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Edited on Thu Jan-27-05 01:59 PM by flamin lib
A collection of observations by ME!
“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are
conservative.” — John Stuart Mill
Conservative Mind Control or
Three Word Syndrome
When discussing the differences between Liberals and Conservatives you cannot ignore the use of language as an effective method of mind control. Over the past five decades the Conservative leadership has subtly and incrementally reduced the ability of many followers to assimilate full sentences as well as most multi-syllabic words. Once this reached critical mass it became very easy to manipulate those who label themselves as “Conservative” with simple but catchy phrases. Conservative voters have effectively been rendered functionally illiterate.
Critical thinking and well reasoned argument were once highly prized in our leadership, but since the mid 1950‘s political discourse has dwindled from lofty oratory to three word monosyllabic sloganeering. Take, for instance, the Republican tendency to oversimplify the most complex issues into a lapel button. Consider the following: Nancy Reagan’s response to escalating drug use by poor inner-city youth was “Just say no.” George Bush senior’s “No new taxes,” as a response to a floundering economy and George Bush Jr’s justification for squandering the largest surplus in history was a simple “It’s your money.” “Dead or alive” comes to mind as well as “Bring it on” and “Roadmap to Peace“. The most inane of the many examples is Gerald Ford. When the nation was faced with an economy in such dire straits that a new word, Stagflation, had to be invented he responded with “Whip Inflation Now” which got shortened even beyond three words to mere letters on a lapel button: WIN. Finally there is the soon to be legendary “The People’s Mandate.”
George Bush Senior’s ability to make extended public speeches without uttering a cohesive sentence is well documented. Read any of his press conferences for evidence of non-sensicle and unintelligible verbiage repeated to the faithful by the media without comment. His son has taken that skill to new heights with memorable quotes like “Iraq is a catastrophic success.” What the hell does that mean? The skillful use of sloganeering by Republicans has successfully reduced the attention span of Conservatives to the point that they can no longer absorb more than three words, hence they didn’t fully comprehend the complete absurdity of that sentence. Their brains have been trained to stop hearing after “Iraq is a . . .”
Perhaps this explains how middle class conservatives have been duped into voting against their own self interest and that of our country at large. When Bush said, “I’ll cut taxes,” they stopped listening and missed the part about “on the wealthy and corporations while screwing everyone earning under $200,000.” Perhaps this is why when Senator John Kerry gave great detailed explanations of his Iraq strategy the Republicans could get away with saying that he had no plan. Conservatives stopped hearing after “I have a . . . “ and were content with the Republican response of “Kerry’s a flip-flopper.” Three words.
In fact, the current administration has gone even beyond Lapel Button speak. At every event there is a sign or banner behind the President proclaiming the slogan o’day, often draped in Red, White and Blue flag motif. Mission Accomplished. Tax Relief. Protect Our Seniors. Support the Troops. It isn’t even necessary to listen to the sound bite anymore, it is subliminally implanted through the retina!
There have been orators of great stature brought low for using too many words. We had the greatness of “Four score and seven years ago our Fathers . . .” Too long, they shot that poor bastard. Then there was “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country . . .” Too many words so they shot that fellow too. Or how about “Other men see things as they are and ask, ‘Why?’. I dream things that never were and ask, ‘Why not?’” He too was shot for being verbally over budget. Finally we have “It’s the economy, Stupid.” One word over budget and he was hounded for 8 years with a $70 million investigation into his business and personal life. If he’d only stopped at “It’s the economy.”
The current Bush Administration has used this to good advantage. Anytime they don’t want to have their supporters know they are being screwed they offer policy speeches. Take Medicare reform for example. By giving a major policy speech detailing how drug companies will be protected from competition, insurance rates will increase and the level of care decrease the conservatives simply could not absorb any of the true details. They stopped absorbing sound after “My fellow Americans . . .” Had he described his health care initiative in Lapel Button Speak it would have been, “Don’t get sick.”
So it is that oratory and rational thought is replaced by “plain spokeness”. It is no longer important what a politician says as long as it is homey and non threatening to a mouth breathing sixth grade graduate from an under-funded rural school. It is, however, essential to have a hick drawl, a healthy mix of malapropisms and to speak in three word phrases. The two Bushes have proven that it makes no difference what is said as long as the functionally illiterate feel comfortable with it.
With this in mind I submit that for Liberals to regain the majority position in government we must reduce our word count.
It will be difficult to convey some of our more complicated initiatives in only three words but if we choose our vocabulary carefully we may be able to stretch Conservative’s attention span to four words and with time perhaps five or even more. The leaders of the Conservative movement have done all the hard work for us, all we need to do is capitalize on it.
When we want to get support for involving other countries in training Iraqi soldiers and police inside their own secure borders and soliciting yet other countries to fund that training we only have to change one word in Bush’s Lapel Button Speak strategy. Go from “Stay the course,” to “Change the course.“ I can see a huge banner that says. “THE COURSE”. It makes absolutely no difference that conservatives don’t know what the course is or even if there is one as long as we claim to have one--it’s worked for Bush.
If we wanted to explain how to save Social Security by raising the cap on social security taxes from $87,000 to $500,000 with a sunset clause to lower it when the current retirees pass out of the system we could distill it down to “Don’t worry, be happy.” We can drape a massive banner in the Red, White and Blue motif with “BE HAPPY” behind our candidate. How can anyone run against a campaign like “BE HAPPY”?
In time we could reduce the most complex policy concepts to simple and hypnotic do-wop lyrics. Just think how effective it would be have your campaign plan stuck in their heads, endlessly repeating, “DoWop, DoWop, DoUoUoUoUoooWop, Why do fools vote GOP . . .” (to the tune of Why do fools fall in love). We can even bring Martha and the Vandellas out of retirement for campaign consultants, they’ll work pretty cheap these days.
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