for Trump, but they are still a very small minority. T…

I normally avoid arguments about this, but factually you're incorrect. There was approximately 61.4% adult voter turnout. Not only that, trump LOST the popular vote with only 46.1% of the ballots. What this comes out to is that roughly 30% of eligible voting adults supported Trump. This is _nowhere near_ "roughly half of Americans". (I'd add the additional factor that only ~130[EDIT: 250] million of the ~323 million…

I wasn't trying to suggest that Trump won by popular vote, I meant that of people who voted about half of them voted Trump.

True Trump only had 46%, but Hillary only had 48%. If the entire US population was only 100 people all lined up on opposite sides of one room you'd have a hard time telling them apart by their numbers alone.

My point was more like this: A lot of people voted for Trump. Incumbents typically have an easier time getting re-elected than their challengers. If Democrats want to stop a second Trump term they need to get voters on their side. Pidgeonholing the entire right side of the American political spectrum as redneck bigots is a surefire

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#212

Post by drawnwren »

eksu wrote: post #100
drawnwren wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. This information would be useful, but surely we can't limit it to just one other country and one campaign?

Surely we shouldn’t investigate every country in the world in regards to every election we’ve had?

In fact, we do this already. The thing you're describing is commonly referred to as intelligence.

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#213

Post by kbart »

inestyne wrote: post #132
tclancy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems like the system is working just fine here. They gifted a parking garage/ 1 billion dollars of tax-payer funds to a multinational corporation who was hardly going to pull up stakes and move one of their flagship parks. How is this working fine?

If you live in that town and work for Disney you probably think it's working just fine.

I certainly would be pissed finding out that my city officials effectively donated billion to a private company.

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#214

Post by jacquesm »

bduerst wrote: post #194
jacquesm wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because a very large fraction of the voters there has their mind made up long before the elections and only a small fraction will end up deciding the vote. So all that money goes towards targeting a very small number of people and whichever way the vote goes in Wisconsin it will only be won by a few percentage points. To go beyond that you'd have to go back to Johnson vs Goldwater, which was before I was even…

This was advertising spend to blanket the state, across different broadcast mediums (radio, tv, etc.) It wasn't "highly targeted" to just a small demographic.

It was highly targeted to a small group of people: swing voters. I didn't use the word demographic.

That those swing voters themselves are a mixed bunch is not relevant, all that expense went to influence just a very small fraction of the state population.

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#215

Post by eru »

lostlogin wrote: post #120
eru wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump had a real genius for getting free media attention (in return for giving the media good numbers of viewers with his antics).

It’s been a topic that’s has come up a few times - was it a tactic that was considered, or was it something that just happened and has benefitted him?

That's a big question. Probably a bit of both---Trump has been playing the celebrity game for long enough to notice that any publicity is good publicity.

But I'm by no means an expert, I'm not even American. And people who know more have been speculating about the exact extents of the two factors for a while.

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#216

Post by rurban »

So this what the serious movie reviewers do in such cases:

They ignore it. Sometimes it's fun to take down a bad movies, such as the usual big warmongering patriotic Hollywood blockbusters or the latest fascist superhero fad or genocidal fanfare. Sometimes it's necessary education. But mostly you ignore it.

Those blockbuster movies only live by the advance hype and star power. After the first weekend and the first serious reviews are in, they usually go down very fast, that's why they take the Spielberg/Jaws route, starting in >3000 theaters, best worldwide, and leave them after the first or 2nd week.

If it's really bad, no advance screenings to the previews are allowed for certain movies when they don’t expect the reviews to be very positive. Although studios often give the flimsy excuse that a particular movie was intended only to please the fans, rather than snooty critics, most of the time this is a strong indication that a movie is a piece of crap. They just want to give themselves a chance to make money on the opening weekend before word gets out about how bad it really is. Disney is one of the worst offenders in the business, besides the Weinsteins, Relativity and New Line Cinema.

This is also the best sign to check if it's worthwhile. When there's only marketing hype or official press clippings but no serious review, the movie is mostly crap. No one writes about it.

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#217

Post by rhcom2 »

gooseus wrote: post #204
rhcom2 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy, I had heard of Revolutions but not that he did the history of Byzantium. Looks like I'm sticking with Romans, thanks for the heads up :D

Ah well, Mike doesn't do Byzantium, he started Revolutions instead... Robin Pierson was a podcaster who liked THoR so much that he decided to pickup where Mike left off. I'm 60ish episodes in and it's pretty good, but not quite the same... Revolutions is pretty much the sameish format with Mike, but different kind of history.

I got you now. I'll definitely check it out anyway, thanks for the recommendation.

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#218

Post by ConceptJunkie »

jeffdavis wrote: post #199
ConceptJunkie wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last election shows, among other things, that the media so grossly overplayed their hand that it backfired on them greatly, and Trump was there to take every advantage that was possible to take. Meanwhile, Clinton literally acted as if the election were merely a formality and coasted (although she spent a huge amount of money). I can say personally that the media's breathless spittle-flecked coverage of Trump did…

What you describe is similar to a heroic moment in a dystopian novel: the elites have already chosen for you, elimated all of your other reasonable options, left you with only one horrible alternative that you'd be a fool to exercise. But you, the protagonist, defy wisdom and reassert your free will by choosing the horrible option. Though your chance at heroism does place you in real risk of becoming a villian, in th…

Voting in the general isn't about picking the perfect candidate. It's about picking the best candidate out of a limited selection. It's not even really a political decision but a game theory one. I am willing to vote for someone I don't like because he's infinitely preferable (or even somewhat preferable) to the alternative. That doesn't mean I own every bad thing Trump does. Like you said, I asserted my will and made a decision.

I also know that I would face a lot of criticism, ridicule, and yes, hatred for expressing that truth (and I can already hear the chorus of, "But you deserve it!"... I'm not impressed ). Well, here it is. I voted for Trump and I'm glad I did.

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#219

Post by ConceptJunkie »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #119
eru wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump had a real genius for getting free media attention (in return for giving the media good numbers of viewers with his antics).

This is what so many people fail to grasp. Trump used some major judo on the media. They thought they were totally trashing him (and they were), but he leveraged the massive negative media attention to his benefit in a way I think the media and Democrats still largely don't understand. The biggest problem, I think, is that the media still think that people find them objective, when they are trusted at rates comparabl…

To put this more simply, when the media acts like the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party, they are only preaching to the choir (who already agree with them), and the ignorant, who are gullible enough to believe the media are objective.

They aren't persuading anyone who is informed, unless they already agree with them.

Re: LA Times barred from Disney movies after report on corporate welfare

#220

Post by webXL »

bduerst wrote: post #95
rs999gti wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most money offered gets to be president. But even that doesn't work. In 2016 for the US presidency, Hillary Clinton's campaign had $790M USD versus Donald Trump's $408M USD. She had double the money 'to buy the presidency' and she still lost. https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16

It worked for Scott Walker in the Wisconsin recall. He outspent his opponent 10:1 to win only by a couple points.

Are you sure about that? Seems more like 2-to-1 according to this: http://www.wisdc.org/pr072512.php
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