Meme pool - Let's launch some new ones

[scottxyz]

Summary: You know memes work - let's launch a few of our own. Anytime you hear a (Democratic) meme you think could take hold in our media or national discussion, submit it to this thread!

Some starters:

"the Bin Laden family airlift"
"the fourteen-minute gap"
"a new Pearl Harbor"
"gateway lies"

= = =

Details: I know, I know - a lot of you hate that new-fangled word "meme" - if you don't like it, just call it a "slogan" or "soundbite" or something.

Whatever you call 'em, memes are very effective in driving the political discussion in this country. The best memes are thought up by public-relations and advertising types and carefully tested on focus groups before being unleashed (like some kind of "designer virus") on an unsuspecting population.

Recall some of the more successful Republican memes:

"death tax"
"welfare queen"
"partial-birth abortion"
"soft on crime"
"weak on defense"

Some Democratic memes:

"corporate welfare"
"faith-based intelligence", "faith-based economics"
"LIHOP - Let It Happen On Purpose"

Some old and emerging memes I've noticed on AirAmerica today:

"Mayberry Machiavellis"

"disengaged"
"asleep at the wheel"
"clearing brush"


I really think memes can be an effective way of advancing the debate - and I think we can easily brainstorm and focus-group-test memes on a DU thread.

I'd like to contribute the following ones:

"the Bin Laden family airlift" (over the objections of the FBI, on 9/12 while US airspace was closed)

"the fourteen-minute gap" (after the first plane hit the World Trade Center - while Bush sat reading The Hungry Goat to second-graders)

"a new Pearl Harbor"

"gateway lies" (invented by Randi Rhodes today on AirAmerica - talking about how little Administration lies embolden them to bigger lies)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

1. This is Plato's Idea World with a snazzy name

But the concept is a sound one. Especially the replicating part. Richard Dawkins is da bomb. Buy his books. Now. I command you.

Edit: DOuble CAps

[DenverDem]

2. I don't understand the ludditian hate of "meme".

The meme is a double edged sword that we can harness for our own good.

[calimary]

3. About time we did, too. It is CRITICAL to shape the agenda OUR WAY.

Seizing the language and using it to reflect more accuracy, truth, and the side (ours) which gets short shift everywhere - is what we need to do - and HAVE needed to do, for ages.

Newt Gingrich got a MAJOR leg-up on this, years ago, when he issued his little manifesto at the start of his "GOPAK" maneuvers. He wrote up a lexicon of "good" words and phrases to use when discussing all things republi-CON and right-wing, and "bad" words and phrases for discussions of all things Democrat and liberal. How, even, to redefine the word "liberal" as something filthy and unamerican. We've got a lot of lost ground to make up.

[scottxyz]

4. "shaking the trees"

"shaking the trees"

This meme was launched by Clarke.

I like it a lot better than "connecting the dots".

Another Clarke meme:

"going to battle stations" - Shorthand for those top-level meetings (Prez and heads of CIA, FBI, NSC) you have every day when there's lots of chatter.

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. Banana Republicans

Turning America into a 3rd World nation.

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. About the 14 minute gap

That was after Bush was told about the SECOND WTC plane.

[shockingelk]

7. Bush: The $6 Trillion Man

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0405.html

"Widening the White House’s growing credibility gap, a new report released today by John Kerry for President reveals that President Bush has proposed or passed $6 trillion in new, unpaid initiatives during the first three years of his administration."

[checks-n-balances]

8. Bush's "Enron Economics"

Unless I missed it somewhere before, that was coined by an audience member today at Kennedy's speech. Hope this label is repeated enough nationally until enough people here finally "get it" (the rest of the world already senses or knows it). The Repubs' economic AND foreign policies are riddled with self-serving sweetheart deals and other components that deceive - and subsequently steal from - the "little people" who aren't part of their privileged elite.

[mouse7]

9. The Division-leading Detroit Tigers

That's a good new meme!

[central scrutinizer]

10. Red Ink Republicans

alliteration is always good, or

Borrow and Spend

Birth Tax

[cheezus]

11. fica = work tax. capital gains = wealth tax