Strategy Paper No. 1: The Dead Baby Strategy

(Note: This is the first in a series of strategy papers for the long term defeat of the christo-fascist republican machine. I did not post this in one of the many general threads about "what we should do is..." because I would like to suggest that we post particular individual strategies, with details for implementation and requests for comments.)

Dead Baby Strategy

Evangical christianity is, as many DUers have pointed out, a fundamentally illogical and faith based way of looking at the world. Nevertheless, it can also contain a language and a logic with which it is possible to confront and challenge its adherents. Despite what the republicans would have you believe, faith based communities do not necessarily fall on one side of the political divide or another. The abolitionists were evangical christians, as were the feminist suffragettes and both white and black church based supporters of the civil rights movement.

One of the issues most important to southern evangical conservatives is abortion, which they perceive to be "killing babies" rather than a form of birth control that is not much different from the IUD, in that both basically remove a fertilized egg from the womb.

If evangicals perceive abortion to be the killing of unborn babies, we should confront them with the killing of "born babies" -- namely children in Iraq. I propose we chose a target experimental southern, suburban, republican market -- suburban Atlanta or Birmingham, perhaps -- and inundate the target market with images of battered, wounded, decapitated, and disemboweled children from the Iraq war. In order to break through the anti fact bubble of their ordinary media outlets, such as Fox news and RW radio, I propose purchasing outdoor billboards, strategically chosen to maximize the probabiliy that the target market will see these images.

The images should be accompanied by a short, simple and cryptic text lines, such as "Stop the killing of the babies -- born and unborn." The images accompanying this text should be as disturbing and graphic as is possible.

The target market should be surveyed using opinion polling methods concerning support for the Iraq war and bush's handling of the war, both before the campaign and after the campaign. A separate control market not exposed to the images should aslo be polled to ensure that any change in support for the war is not caused by exogenous events or images. The campaign should last for about four months.

The origins of the messages should not be transparent. Because this target market tends to believe or discount news depending on the sources (Fox = truth; NY Times, liberals, democrats = lies), the source of the messages should also be cryptic, although suggestive that the source is a faith based, charitable missionary organization -- for example, "Christian Children's Mission to Iraq," or some such "astro turf" organizational name.

The cost of billboards in this market is about $400-$500 per month. The billboards should be placed for maximum penetration, on routes between neighborhoods and workplaces, and near republican mega-churches. The goal would be for the typical suburban, evangical republican to see the images at least twice a day commuting to work and several times on Sunday. The entire experimental phase of the campaign would cost in the range of $15,000 including billboards and polling.

If the billboards have the effect of weakening the support of this target audience for the war or at least questioning the collateral damage produced by the war, the experiment should be extended to other markets.

It may not work for many of the fundies though, because I don't think they really truly in their hearts give a damn about unborn babies. They certainly don't care about the ones who are born.

it is not designed to change every fundie republican. It is designed to "peel off" a small portion -- those who can be reached through the logic of their own belief system. Other strategies can be used for other demographics.

To people who really do care about life.

...gives a rat's buttocks about Iraqi babies, but I don't. These are in large measure the same hypocrites who cheer the bombing of foreign countries, support the subjegation of poor brown people to support the Amerikan way of life, and view Islamic children as especially deserving of attention from the military industrial complex, i.e. either kill them or enslave them. My family is overwhelmingly composed of evangelicals so I'm not just making this up. Most would not endorse such a bald-faced statement of their attitudes, I presume, but most nonetheless consider poor brown children "over there" to be beneath contempt, suitable only for keeping the salt mines in operation or to provide target practice to keep the military sharp.

Don't look to the "moral values" crowd for moral behavior, IMO.

Dead Iraqi babies are considered "collateral damage" by people who still believe "they" attacked "us".

Those are not white Christian babies.

and their truth gives lie to the notion that these people are, in any shape, manner, or form, true Christians . . . they are pseudo-Christians, Christianoids, phonies who care only about themselves and the other "chosen ones" and couldn't give a shit about the rest of humanity, never mind the rest of Creation . . . I despise these people for their hypocrisy . . .

but again, I am not trying to convert or convince all of them -- just an experiment to see what percentage can be peeled.

Also, aren't these the same people who send money to help the "starving children in Africa" programs we seen on Pat Robertson's Family Channel?

I realize they don't think brown babies are human, but they seem to have sympathy for them, like they have for puppies or kittens, don't you think?

I think your plan will effect a very small portion of fundamentalists against abortion (I'll explain more). Your ideas will however have the most effect on liberals and young people who have not formed their opinion on the matter. For that reason it is a worthwhile effort, and I encourage you.

The problem with abortion in the mind of the fundamentalist Christian is that pregnancy (unwanted pregnancy) is a sin. Abortion is seen as a woman's evil intent to avoid the consequences of her sin by murdering a child.

It is interesting to me that these people are taught that God sacrificed his own son Jesus for the good of humanity, but they cannot understand that a woman may have to sacrifice a developing fetus for her own well being and the well being of her other existing children.

We need a liberal Christian movement that addresses these misguided religious ideas.

Thank you again for your efforts.

Thank you for your explanation. If I understand you correctly, their approach to abortion is the Watergate approach -- the coverup is worse than the crime??? or am i missing something?

fundamentalist Christians will refer back to the story of Adam and Eve and the fig leaves. Adam and Eve's attempt to cover their nakedness with fig leaves was a sin. (Covering one's sin is a sin).

Yes, the cover up is as bad as the crime.

On Edit:

Two sins are worse than one--and covering one's sin holds more weight. (It's worse)

Pictures of dead babies aren't going to win over many hearts and minds. Speaking to people in a language they already understand about what matters to them most will get us a lot further.

For example, there are plenty of extremely conservative Christians who regard much of the religious right as heretics. I see their stuff sometimes when I'm researching right-wing groups online.

One site I run into a lot is http://www.seekgod.ca/index.htm which states "This website is an independent Christian research and apologetics ministry focusing on Christian Articles to Encourage, and Research Articles to Warn about the Global Ecumenical Movement, (One World Religion) involving groups from the Occult and New Age, to Evangelicals, Catholics, Pentecostals, Jews, Charismatics, Hebrew Roots and others. ... The apostasy of specific leadership or organizations is exposed. This site is specifically for Believers in Jesus Christ and those seeking answers to today's problems."

There are also liberal Christians online, like the excellent blogger at http://slacktivist.typepad.com who sees end-times theology as heretical (because it presumes to know the will of God -- or even to manipulate God magically through manipulating worldly events) and has the arguments to prove it.

We might also point out to Christians that the separation of church and state wasn't originally a secular idea. It was invented by Roger Williams, founder of the Baptist Church, because he felt that absolute freedom of conscience lay at the heart of religion and could only be corrupted by association with worldly ends.

Fundamentalism is a simple faith for people who are baffled by the ambiguities of the modern world and seek easy answers. But if they are genuine Christians, it ought to be possible to point out to them that their own religion is far more complex and more demanding than the version offered by the tv evangelicals.

And it also wouldn't hurt to suggest that Christianity was essentially hijacked by the hard right back in the 1980's because they knew that was the only way to get into power and enforce their essentially secular agenda of domination and control.