Thursday, January 05, 2006

Tracing the message of conservatives

Ever make a mistake? Ever say something really stupid? Better hope your not an opponent of a conservative political candidate.

Their method is this:

Find one stupid thing that somebody has said or done and DEFINE that person by it. You remember, flip-flopper... It's beyond judgemental, it's simplisticly psychotic.

Would you like to be defined like that? That's what conservatives and perfectionists do to people (I've done it, just ask me about a mysogistic actor I know).

Hey you, you're that person who said women drivers should be shot.
Over there, you didn't pay your credit card bill on time.
I'm going to come after you and remind you of that over and over and over--welcome to the 21st century in rightwing politics.

This is what the right did to Cindy Sheehan. Forget that she was a grieving mother, an anti-war protestor, a passionate patriot. She lost her mind and said that foreign fighters in Iraq were fighting for freedom. Naive, yes, evil, no.

But do a simple web search and you will find page after page of conservative news sources and blogs reporting this single, crazy comment.

I tried to look up when Bush was interviewed by Brian Williams and made the comment that he "generally means it" when he takes the blame for things (regarding Katrina).

No one noticed. I couldn't even find it on a website of Bushisms. Our president IS a fake, according to his actions in this war (meeting with experts for 45 MINUTES this morning?!?! Woo, got a lot done there!), social security and environmental actions, but no one notices.

Good thing we've got Cindy Sheehans number, though, eh? Oh, and remember that Delay and Libby are just being tried on technicalities.

The rightwing, "It's not what we DO it's what you SAY." Ugh!

Peace.

Beware of the war on whatever

In regard to the post below, I meant to point out that only a fearmonger would frame small issues and problems with events as a "WAR on Christmas." It's a cynical and conscious attempt to generate fear and hatred in people. No one I know would be offended by being wished Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays (Jew, Christian, Muslim or Buddhist). Any wish is meant kindly, for G_D's sake. And again, as I mentioned in Who's Stroking Your Holiday (below), who cares who Sears and KMart markets to? Isn't Christmas about Christ's birth?

I've been noticing that a lot of conservatives use bullying tactics in their communication, like "You should," "People should," "This is how it is," and liberals tend to use "I" or non-offensive language, like "I worry that..." "I feel that..." "I think that..." It's fascinating and reflects our different philosophies on life and human relationships (I must admit, I was more like a conservative in my first marriage--shudder).

Peace,
Urban Pink

Do we want to be right or to win?

The problem with liberals is that we can't escape our elite intelligence. We are so damn smart that we think that being right is all that matters. Letterman cut through this elitism with an effective knife last night when he said to Bill O'Reilly (I paraphrase), "You know I'm not smart enough to go fact by fact with you but I just get the feeling that 60% of what you say is crap." Not only was Letterman right, he was right without sounding like an elitist.

That isn't true on the this web site's comments: Media Matters An argument ensues between a conservative and liberal over the meaning of "comparison." The argument goes so far off course of the original idea, that O'Reilly is full of crap, and just becomes a glaring example of how liberals lose arguments. It's like being in a fight and pulling a single hair instead of punching someone in the gut.

We try to be right.
We try to be perfect.

If you'll notice, conservatives generally don't try to be either for their folks (the dumber the better, just look at our President). But they do point fingers at us when we're imperfect (Cindy Sheean), which makes us shudder and weaken (Oh no! We're not perfect!). Then they continue the fight by bullying and striking fear into people. We need to point this out, over and over, and tell people we have an optimistic plan for the future. Who cares if we're right on the facts (we generally are and this doesn't win admirers) and on the definition of words (of course we are, and this makes people feel inferior). We need to get along and lead our way out of this mess of fear and fake perfectionism.