Monday, September 24, 2007

Teens Help Spread Republican Propaganda.


Yet one more example of the Republican Machine grinding forward with in it’s push to manipulate the public towards their own ends. Ahhh, if only the democrats had such Rovian tactics up it’s sleeve. Alas, it does not.

So, all that is left is to continue ridiculing the conservative right until people become more aware of what the hell is actually going on.

This one guy was paid to work at a propoganda phone bank. I think you'll find his story interesting.

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"$8.50 an hour, if I could complete enough surveys. I was a ‘telesurveyer,’ “I don’t want your money, just your time, it will only take two minutes [yeah right].” More than just pollsters however, we did our paid part to sway public opinion, I’ll let you guess at the precise damage.

A typical call would start like this “Hi my name is John Smith [we were allowed to say any name] and we’re just doing a real quick survey tonight on behalf of Alliance for America [not a precise name, but they were typically generic as such] and we’d just like to ask you a couple [40 or so] questions about YOUR opinions on the Democratic candidates for ______.

I don’t remember specifics, and unfortunately, this was over a year ago, but let me give you an idea of just how shady telephone “polling” is. We never lied. No really, we never once lied, technically. We did, however, spread misinformation. Naturally, these polls were sponsored by political parties, both of them, actually. And The title of this post is largely to gain attention, but I can’t say I remember many Democratically slanted polls, still don’t hold me to it.

Anyway, after we used our nicest voices to get people to participate, a barrage of questions unfolded. Some were harmless “In the election being held on ______ what party do you intend to vote for?” Most surveys open nice and easy, simple unbiased questions are better toward the beginning.

They let the telesurveyer build rapport. Because of this, I called a person accepting a survey a “sink,” since their yes was the beginning of a process akin to a hook ’sinking’ into a fish’s mouth. Sinks led to completions of the survey, and for every completion, there was a slight bonus.

It was a room full of semi-determined, semi-articulate people, mostly teenagers, trying to get sinks. There were about 40 or 50 of us at any one time, and an average survey completion rate, given a political survey of about five minutes, would be 3 per hour. We were open from 2-9 Monday through Thursday, 2-6 Friday, Eight to four Saturday, and 2-6 Sunday. A total of 44 hours. [Since my leaving, this has likely gone up.] ....
... There was no lies, just extreme deception... "

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