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Edited on Tue Jan-11-05 11:31 AM by Cats Against Frist
They've drug our discourse down into the mud, they've raised propaganda to a new art form, they consistently ridicule, lie, appeal to emotion, and argue with logical fallacies. They project their own bad behavior onto the Democrats and the Democrats do nothing about it. Rush Limbaugh, sweating, and red-faced, yelling into a microphone: "THE DEMOCRATS ARE SO ANRGY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" might be your first fucking clue and how ridiculous and unscrupulous the argument is.
These people always exist. There had to be people who supported the Nazis. There were people that supported the military juntas in Latin America, and every right-wing authoritarian government. Because no matter how you want to obfuscate the situation with rhetoric, on the political scale, the Neocon, Corpo-fascist, Christo-fascist faction of the GOP are right-wing authoritarians. And you can quickly see their rhetoric about small government and federalism crumble in the face of forwardin their own interests.
I think another major reason is that all barriers to criticize them have been removed. The press is one watchdog that needs to be taken out to the backyard and shot. Not for their "liberal bias," but for their obvious penchant for making GOP talking points the meat of their news cycle.
The freepers and neocons themselves also want to remove "objectivity," all together -- which is why THEY are so interested in dislodging the role of the press, in favor of making right-wing punditry "the new objectivity." And for many freepers and other dull souls, they have, in fact, a great start on that.
Critcize them with "critical thought?" Not something you learned out of a book, or at a university, or you're "elitist." Nevermind the fact that most scholarly work in the hard and social sciences does abide by empirical research methods for legitimacy. Nevermind that the right-wing has their own elitist intellectuals carefully hidden away in their own ivory towers, using the "philosopher king" and Straussian beliefs to justify lying to and manipulating the "freep sheep."
And if all else fails -- there's always God. You can justify any fucking thing with a little "god rhetoric," because no one can ever "prove" you wrong.
Add 200 million or so completely detached, distracted, terrible stewards of Democracy, many of whom have a pre-programmed totalitarian brain, and you have a problem. When most people aren't listening anyway, the default is to the right. Why? Because, as someone said, they make so much "noise." They repeat their talking points loudly, and they repeat them often, true or no, and at the end of the day, they make a "new truth." A very subjective truth.
Of course, no analysis would be complete without a little trashing of the Democrats. I'm sorry, but the only way to beat them, right now, is to make more noise -- enough to back them into, at least, a reasonable discussion. Use their tactics of false binary, tu quoque, style-over-substance, ad populum, false dilemma logical fallacies, appeal to emotion, and beat them over the head with it.
I am ashamed that the Dems are not all the fuck over this "paid punditry" thing. If it were the GOP, by now, they'd have their entire flock thinking that every left-wing pundit was paid. It's the perfect opportunity to play hardball with the GOP -- you don't even have to SAY that all right-wing pundits are paid. You just have to "ask the question" OVER and OVER again -- "HOW CAN WE BE SURE??????" I mean we have two instances, which is two more instances than they need to start slandering the Democrats.
Other than that, I think the Democratic image needs to be re-vamped. Some of the "identity politics" need to be minimized, and the idea of REAL FREEDOM (not right-wing authoritarian approved freedom) civil liberty, the benefits of a secular society, et. al., need to be hammered. In addition, I think that the Democrats should ONLY push for civil unions for everyone, support gun rights, support less federal bureaucracy, and apply federalism whenever possible (which would NOT include civil rights), and launch a viscious union campaign.
There are a lot of reasons why the Democrats lose, and I think of my Dad as the perfect example. He's socially conservative (never met a gay man or woman), racist (met like three black guys in his lifetime), just religious enough to have caught onto right-wing Christian dogma (doesn't attend church, but thinks God didn't create Adam and Steve), xenophobic (hates brown people and everyone from other countries) and has less than no clue about civil liberties, or the philosophy that GAVE us the Bill of Rights, and how it runs CONTRARY to many GOP authoritarian right-wing policies. He also believes that no social commentary outstrips money. Is real music more important than Jessica Simpson? "Never mind that, good for her making money in America." Does it matter that marketing her tits to 9-year-old girls makes one in five of them anorexic? "That's their problem." etc. He believes in the superiority of America, the white man, and core 'murican values, doesn't care about the environment or animals, etc. Loves guns. Hates welfare. Our family makes over $70,000 a year, he's made a bunch off the stock market and they're overweight and both he and my mom have giant cars with yellow ribbons on them.
Typical Republican mindset, right? He voted for John Kerry. In fact, except for voting for Reagan the second time, he's never voted for a Republican for president. Why? Even he could see that Bush was a criminal and a clueless dumb ass.
Now, what convinced him? Here are the things that are his weaknesses:
1. He belongs to a union, and he works in maintenance at a public school.
2. He thinks the power elite completely controls his destiny and that he has very little to say about it.
3. He believes part of being a good citizen is to pay your taxes.
4. He believes in entrepreneurship, but DISAGREES that people who make all this money are treating society responsibly, or owning up to their own "personal responsiblity."
5. He watched F9-11, and pretty much stays away from the talk radio pundits. He swears he hates Limbaugh and Hannity, and he doesn't watch Faux.
6. He always votes.
7. He supports gun rights, but he's smart enough to know that NRA scare tactics and the assault weapons ban isn't going to take away his right to shoot deer & targets. He doesn't want "inner city blacks" to get uzis, so he was pissed about the assault weapons ban being lifted. (But if it was just white, rural guys who could by a Howitzer, that would be fine. Apparently he's never heard of "Timothy McVeigh").
I personally think that what's stopping him from being a Republican is the fact that he's not really religious. As they said, this is the difference between much of the vote. And he thinks the Bush/God talk is ridiculous. Imagine if he wasn't in a union, or listened to Hannity. There would be no hope.
My mother is BASICALLY the same, except that she thinks gays should marry and adopt kids, because there are too many kids without homes, and she finally admitted to me that she is VERY reluctantly pro-choice. It breaks her heart, but she mistrusts the motivation of men more than anything, and doesn't want them to have control over womens' bodies. She also HATES rich people and corporations, and is unlike my Dad in the fact that she doesn't agree with making money at all cost. She also cares about the environment. And she is pro-union.
But she is mildly racist and xenophobic, barely religious, and moderately socially conservative. She hates Bush with a passion, however, and calls him a "dumb fucker," every chance she gets.
For her, it's a matter of sentimentality combined with HUMILITY that makes her support the Democrats. She doesn't like welfare going to lazy inner city blacks, but who is she to say what some people need? She doesn't LIKE the idea of gays raising children, but children need people to adopt them, so they don't have to grow up in an institution. (Though I suspect that gays, like most hetero couples, clamor for the healthy white babies and toddlers). She is scared of terrorists, but doesn't see how killing Iraqi children puts us in the right.
Freepers are sentimental, too - they're sentimental as shit. They worship the military, fetuses, etc. -- they have their narratives. Both sides say that the other is ruled by emotion. The fact is that they BOTH are, the difference between the conditions is that most sentimental, humble people become Democrats. Most sentimental resentful and self-righteous people become Republicans.
I know this is long, but hopefully it has some information for somebody, in it.
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