Blame, Shame and Train

[tavalon]

As I was waking up this morning, living as I do, in a blue city of a blue state and living as a happy, thoughtful, pagan, polyamorous single woman, I remembered where I came from.

I remembered how and where I was raised from age 13-18 years. Odd thing to wake up to, eh? But there really is a point. See, last night I went to sleep thinking about what I would like to discuss at the moveon.org meetup that I'm going to this afternoon. Strange as it might seem, they are quite connected.

Alas, you will get the raw, mostly untamed stuff here. hopefully it will lead to some sort of coherent conclusion. Probably not, but one can always hope.

See, the thing is, the fundamentalist christians, just like the catholics and almost all of the other religions may espouse their religious values but what they really want is power and power is achieved through a large base of support. Now, unless you have a rock solid, perfect product, it doesn't serve you to have your base spending a lot of time thinking about what you're selling. You just want them to buy it and keep buying it. The Southern Baptists (and I would guess most fundamentalist christian sects) train people through the generations to follow the leader, unquestioningly. They promise in return, the simpler life, a life uncluttered with the grays that the leaders must grapple with. They offer a chance for people to go back to the glory days when Mom and Dad made the decisions and the hardest thing one had to figure out was what the next game to play was.

When I ended up at the First Baptist Church of Summerfield, I ended up there because I went to live with my grandparents when I was 13. Now, lucky for me, unlucky for the Baptist church and my poor beleaguered pastor, I had learned rudimentary critical thinking (though how I did, being trained in public school, is beyond me) and so I asked a lot of how and why questions about the religion. I was told over and over that I needed to take it on faith and trust my leaders. As a child, that was to be my grandfather who would in turn trust in the pastor who would in turn trust the Southern Baptist Convention and not to worry, Jesus was entwined in the whole thing. As a future wife, I was to trust the head of my household, my husband, who would trust the pastor......you get the idea. The metaphor that they liked to throw around a lot was the shepherd (Jesus) with his flock (the sheep - us). Sheep don't think, they don't have to, they just have to follow the shepherd. This was offered up with the first milk of life with these folks. It's training at mama's knee. Questioning anything is looked down upon. This has been going on for generations. They have bred, not stupid people, but people who have been trained to not think, to leave the thinking to the religious leaders.

Obviously, I got out and in the ensuing 22+ years, I had forgotten most of that but it was back this morning. Why? Because, when I was 18, my grandfather told me to just go into the voting booth and pull the Democratic ticket. If I were 18 now, that same grandfather would tell me to go into the voting booth and pull the Republican ticket. Would my grandfather have changed his values? No, his values always were to trust that his church knew best. His church, along with many other fundamentalist sects made an unholy deal with the Republicans that he would be totally unaware of nor would he question the change, for he was trained not to.

Blame, Shame and Train? Yep, that's what I think we need to do and most of it needs to be done with media help. So unfortunately, we need to figure out how to get an effective media. That will be for other posts. Let me tell you my strategy in a short, pithy, nutshell for that is the way it must be. We need to train ourselves to present the grays as not so gray because we can't teach people how to think (at least not by the time they are adult and we can't reach them when they are young unless we get ourselves back in the game) but we can tell them what to think. It's what the fundamentalists have been doing for generations and it's why the Republicans, in forming their unholy alliance have been able to steal the christian base from the Democrats (massive oversimplification - bite me). We need to point the finger at every nasty thing the Republicans do from here on out - blame, blame, blame and we need to frame the blaming. We need to shame the religious leaders for getting into bed with the bad guys - first shine the light on what they've done (blame) and then try to shame them into moving back toward us (an extremely dangerous game - equivalent to getting into a viper pit). There is no use shaming the politicians, they are without moral values or even much of a pretense of them but shining a light continuously and in a way that can be easily assimilated by non-thinking people (BTW, non-thinking is different from stupid. My grandparents were not stupid people - they were lured by the simple folk meme). We can't teach these people but we can and must retrain them. We must convince them that we know better how to help them live happy, easy, thoughtless lives but we won't do it unless we shame their leaders into following us.

That's an awful lot of stuff, much of which I don't know how to begin to achieve but I know it requires that we build a media of our own. One that has sat at the knee of the likes of Pat Robertson, Faux news and Karl Rove and learned their techniques better than they have themselves. If that ain't enough to make you sick, nothing will. Unfortunately, as evil as that unholy trinity is, they are genius at the Blame, Shame and Train maneuvers. They are at least as good as the Germans were and much more stealthy.

At the ripe old age of 41, I am still a starry eyed idealist who believes fervently in the new deal and much of what came out of the mouth of JFK (the first one) but I am also a pragmatist. We must take back the fundamentalists, not through changing our values (which are far better than the Republicans, sorry if that chaps anyone's butts) but through changing our tactics and our way of getting our message out.

I broke the first rule right here. KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid. Congeal it down to the simplest of phrases and then repeat, repeat, repeat.

That off my chest, I am now going to make brownies for the Moveon.org meetup.

[tavalon]

1. Replying to my own post - how pathetic

But I noticed another thread that completely ties in:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1378240&mesg_id=1378240

[Cheswick2.0]

2. I agree

People need to be retrained. We don't have to cave on important issues, what we have to do is bring people to us.

[tavalon]

5. Depends on who you mean by "we"

There are many of us out here putting in 50 hour weeks on top of our regular jobs to work on the stolen election issues. Our leader caved and maybe that was a savvy move or maybe he just didn't have any more fight or a million other theories. But we are not done with the stealing of the election, not by a long shot. Who will be sworn in on January 20th. Dubya, unfortunately, we will not be able to stop that but this is a smoldering fire and it is the smoldering fires that topple administrations, not just clandestine blow jobs.

[PATRICK]

3. Our pessimistic and

all merciful Savior "Do not cast your pearls in front of pigs or they will turn on you and eat you."

Find the good people. Work together and move on. There is no time for the deniers. education does not work. Ideas do not work. Example does not work. Affinity with the heart has to catch on, not impressive argumentation. people either recognize the truth or inoculate themselves against it.

Unfortunately we are in a critical time, not a ideal paradise of democratic debate over what is "best". Keep positive. Keep moving. keep building and fighting. And if needs be sacrifice. If people come around you can be very happy indeed, but don't wait for it.

[kaitykaity]

4. This is great stuff. I am of a similar age (40)

and of similar background (I told the Nazarene Church to
fuck off when I was 12).

If I may make a suggestion?

The short pithy stuff is great, but it's too hidden inside
a lot of words that people won't get to. If you want to be
short and pithy, be short and pithy. Don't say you're going
to be short and pithy and then be wordy and prolific.

Have fun at the MoveOn meeting.

:hi:

[tavalon]

6. I know

it is my great failing. I'm actually signing up for a writing class this spring. I have ideas and understandings as useful as Will Pitts but he is a much finer writer. I want to learn to be a better (read - short and pithy) writer.

[kaitykaity]

10. Yes, you do have some fine ideas and understandings.

I applaud your willingness to still give a cr*p about these
people. My attitude since the election has been if this is what
they want, then a pox on them and their houses.

I have no empathy for them and no desire to save them from
themselves.

The trick with writing is practice. Practice, practice,
practice. The best writers all say classes are fine, but the
one thing guaranteed to make you a better writer is to
write. Write. Every. Day. (At least that's what I read
in the Writer's Group here. You checked that out yet?)

[tavalon]

12. I haven't looked at the writers group yet. I will.

As far as caring, I know many of these people have hearts of gold even though they've been trained to follow their leaders. Remember, while I did end up leaving the Church, I watched them care for their own and have a community that was beautiful, if simple minded. They've been true to what they've been taught - to trust their leaders. If I weren't a dyed in the wool Dem, I would say their leaders need to be taken out and summarily executed. I don't believe in the death penalty and besides, they are snakes, what else should we expect from snakes.

[kaitykaity]

13. I guess I don't care if they have "hearts of gold."

They are still responsible for themselves as adults, and
"following the leader" or "doing what you're taught" is no
excuse. Adults with brains are smart enough to see for
themselves the moral bankruptcy of their leaders.

Gawd, this reminds me of all of the stories about the Good
Germans. "How could the Good Germans let this happen?"
By doing exactly what these people you're talking about are
doing.

It's so damn easy to swallow the pill. To accept everything
on faith and have an easy answer to every question.

..... / rant averted / .....


on edit: and idiot that I am, I just noticed your sig. :spank:

[tavalon]

14. See my sig line

This mentality I'm speaking of is the same one, the exact same one that allowed Hitler to consolidate his power and do the things he did. One is immediately discounted if one places Hitler in the same sentence with the Bush administration (I always have to caveat with the administration addendum because I strongly believe that Bush himself is mostly a figurehead), however the correlations are there, even if it is dismissed as rabid rhetoric.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but an awful lot of those people who turned a blind eye in the Hitler regime were, on a personal level, good, kind people who chose to rely unthinkingly, unquestioningly, on their leaders.

I don't say they lack culpability but I do say that they have extremely impaired ability to problem solve. They are kindergartners in adult clothing. There may well be more of that type of person than adult, critical thinkers. After all, 50% or so of the voting populous voted without caring to know the issues. How many non-voters do you think cared to think about the issues. Not many, I'd venture, so we can add them to the 50% of followers who don't think.

on edit: I sent this just as you were posting. It crossed in the mail so my headline isn't really necessary but I will leave it as such.

[kaitykaity]

15. Similar, but with a caveat.

The Nazis and those good Germans were not bulwarked by the
added component of fundamentalist religion. There was nationalism
and the tendency to do as one was told, as German society as about
as regimented a one as you will ever see. But religion didn't play
as big a role there.

My point being that these religions have many, many defense
mechanisms within them that treat all skepticism and questioning
as "heresy" or "sin." It's the "my way is the only right way"
thing that makes this situation so damn dangerous.

I do have to take exception to the idea that because these
people are simple-minded as children that they are blameless
and good. That's simply not good enough.

Many of them take great pride in their status as believers, and
would take unkindly to the idea that they need saving from
anything.

[tavalon]

16. Blameless?

I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. They are no more blameless than the Nazi's who we're just doing what they were told. It's just that I've seen the humans behind the zombies so I know they have a human part that can be coaxed out. But, I also know the machine of the fundies so I know the daunting task we are after. These were early morning musings that do not have nearly enough solutions, however, to write off that base that was once ours, is to guarantee that we sit on the sidelines from here on out in Jesusland.......

I suspect none of us wants that, so when we collectively get over our pissed off-ness with the red fundie sect, we have to re-learn how to woo them, so that in a couple of generations, we can have the opportunity to teach their young how to think. Otherwise, we don't get back into the game and we never get a chance to turn the tide. Now, mind you, in this, I am not advocating that we teach those young to think so that they turn away from Jesus - Christianity (capital C, not the fundie small c) is as valid a religion as any and I don't advocate depriving anyone of their chosen religion.

[coloradodem2005]

7. THe holier than thou make an unholy alliance.

With the Republicans.

[tavalon]

8. I'm not sure what you're saying

are you reparaphrasing what I said?

[coloradodem2005]

9. Yes.

That is what I was doing. In reference to your saying that the Republicans have stolen the religious away from the Democrats.

[tavalon]

11. I can add to that to call out the unholy trinity

The repugs, the fundies and the media. And what an unholy alliance they are! And yet, from a power perspective, hugely successful.

That's why, as nasty as it is, we need people with strong stomachs to infiltrate and learn from these creatures. They are nasty, but effective. Pragmatically, we must steal their techniques.