Reply #135: I think it might be because there's so much machinery and energy devoted to pounding away

[calimary]

at the same messages and framings. It seems almost frivolous to say, but I think it boils down to a PR war that our side just doesn't know how to play, much less win.

First of all there's the huge and many-layered infrastructure that is the delivery system of the message. They have umpteen hundred radio stations out there carrying syndicated limbaugh, vanity, beckerhead, and the whole rest of the vile swarm. Many of those who dominate the radio waves (including stations with better signals and in better markets than progressive stations have) also have TV or cable shows to further propagate their talking points. There is a 24/7/365 cable network delivering round-the-clock propaganda ranging from what they cover to how they cover it, and what they say and how they paint their word pictures and what pictures they select to write to.

Second there's the critically-important how. Consider the very recent revelations from MediaMatters.org showing clearly how Pox Noise anchors and reporters are led around by the luntz? Researcher/strategist frank luntz, who three years ago was saying "I don't know how to fight this guy" about Obama, but since then probably has all kinds of ideas. He's one of many, but probably the most successful and well-connected (read: effective) who writes up emails and memos directing the use of language, words and phrases, "say 'government' option", so as to color and poison the topic by hanging dog-whistle-message-type negative descriptions (well, negative to THIS constituency, anyway, since they HATE the government) and thereby manipulate and manage public opinion on those topics. If you're always saying "tax relief" you're repeating a phrase whose construct is to pair a thing or notion with a modifier that paints it in a bad light. The word "relief" automatically by nature implies that the word it's with, "tax," is something bad - that one needs "relief" FROM. newt gingrich was another one with his little black lexicon of good and positive words and phrases that were to be used constantly when speaking about CONservatives and republi-CONS, and bad and negative words and phrases that were conversely to be used constantly when speaking about Dems or liberals. He did that for his GOPAC people, while a disciple of reagan.

Some people here have called it "the mighty Wurlitzer" or the "echo chamber" or whatever, that has rather shrewdly overtaken the public discourse and has managed to leak out from the cable backwaters to mainstream media everywhere. And our side has only started to get into the game in the past, what, ten or so years? Pox Noise started in 1996 I think. And limbaugh started back in the mid-90s I believe. And they built and built and built while our side snoozed.

A lot of what they built was the infrastructure-to-this-infrastructure, if you will. The same wealthy conservative families and newer pirates ranging from the Mellons and Scaifes to the Hunt brothers and the Basses and the Coorses and the Koch brothers also built or caused to be built endowments and foundations and think tanks where they could employ wrong-headed "scholars" to write position papers and later, bestselling books whose sales figures were manufactured by bulk buys from those same endowments and foundations and think tanks. That's also what groomed commentators and built some major league bench strength of talking heads who were media savvy, many younger and highly photogenic, and knew all the talking points because their groomers were putting all the words in their mouths. They also groomed people who could sort of write, and come up with books that would then be bought in bulk We now have a demolition derby stalking the earth of people who were schooled in this by such wealthy cabals and the policy creeps that slither through them, and they're the Farm Team From Hell. sarah palin, tim pawlenty, mark sanford, bobby jindal, and more, they all learned how to spout this stuff and be activist about it, and got encouragement to slither, themselves, into the political scene by running for office. And of course guess where a lot of their funding came from, and ...

Aw shit, it's just a rat's nest. The many levels of Hell.

And we don't have anything matching it. And they've got roughly a 40-year head start.

Granted, there are SOME institutions coming up on our side, like the Progressive Democrats of America, MoveOn.org, BoldProgressives.org, the Center for American Progress, MediaMatters.org, and a few more. A lot of them are online, like Daily Kos and others. But shit - even so, our army is SO FAR BEHIND!!! Our side has SO much catching up to do!!!!!!

Shit - sorry I ran on so long. You probably know this and far more, already. At any rate, you have all this infrastructure in place to push the message that's been carefully, strategically, and almost scientifically crafted, and a general public whose brain wiring and ability to process information has been seriously messed with. We are TRULY the Short-Attention-Span-Theater species. Especially those of us who've earned the title "Low-Information Voter." And if you're predisposed to have a short attention span, and you've got all kinds of media input coming at you around the clock, from everywhere, telling you ONE thing (Obama/Dems/liberals = BAD!), and NOT reminding you of the grim times that directly led us to the problems we have now (bush/GOP/CONservatives = GOOD!), what's a non-discerning limb-bot or beckerhead-bot to do?

No wonder nobody remembers how crappy the dubya years were! How many people do you hear in big, strong, powerful pulpits where most of America can hear/see them, and REMINDING THEM about that, and helping them connect the dots to what's happening now and what dubya's political brethren want to bring that whole nightmare back down upon us again? WHERE are the powerful, high-profile, influential voices pushing back against that message, with numbers of operatives that large, and with that same intensity and that same reach and market penetration?