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but I don't agree with you. I admire your ideological purity, but we lost this election. The voter fraud thing helps to ease the pain, but I doubt it will come to much, and dispite our cheering at every news report, the evidence at this point does not look promising.
I don't see it as a question of moving to the left or the right. Our problem is the way we phrase things. For one thing, most of us on the left are acutely unaware of what is going on. Since I work in the mass communication field and I have done a lot of academic work in that area, allow me to write an overly long essay in an attempt to play educator. The techniques of Murdoch and Limbaugh, which are the driving forces stripping away the working class from the Democratic Party, grew out of the Cold War. In the 50s and 60s, the US government spent millions, if not billions of dollars on mass communication psychological warfare research, using brilliant mass communication propaganda techniques developed originally by Nazi Joesph Goebbels, as its foundation. It all went into one of our major propaganda weapons of the Cold War, Radio Free Europe. They did research, they applied the research in the field, and over the 25 years of the Cold War they knew what worked and what didn't. The Right wing media machine is built on these principles.
Many of those on the far right are military veterans of the Cold War, or are academics who studied the research and results I have cited, one of whom is Limbaugh. For decades they have seen us as the American version of the Communist Party, a threat to what they consider the American way of life. Since the end of the Cold War, their aim has not been to merely win elections, it has been to destroy the Democratic Party. To do so, they are using the same techniques that destroyed the Communist Party. If we do not become aware of these techniques and counter them, we as a party will be destroyed. This election can either be the beginning of our funeral or our rebirth.
In any communication war, there are two main communications going on at once- confrontation and persuasion. In the Cold War, the aim was to engage in a broadcast of confrontation with the Communist Party, combined with a broadcast of rhetoric aimed at persuading the masses who lived in the Soviet Bloc that our way of life was better. The right wing media machine works the same way.
Language and phraseology used about us is confrontational, persistently negative, condemning and blaming. Language used about them is glowing and praise-filled. But the real target is the listening audience. Its biases, prejudices, myths and attitudes are appealed to, or outraged or re-enforced by the announcer. Knowledge of the worldview of the target audience is essential. But the single most important thing is that the other side in the confrontation be portrayed as opposed to the masses world view, is responsible for their outrage, is a member of or supports the group they are prejudiced against, and that they hate the social institutions cherished by them. Using these techiques, Adolf Hitler was able to talk one of the most civilized societies on Earth into being accomplices in the gassing and murders of 11 million Jews, homosexuals, "undesirables" (thats you, Mr. Democrat) and other targeted minorities.
The propaganda techniques of the fascists, now refined and modernized over 50 years, are ones you would recognize. For example, to achieve maximum affect, being "on message", (something you think is a modern buzzword but actually goes back to the Nazis), must be completely saturating. The On Message technique was perfected on a massive scale in the Cold War. The thousands of stations that made up Radio Free Europe were all connected, and from Cuba to China they broadcast the exact same message, all day - that they suck and we don't, and that the Communist Party was to blame for all their ills. They would even have debates with Communists -picked of course for their stupidity or just down right faked, and later television was added to the mix, a daily stream whose whole message was that life was better on the other side, now in pictures.
AM Radio and Fox News, and also Drudge, the new Internet component, are the exact same thing. We are blind to this, because we think hate radio is only for the True Believers. In fact, its saturation message of the day, (and it is the same - ask anyone who travels for a living and they will tell you the AM radio fascists are talking about the exact same thing from Duluth to Dallas) the outrage component, the blame component, all exactly the same from Hannity or Limbaugh or your local guy, is designed to deliver its message to every set of ears in the country. Millions trapped in their car during rush hour, or in rural areas with only a few stations, or those who drive company vehicles all day who need to relieve boredom, - in short the working class - are bombarded all day with a story, a spun explanation and a blame and derision component, and a scapegoat group - "Liberals" the new word for Goebbels "kike", said in the same way they used to say "nigger".
When Joe Average gets off work, he turns to what looks and acts like a snazzy news channel with juicy murder stories and gossip, but it is in fact a government controlled propaganda channel, packaged a little different, a little less outrage, but here we get the technique of confrontation, and like the Communist counterpoint, the "Liberals" are picked for their stupidity, or for the known negative image they have with the target audience, or because they look weird, like Colmes, who looks like a frigging space alien, while those on your side are handsome and articulate, and of course the slanted news stories always contains something about the "On Message" propaganda story of the day that Joe has heard on the way home.
We Democrats have been chumps. We don't know any of this, and they use our ignorance against us. We do all the wrong things. For example the Democratic Party is clueless on the correct use of the confrontational component. You never use confrontation on the people you are trying to win over to your side who may be open to your message. We are ignorant of all this psy-ops that is going on, because our leadership is not made up of Cold War war pigs. To make it worse, we supply way to many confrontational images that actually confront the sensibilities of working people, like that asshole idiot Whoopi Goldberg making gentalia jokes about the President of the United States, something you or I here might find amusing, but a working class person is going to see in an entirely different light, and something that is only going to prime the rightwing propaganda weapon with new ammo. Kerry, the blind policy wonk, should have condemned this in no uncertain terms, in fact he missed his "Sister Solja" moment, and instead gave the Repug machine what it needed.
We constantly let the other side maneuver us into all of the situations I described above. For example, instead of talking about "human rights" or "the pursuit of happiness" or "Liberty and Justice for All", loaded terms that appeal to fundamental beliefs of working Americans in a positive way, we are talking about "gay rights" or "alternative lifestyles" or "Affirmative Action", terms that appeal to the negative prejudices of the working class. The key to fighting them is to use a different phraseology, one where we are really saying the same things but in broader terms that emphasize the underlying principles that just about all Americans are in favor of.
I do not like the terms "Liberal" or "Progressive". Both say things to a working class voter, in fact they have been hypnotized to think "Big Government". I believe the best moniker is simply "Democrat" or even better "Democratic". The word democracy is one the right dare not demonize, and also I can say things like "I guess on that issue, I am a pretty conservative Democrat".
A lot of this is common sense. If you are dealing with a right wing ideologue, be confrontational, but in a respectful way, and confront the ideas not the person, and keep the cultural sensitivities of working smucks foremost in your mind. Any working class observer will respect you for standing up for your ideas, if you do it in away that confronts your opponent but does not offend or confront the cultural sensitivities of the people you are trying to persuade. The Republicans have become expert at this techique.
When speaking directly to them, be persuasive, and use terms and phrases that appeal to broad positive ideas about human rights - get to know the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees that we are all equal before the law, and the Bill of Rights, and cite them whenever you can to support your arguments. If you want to argue for rights of gay people put it in those terms, and stay away from the specific "loaded" words like "gay"or "alternate lifestyle" or "marriage". Simply say things like "well I am in favor of all people having the right to engage in the pursuit of happiness if it does not hurt me in any way." Or "we should all have equal rights before the law - its guaranteed in the consitution".
Stay away from two minefields - Affirmative Action, which no working class white guy in this country supports and we need to unload like a bad turd, IMO. Especially stay away from the gun issue. The gun control issue has lost us more of the traditional democratic base, it has cost us more working class voters who would vote for us other wise, than any single issue I can think of. Post 9-11, it is a total loser for us. Soccer/Security Mom is now OK with NASCAR Dad having an assault rifle in the closet, so he can shoot the terrorists who want to kill her kids. Myself, after listening to Michael Savage, I have changed my position on it too, and I can see now why it is in the Bill of Rights. In the end we will win this.
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