Being a Liberal won't let you win, but it's the right thing to do.

[Ron Green]

Let's face it - in a world of increasing violence and dwindling resources, Right Wing fearmongers will always have the upper hand in convincing people to mistrust and hate each other, and can thus push the world toward Fascism. For example, the least-qualified person ever to occupy the White House got installed there a second time after having bungled his first term in so many ways. Despite electoral irregularities, many millions of Americans nevertheless voted for this dangerous person.

This means that a clear wrong message is stronger than a complex good one. Liberals have a thoughtful and "nuanced" view of the world rather than the black-and-white picture packaged and flogged by the Right. However, in their willingness to tolerate the varieties of human life and expression, Liberals have not and will never, in my view, prevail upon the political stage, because their message will always be trumped by a base appeal to fear.

Many Right Wingers claim to have the "big picture" in which our Neocon leaders will steadfastly protect our way of life from enemies. The unfortunate fact is that this is indeed the biggest picture that can be sold to masses of people. The true Big Picture, that we can have a better life on earth by reversing our non-sustainable ways and engaging in true diplomacy, is much too elegant and subtle for easy packaging. So although we have the higher moral ground, we'll never win the day. Or the campaign.

Your thoughts?

[Montauk6]

1. In 2000, Florida; in 2004, Ohio

I'm just wondering if it's at all PLAUSIBLE that, while these are the respective high-profile areas for discrepancies, there may have been count issues in other states.

[Ron Green]

5. I wouldn't be surprised if there were count issues in many places, given

the mendacity of the Right Wing. I'm less surprised, but very dismayed, that elections were even CLOSE after the miserable 4 years and the clownish debate performances.

[Montauk6]

13. Also, there were a lot of folks who stayed at home.

[Ron Green]

15. They stay home from the polls, but they sure as hell don't stay home from

Wal*Mart.

[Montauk6]

16. Ain't THAT the truth!

You're also talking about folks who'll not muster up the motivation to wake up super early on one day every four years to get to the polls before the lines build, yet they'll hit the malls like clockwork the day after Thanksgiving for holiday shopping. Heck, they'll even brave the throngs to get to the stores at 6 PM on Christmas Eve!!!!

[porphyrian]

18. Good movie about the 2000 election...

Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election

http://imdb.com/title/tt0346091/

See it if you haven't, or if you like to be angry.

[rosesaylavee]

2. If the masses like

simple messages, we can certainly simplify the Dem message for 2006... it could be "Throw the Idiots Out" or "Its the Economy, Stupid" or...

Losing the 'nuance', however, is not the answer. Someday the pendulum will swing back - I predict within the next 5 years - and that being 'smart' and understanding the complexities of running the country will be highly valued again.

I have never appreciated it when the 'grownups' in Washington have assumed I, as a tax-paying citizen, couldn't understand their decisions. I am tired of talking points and I imagine I am not alone.

[Ron Green]

4. You and I both are tired of talking points.

But Plato knew that talking points ("Rhetoric" back then) would sway the masses, who he felt were incapable of governing themselves very directly. I don't think it's any different now. We need better talking points than the RW, but the problem is that when we go deeper into ideas, the eyes of the masses glaze over and they once again respond to Fear.

[Montauk6]

14. I prefer "It's your economy and YOUR FUTURE, you bonehead!"

Let's shake these folks outta bed, y'know?

[jobycom]

3. We always win

Why do you think Bush has to lie about what he's doing? Why does he have to tell people "Freedom is on the march?" Why does he sell the Iraq invasion as liberation of the Iraqis?

People want what liberals are selling. But they've been tricked into not trusting the salesman, and instead are buying a conservative product advertising itself in liberal terms.

Remember Bush Daddy's last SOTU? The whole speech was cribbed from candidate Bill Clinton's stump speech. Bush promised increased jobs spending, jobs training, stimulus investments for farmers, increased education, and everything else Clinton was saying. Three months later he was asked why he hadn't implimented any of his ideas. His answer, paraphrasing, was "I never meant any of those things. I just wanted to reassure people so they would stop panicking and start spending again, and that would revive the economy."

He knew the people wanted to hear that their government cared. He just couldn't actually make himself care enough to change his failed policies.

(Also, notice the Republican assumption. Recessions are caused by people not spending. They are cured by making people spend again. Kind of like, trees moving makes the wind blow, so to create more wind, grow more trees.)

[Ron Green]

7. Bush's empty promises, though, are just that. They're unfunded goodies

that will never happen. People want to hear that, and they'll gladly get back to spending, but they don't want to pay the taxes required to fund the promises. And we don't have a leader on our side who's not so craven that he (or she) won't do the same thing: talk about the goodies, but fail to tell the truth, which is that our "way of life" has got to end.

[bryant69]

10. Well political changes or progress is slow in a Democracy

That's the cost of a Democracy.

I don't really know waht the core theme of this post is; it seems to be "We should say what we mean and Politics be damned." I usually don't go along with that argument; we have to win elections to get our programs installed (I also don't agree with the DLC Sellout program either, because what's the point in gaining power if you aren't going to use it to put in good programs).

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Ron Green]

12. When I examine my own core theme, I realize I'm an elitist.

I DON'T believe that people will generally act in their own true interests, including the interest of the group, unless they are somehow educated (instructed, tricked, scared) to do so. This is why rhetoric ("talking points") are effective, and our Administration's talking points, reinforced by careful staging and media management, are working.

What we need is the image of a Gentle and Wise Friend to guide us to do the right thing, but Stern Father is what we really want, to punish us and then give us some candy.

[txaslftist]

19. I'm not an elitist.

Hell, I threw newspapers at night to make the ends meet in the middle for three years. Sitting around at night waiting for the bundles to arrive and rolling and banding them at the warehouse I had some of the best political discussions I ever had.

You think throwing papers isn't the bottom of the economic ladder? Shit, folks were throwing papers at night and getting food stamps. I saw six year old kids bundling papers at 3 a.m., getting in a 20 year old station wagon and trying to sleep through the route so they could get to school in the morning.

And we talked about economics, welfare, politics, war and every other thing you might hear about here. Some of the discussions were simple, some ignorant, but most of them were decidedly not. I found my own political beliefs challenged, and this was after a poli-sci degree and a JD.

The "masses" are neither ignorant nor incapable. They are Americans. They work just as hard now as they ever did, on the whole, and by and large they don't care much about politics unless it impacts them directly. But once it does, they are not to be underestimated or discounted.

[Ron Green]

20. "once it impacts them directly."

There's the crux of it, I think. If we think only of ourselves or our family (or our neighborhood or state or country) we're missing the idea of the common wealth, not only of our own nation, but of the "global village" as well. The RWers can always find a boogeyman and paint Liberals as soft on boogeymen. The boogeyman idea doesn't work as well in the wired global environment, so they've had to play the "us-vs-them" religion card, and that's what's driving it now.

I remember how the Right Wingers decried the specter of "one-worldism" throughout the 60's and 70's, referring of course to the United Nations. They still want to kill it, but they're willing to let the "one-worldism" of the WTO build unholy alliances of capital and fascism, all the while fooling the folks bundling papers into thinking that someone on the other side of the world sewing soccer balls is their enemy.

[rosesaylavee]

8. I didn't know that trees DON'T make the wind blow.

Gosh. You mean trickle down tree planting doesn't cause breezes?

:)

[IntravenousDemilo]

9. Perhaps the lie "freedom is on the march" is more palatable than the truth

about the quagmire. Americans desperately want to believe that their government is doing the right thing, so much so that they put blinders on, or stick their fingers in their ears and go "lalalala" or "I can't hear you" like that boobette who was on C-SPAN with Randi.

The reason for this is that since childhood, American children are inculcated with the idea that America and its citizens are exceptional, and that they can do no wrong. This exceptionalism has taken the form of "the world has banned land mines EXCEPT for the US and a few other countries" or "we'll abide by treaties we've signed EXCEPT when it suits us", and so forth.

We outside the States know better, of course, particularly those of us who live really nearby and have observed them up close all our lives.

[McKenzie]

6. interesting hypothesis that has yet to be tested...but maybe

we've been beguiled by the left-right paradigm when what is really behind all the conflict is a philosophy that is essentially apolitical and amoral. I suppose one could apply political philosophy to the manifestions of what those who adhere to that philosophy peddle and those manifestations would be termed right wing by our standards. Equally, their actions are certainly immoral when measured against what standards decent people use as their moral basis. But I don't believe the real interests who gain from all of the wars, and imperialist adventurism, care much about political philosophy or morality per se.

I'm coming round more and more to the idea that the left-right political see-saw hasn't changed the underlying influence of powerful interests all that much. Warfare and imperialism generate profits; the real financial interests simply reap their profits regardless of the flavour of any given administration. The real threat is when a truly left wing government threatens to destabilise the system from which they profit. Venezuela is a case in point, hence the attempts to destabilise a government that is actually doing something for the poor and cutting out the big financial interests. That's the sort of political adminstration that really threatens their interests.

In case anyone cites the former Soviet Union as evidence of a socialist state, I can't agree. It was a dictatorship that is about as fascist as they get.

[rosesaylavee]

11. There was another thread here in the past few weeks

that indicated that it wasn't the talking points but the person that sold the message... that what people wanted was someone of integrity that communicated that he/she really cared about the people and wanted to honestly address their concerns. Barack Obama was mentioned as someone who fit that description - Bill Clinton had that appeal as well.

Maybe we need a good messenger as well as simplified 'talking points'. (I still hate that term and the idea behind it but am willing to go along with it if Plato said we had to!)

[txaslftist]

17. Corruption, Corporations and Cronyism.

three word liberal message, sufficiently nuanced.

Or, "Government for the people, by the people and of the people instead of government for the corporations, by the sellouts and of the cronies."

There are a gazillion slogans that are clear, direct and pithy. We need candidates with the courage to get out there and say them.