"Blame game" = Republican spin. Counter with "Accountability"

[alcibiades_mystery]

Whenever you hear the term "blame game," you can rest assured that you are hearing a piping hot talking point served up from the RNC kitchens. The term is designede specifically to belittle any efforts to find out the causes of the delay in helping the people of New Orleans. Any such attempt, according to this talking point, is a "game" that people "play" - as opposed to the serious work of "saving more people," which will be followed by the serious work of "rebuilding," ad infinitum, until any responsibility for this atrocious collapse of government capacity has been forgotten. REJECT the term "BLAME GAME." Whenever you hear it, you should counter with the following:

"I'm not 'playing' a 'game.' Accountability is deadly serious business. Accountability is the way we make society function correctly. If some error at your job caused the company to lose a large amount of money, would getting to the bottom of it be a 'blame game,' or a serious search for accountability? If there was a train accident caused by human error, wouldn't a search for accountability be right and proper, in that it would save lives in the future? Don't we build mechanisms for accountability into almost every process we undertake? Is that a frivolous 'blame game'? And George W. Bush himself stresses 'accountability.' He named one section of the No Child Left Behind Act 'Achieving Equality Through High Standards and Accountability.' Is the NCLB Act nothing but a frivolous 'blame game' over low test scores, or do you agree that accountability is an important function in our public schools? And if accountability is important for education, how much more important is it for emergency management, where thousands of lives could be at risk if accountability isn't determined? There is no 'game' here. This is no joke, or pasttime. This is the serious responsibility of citizens in our Republic: to determine accountability in our government. Without accountability, we have nothing. And worse, we put ourselves in danger. Our public servants cannot be unaccountable. Do you think holding our public servants accountable is a game?"

[ewagner]

1. Most effective counter

Do you want the same dickheads who screwed up the initial response running (and likely screwing up) the rest of the relief effort?

[Nitrogenica]

2. Failure = Blame

[Zenlitened]

3. Well said.

Without accountability, there is chaos.

[Mythsaje]

4. Perfect counter...

I'll keep it in mind.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Yes. The A word.

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Save New Orleans, then save the nation!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm

[Javaman]

6. repukes: "don't point fingers! Only we can do that!!!!"

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. Yes, "finger pointing" is their other propaganda term

Both "finger pointing" and "blame game" are classic rhetorical "frames" (Ill use Lakoff's language, though I disagree with Lakoff's premise, since it seems to be popular here). Every time you hear "finger pointing" or "blame game," you know you are hearing spin; it is an attempt to protray the task of determining accountability as petty and unimportant. Don't let it happen. Every time you hear it, ask the person saying it whether he or she thinks accountability is important. Is accountability important? They cannot say no to that, since the everybody knows accountability is a crucial function in our society. Their predictable response will be to then shift accountability to the local officials. Then they're trapped: I thought you didn't want to play the blame game, but now you're blaming the local officials? Which is it, sir or madam? This will stump them, since the two dominant right wing talking points are currently contradictory: On the one hand, they inists that we shouldn't "play the blame game," on the other, they blame the local officials. Point out the contradiction, then ask them to get their shit straight, and choose one of the contradictory talking points. Humiliate them.

[Cocoa]

7. exactly right

"accountability" reminds people that Bush actually has responsibilities that he is supposed to fulfill. The presidency isn't just wielding power and holding fundraisers and waging war and punishing enemies and taking vacations. He's supposed to GOVERN, which he hasn't gotten around to doing yet in his five years.

[Pobeka]

8. We cannot be stronger if we don't point out weakness.

And so it is our duty to point out weakness. It is our hope the politicians will be accountable so they will have to make the system stronger.

There was a weakness in Bush's handling of FEMA, and the next region to suffer a disaster will also suffer the unnecessary causulties if we don't fix this.

[norml]

10. Murderer stands over their victim and says...

Murderer stands over their victim and says...

"This is no time for finger pointing"

"Can't you see someone has died here?"

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Kick

n/t

[HuskerDU]

12. Bush= The Buck stops ANYWHERE but here.

I wish we could ressurect Harry Truman to kick that MFer's ass!

Bush is Bart Simpson as the 'I didn't do it' kid.