presidential speeches

[John Galt]

[Spider]

Over-democratized. To the point of suspicion of those with vocabularies. Use a word with more than 3 syllables nowadays, and get called an "elitist."

[spacemonkey]

Political speeches have been nothing but silver tongue smoke blowing sessions for some time now. The only reason we could hear the last state of the union speech is because someone took the batteries out of the local smoke detectors.

[broken robot]

the problem isn't the fact that politicians don't cultivate a more extensive vocabulary per se. the problem is they have nothing relevant to say because knowledge has become so specialized. you look back at even your dumb dude from the south in the early 20th century and he could probably quote shakespeare. nowadays unless you're a "wonk" people think you have nothing to contribute other than banal slogans. we've lost the humanistic tradition in our politics.

[The Dharma Bum]

[Libertarian602]

I'm sure Reagan had a speech or two worth listening too, but I was a youngin and cared less about politics. I don't remember Clinton or Bush sr saying anything worthwhile. I was too busy trying to stab my ear drums out, to avoid Bush jr's speeches. And, all I'll rember about the current guy's speeches, is a bunch of drooling idiots chanting "Yes we can."


Yep, what we got here, is truly a race to the bottom.

Fun times.

[exploited]

Spider and broken both hit the nail on the head. Sophisticated marketing techniques have made politics into a highly choreographed spectacle, while the issues have become incredibly complex, fragmenting like science has, each fragment realistically requiring years of expertise to understand.

[The Dharma Bum]

you should check this book out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Societ ... _Spectacle