Summing the Right's Game Plan in a Paragraph

[ulTRAX]

Kerry and the Dems are fools not to engage in class politics for we know the Right is dedicated to protecting class interests. If the Dems never talk about the Right's gameplan, they'll never build up a constituency to oppose it.

So how can we sum up the elements of the Right's gameplan in a simple logical paragraph? How can we explain the Right's strategy so even Joe and Jane SixPack will get it? What is evidence we can use? Here's what I see as the core elements of their strategy.

The Right serves the interests of wealth, power and privilege. It is a minority agenda so they must form and exploit coalitions with other groups. The Right has several key goals. One is to dismantle the social safety net by sabotaging the finances of the federal government to create crushing debt. The second is mold the economy to create an upward flow of wealth. The third is to hide the above with irresponsible tax cuts which give the illusion the Right is out to protect the average person.

BTW.... check out these Share of Aggregate Income tables from the US Census: http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie3.html
Since 1967 the trend has been to increase the share of income for the top quintile at the expense of the other 80%.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. "Cheap Labor Conservatives" bringing back feudalism

[ulTRAX]

4. very good

This sound right?

The Right serves the interests of wealth, power and privilege. It is a minority agenda so they must form and exploit coalitions with other groups. The Right has several key goals. One is to dismantle the social safety net by sabotaging the finances of the federal government to create crushing debt. The second to create downward pressure on wages and a corresponding flow of wealth upward. The third is to hide the above with irresponsible tax cuts which give the illusion the Right is out to protect the average person.

[BlueEyedSon]

7. Not only must they form coalitions (to win elections in our purported

democracy), they must lie to the masses with propaganda and manipulate elections, because they still wouldn't have enough votes otherwise!

[ulTRAX]

8. I think both sides lie and manipulate the masses....

But certainly the Right has a more vested interest in dividing the majority with wedge issues. Of course maybe now the Dems are the minority, they will too. I believe this is a card Mike Perente said we should use.



The Right serves the interests of wealth, power and privilege. It is a minority agenda so they must form and exploit coalitions with other groups while using wedge issues to divide the majority. The Right has several key goals. One is to dismantle the social safety net by sabotaging the finances of the federal government to create crushing debt. The second to create downward pressure on wages and a corresponding flow of wealth upward. The third is to hide the above with irresponsible tax cuts which give the illusion the Right is out to protect the average person.

[AllegroRondo]

2. Actually, its all about money

Your second key goal is right on.

The other two only go toward completing the second.

[Atman]

3. Excellent paragraph...

Except it is above the reading level of the average American, and way, way above the reading level of the average Bush voter.

It sounds like Pointy-headed intekshul talk, iffin ya ask me.

[ulTRAX]

5. just looking for the core elements

I'm just looking for those irreducible core elements of the Right's goals and strategy. We can find the best way to explain it later.

[mcscajun]

6. So, we 'dumb it down' some...

The Right is for rich, powerful people. There aren't as many rich people as middle-class and poor, so they play us against each other. Their plan is simple: take away our financial future by destroying Social Security; encouraging runaway deficits and taking your money to give to Wall Street; and giving you some 'tax cuts' to hide the billions they're wasting and giving to rich people.

[sandnsea]

9. FDR was a communist

That's what they believe, the corporate power elitist Republicans. Anything that isn't pure free market capitalism, is communism to them. So yes they do want to undo everything since FDR, and even before. They truly do believe government interference of any sort hurts the laissez-faire capitalist economy. However, traditional class warfare will not work because too many Americans have been brainwashed by Reaganism. Exposing the bullshit behind their free market capitalism is what will work; the unfair corporate subsidies, the taxpayer subsidized costs for cheap labor, environmental cleanup, environmental related health costs, all of that.

The Bobby Kennedy interview points the way, in my estimation:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/11/19/bobbykennedyjr/index_np.html

[sweetheart]

10. The republicans are white racists

Their objective is to create a nation of poverty so that the whites can
once again create plantations and have poor americans dependent on
robber barons for food. To achieve this, they have brought back torture
and filled the prisons with blacks who disagree with their adgenda,
denying them voting rights, to reverse the course of the civil war.

Then they plan to re-define the 14th amendment, so that all corporations
are no longer enslaved to the law, and can find their proper place as
the superiors of humankind.

Frankly, there is little value in creating a democratic straussian myth.
Democrats rule from the bottom up, and using centrallized propaganda
means, even if we did have control of television stations, simply is
not the way of a liberal people. Tony blair is trying this very thing
and his own constituency sees him as a fraudulent liar, and trusts not
a word he says. Bush may lead a coalition of professional liars and
decievers. To defeat them, is to wage war on their base, corporate
globalization and militarization of the police state through fear.

This can only be ended through the grass roots.

[Batgirl]

11. The right's game plan: Misdirection

"Look! Over there! Why, it's --
• Swarms of women having multiple late term abortions.
• Godless liberals out to criminalize the phrase "Merry Christmas."
• Commie dems who want you to sign over your entire paycheck to the IRS so lazy welfare recipients can live in idle luxury.

And having directed the hapless working man's attention thusly, they're busy cleaning out his wallet, exporting his job, and assuring him that at least his problems will be over in the glorious afterlife.

In other words, the right's game plan is that of a common pickpocket.

Working and middle class people who support the right have been misdirected to look elsewhere to place blame while their money/assets trickle ever upward to the top tiers of the pyramid.

[ulTRAX]

13. misdirection vs morality

It's certainly true that the Right needs to use wedge issues. But I have to wonder how much of the emphasis on abortion and welfare cheat is done by political strategists looking for hot button issues... compared to those who are actually believe there are moral issues. I supposed the former hopes an issue takes off and develops its own momentum. They also need sympathetic opinion leaders on the Right that will keep these issues within narrow bounds to stop them from coming back and biting the Right on the ass.

[VioletLake]

12. The Dying of the Right

The Right's goal has always been and continues to be to preserve and promote an oligarchy defined by wealth, privilege and power. As civilization gradually disarms the Right with laws, this goal becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. Civilization prevents the Right from using brute force and codified discrimination to achieve its goal, and it will eventually prevent the Right from using deception. When that happens, the Right - as it has been known for ages - will cease to exist. The writing has been on the wall for at least 228 years.

20th century fascism was the Right's attempt to break the shackles of civilization and enslave it in one fell swoop. The contemporary American "conservative" movement is using similar means to arrive at the same end. Apparently, the Right is still not convinced that humanity isn't its property. One can only guess how many more lives it's willing to waste before it's convinced.

The Right's game plan in 5 words: stay alive at all costs.

[ulTRAX]

14. I'm not as optimistic as you

VioletLake wrote: "As civilization gradually disarms the Right with laws, this goal becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. Civilization prevents the Right from using brute force and codified discrimination to achieve its goal, and it will eventually prevent the Right from using deception. When that happens, the Right - as it has been known for ages - will cease to exist. The writing has been on the wall for at least 228 years.

I wish I were as optimistic as you. I see the oligarchs as being ever adaptable and there will never be a shortage of lackeys willing to serve wealth and power.

Except for insurrection what do the oligarchs need brute force for in the US as long as they can rig the rules of the market to allow greater concentrations of wealth and keep the bulk of the nation in sufficiently satiated pissing away the world's resources too care? And how is deception going to be outlawed when the PR industry has created a science of manipulation that doesn't need outright deception? Hell, even the Democrats don't tell the truth.

As for trends in the US... I think we're in the belly of the beast. There's a unique pathology at work here and I believe it is a consequence of our federal system which is both anti-democratic and essentially reform proof. The two party system artificially narrows the spectrum of permissible thought.

Is anyone in the mainstream even raising these issues?

[VioletLake]

15. Helen Keller said:

"No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit."

Deception is best fought with education, not laws.

I started a separate thread a couple of days ago with my response to your thread as the subject. (Don't know if you've seen it... should have put a heads up here when I posted the thread.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1460937

[ulTRAX]

17. education as deception

VioletLake wrote: "Deception is best fought with education, not laws."

Education is hardly a panacea. Usually education is the root of the problem because it's nothing more than blatant indoctrination... a time we are infused with our nation's ideology which limits thought to a narrow range rather than expands it. For example we're bought up to validate the Constitution, despite its obvious flaws... not to critique it with an eye toward improvement. The ideological system then becomes self-justifying and self-perpetuating. The result, there's a great deal of Founder worship in the US that has all the trappings of a secular religion.

Another example, how many do you know on the "left" who wrap themselves in the mantle of "democracy" because they value it more as a self-description as opposed to actually trying to define what it means?

I believe the way to counter the inertia of mindlessness at least on the individual level is to get the discussion back to basic values and let people begin to discover the contradictions they've spent a lifetime papering over. Engineering a paradigm shift on the societal level will be more difficult.

[Debs]

19. I agee

Education can be a form of indoctrination and in fact is one as it is now being done. Chomsky tells a story about one of his intellectually gifted freinds when he was growing up. He was in a school for the gifted and he said you know, nobody cares if I get a C but if I am two minutes late I have to go see the principal. The agenda is punctuality is more important than achievement as it is production oriented. How many times did we learn about Teddy Roosevelts ride up San Juan hill and what did we learn in School about the Pullman strike? The year of the great upheaval. The campaign in the Phillipeans? Education can be a great force but until it is stripped of its propaganda functions it will not set future generations free

[VioletLake]

20. Education is nothing more than blatant indoctrination?

I suppose so. In that case, some things are worth being indoctrinated into. How can one tell? :shrug:

[VioletLake]

21. Would it be fair to teach people critical thinking skills?

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/drugfree/sa3crit.htm

[ulTRAX]

24. critical teaching skills should a key goal in education

I'm reminded of a book I read 30 years ago.... Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner.

[ulTRAX]

25. great list.... thanks!

[Jane Austin]

22. Defeat the Right in 3 Minutes

Does anybody have this article?

It's a very lucid piece on how everything the Right does is all about cheap labor.

I'm sure I saw it her on DU first.

[Jane Austin]

23. Kick!

n/t

[ulTRAX]

26. here it is...........

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/campaignblog.html

It might be a series of articles..... right sidebar.

[Jane Austin]

28. Yes! That's it!

Thanks a million.

I hope everyone will read it and even print it out.

[Taxloss]

16. The transfer of money from the powerless to the powerful.

A massive redistribution of wealth towards the already wealthy; a huge self-enrichment plan. It is nothing else.

[bvar22]

18. Lets Keep It REAL Simple!

RICH REPUBLICANS
are STEALING
YOUR CHILDREN'S MONEY!!!

Republicans are STEALING
YOUR CHILDREN'S MONEY
and giving it to
THEIR RICH FRIENDS!!!

MONEY SPENT AT WAL-MART
KILLS GOD'S UNBORN CHILDREN!!!

[sweetheart]

27. I like this framing:

The American dilemma ... stems largely from the fact that the society itself has no cultural grounding and thus has evolved as merely a corporate state whose sole obligation is the protection of private property. Paine and Jefferson nonwithstanding only two themes have forged the American consensus: the exploitation of labor to create new wealth and the freedom to worship as one chooses.

this is from DU'er brindis_desala, and it is so right on.

That the exploitaiton of labour has actually become a progressive
erosion of the freedom to worship as one chooses is the implicity
irony.

So what then, are we forever locked in the civil war, slightly beyond,
but not far beyond, slavery? What is the equilibrium between freedom
of religion and the exploitation of labour. Of course the bush
plutocrats have set that in stone, as they are pushing a return to
slavery, and a total exploitation of labour, under the new doublespeak
for freedom. You are free to live in cell block A, B or C, and to
be raped by other prisoners in block A, B, or C. Ain't freedom great.