Hey guys - if I may - I'd like to start a series of discussions regarding "Going On OFFENSE."

[calimary]

As a matter of fact, I think I'll call it that.

I think we need to start thinking and strategizing ON OFFENSE. Hijacking the kkkarl rove strategies and RNC playbook pages, and turning them to weapons we can use in OUR favor. Indeed, weaponizing their strategies - OUR way, for a change.

Any thoughts? I've written some insufferably (I'm SURE!) long posts here and there that I actually think are worthy of more DUers' consideration. Look where we are - with our backs against the wall, relatively un-organized, trying all kinds of things that haven't worked and have lost us ground on the issues and the progress that we have all worked toward for decades and on which we are now losing ground, dramatically, and all over the place. I'd like to make some of those posts into separate threads, or chapters if you will, that might help some of us organize our thoughts further and ourselves into more effective activists or groups of activists.

We need new attack strategies. Based on NEW ways of thinking and analyzing conditions that surround us now. I think there are many gold nuggets to be found in there, that we can use and exploit. I think maybe such discussions might lend themselves to developing new ways to attack, rebut, refute, deflate, splinter, confuse, confound the enemy. And let's be clear. They are THE ENEMY. The forces against us - teabagger, religious extremist, extremist CONservative, corporatist, willfully ignorant, and apathetic - and the well-organized RNC/GOP/etc infrastructure - are formidable. And they are ADAMANTLY against us. They want to destroy and dismantle EVERYTHING we've built and worked so hard to develop and put into place for the benefit of ALL, not just the privileged few.

We need to religiously, relentlessly, even militantly reinforce OUR message and do it in unexpected and more clever and creative and yes, DEVIOUS ways.

First of all - let's establish our camp: illustrated quite nicely by this essay: "A Day in the Life of Joe Republican"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/21/1093478/-A-Day-in-the-Life-of-Joe-Republican

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[bemildred]

1. I think offending some people is a duty and an honor. nt

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

2. The left cannot compete with the gargantuan RW propaganda machine until wealthy Dems

begin donating huge sums of money for the purpose of a multifaceted counterattack. The depth and breadth of the glorification and reinforcement of RW ideals is tantamount to a very successful indoctrination program to which people willingly submit simply by participating in society, and particularly by consuming all facets of the corporate controlled media. Both overt and covert operations are used. The left seems to have neither the capital nor the will (imho, due to failure to recognize the full scope of the attack) to defeat this particular enemy-the propaganda machine itself.

Here's a bit from a piece that better says what I'm trying to say and suggests remedies.

Still other wealthy individuals and institutions may have to be persuaded to help fund the progressive media counter-revolution. However, that may not be difficult once it is made clear that “The Democratic Mainstream” is today somewhat to the right of what used to be called “Moderate Republicanism,” that the success of the U.S. economy depends on a productive manufacturing base, an educated work force and a robust physical infrastructure, and that the present economy, as celebrated and promoted by The American Enterprise Institute, et al, is leading the country in a direction that no informed citizen, whatever his income status, would want to follow.

The scope and power of regressive propaganda now at work is enormous and profoundly discouraging to those who would oppose it. But, in the final analysis, the progressives have a formidable and invincible ally: reality. Facts, as John Adams observed, “are stubborn things.” And the scientists will continue to discover and validate stubborn facts, regardless of what the right would prefer them to disclose regarding evolution, global climate, or whatever. In addition, the majority of Americans are facing each day the brutal reality of regressive economic policies as they lose their jobs, their homes, adequate health care, and the prospect of sending their children to college and on to rewarding careers. No amount of high-volume propaganda and media dominance can obscure these hard facts.

Even so, this much remains compellingly clear: unless and until the progressive left develops an effective media voice, there can be no restoration of American democracy, no return to political sanity, and no establishment of economic justice.

Why the Left Has No Answer to the Right-Wing Lie Machine
By Ernest Partridge, The Crisis Papers

[SoLeftIAmRight]

5. 40 thinktanks with a billion dollars each year - and the media

they have a propaganda advantage

We will have to use different methods.

[davidpdx]

6. What method?

I agree we are outgunned in terms of money and the slant of the media. Technology has to be involved in some way.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

8. Or we could convince wealthy Dems to give more effing money for the cause. Media rules.

[longship]

3. I recommend a Xpost in GD.

With links to the individual posts.

Well done, calimary. Very well done indeed.

R& this one, too.

[littlemissmartypants]

4. Thanks love, I read them all. You rock. eom

[Cosmocat]

7. What you are doing is necessary

I think the very best analogy of current politics is this - it is like a Harlem Globetrotters exhibition.

The Republicans are like the Globetrotters, the show, doing all the fancy tricks and the Democrats are like the Washington Generals, waving their arms, but never moving their feet or even trying to do anything.

That is part of why the republicans are all over the place, the democrats are so weak right now, the republican's don't even have a common enemy to focus on. THAT is how bad it is.

Sadly, the lack of responses to your posts are telling - apathy reigns.

[Cal33]

9. Hi Calimary: It's great that you are doing something like this. I am quite involved with something

right now, and can spend only a little time with DU every now and then at the present time.

May I make a suggestion? We have only 4 months left until Election Day in November. And
Democrats are notorious for turning out in low numbers in non-presidential election years.
This could spell DOOM for us! A Democratic president could do next to nothing if both Houses
should be Republican. Let's make sure that both Houses will become Democratic this November.
Then work on having a Democratic president in 2016. But Nov. 2014 should come first. Success
in almost everything else depends on our winning both Houses this November!

WE NEED DEMOCRATS TO TURN OUT IN LARGE NUMBERS ACROSS THE BOARD COME NOVEMBER!
This should be our top priority. It is the MOST IMORTANT OFFENSIVE I can think of for the coming 4
months.

Thanks so much for coming up with this great idea, and the best of luck to your (and our) enterprise!
I hope many DUers will take an active part in whatever capacity they are capable of.

I have a strong feeling that things are coming to a head as of now and the coming few years. We
can't live in our present limbo any longer. We either make it or we sink!