How can we make the message MORE simple--so that the teabaggers can understand

[Horse with no Name]

I mean seriously?

How difficult is it to understand that when 98% of the wealth is in the hands of 5% of Americans...and that NO taxes are being paid on that wealth...the the other 95% of us are fighting for the scraps of taxes on 2% of the money in this country???

Why are we broke? It is pretty self-explanatory.

Why isn't THIS the message on the streets??

[Earth_First]

1. Simple: "You know that PENSION that you collect?" n/t

[Horse with no Name]

2. I think the republicans fool them

by transposing the numbers?
Saying things like "We refuse to raise taxes on the majority of taxpayers in this country" instead of saying "we refuse to raise taxes on the majority of the money in this country".

It is definitely a bait and switch going on here.

[HereSince1628]

19. I think they fool themselves...I think it is a personal thing

As I've replied in many posts, the one thing that seems central to tbag thinking is jealousy.

Jealousy is a part of human nature, we are all subject to it, though some of us more so than others. Jealousy is an emotion that motivates thinking and behavior.

What we object to is largely what makes us feel they aren't willing to share. But they don't want to share because sharing raises their sense of personal cost in a time of their insecurity.

Jealousy itself is elicited by insecurity, and if you look at who the tbaggers are they all seem to be people with some fundamental insecurity about social phenomena that they need to resolve.

The economy has raised everyone's anxiety, the growing wealth gap has shrunk the middle class, the mortgage crisis has crashed the value of many people's greatest asset, and exploded the idea that it was a safe repository for personal wealth. People are losing jobs left and right, people are insecure, more threatened and jealously strike out at immigrants and 'others' who they see as threats to their security. Tbags are unwilling to pay taxes because they fear (even if irrationally from our perspective) that giving will push them into an insecure place.

There is no dealing with the tbags until we can offer them something that makes them feel secure and lowers their jealous needs.

[randr]

16. Do you mean the pension funds that were stolen by Wall Street?

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Impossible. Their minds are closed like a trap. Nothing will break their belief system.

[SpiralHawk]

5. When they get called out as the SUCKERS they have been

it stings, as truth so often does, but it gets them thinking. At long last.

Nobody likes knowing they have been well and truly suckered, especially by a smirking cabal of fatcat billionaire cronies (R).

[woo me with science]

10. More and more people are falling into poverty.

They still live in their middle class houses (if they can still make the mortgage), but they are falling deep into debt and trying to deny to themselves the seriousness of what they are facing. They are trying to believe that this is a temporary downturn.

As people continue to get poorer and more desperate and can't hide it anymore, that is when they will begin to listen.

[NRaleighLiberal]

17. I hope you are right, but I need to be convinced - we are talking about seriously deluded, stubborn

people who have been voting against their best interests for their whole lives. They create what they see - but I fear that there is little hope of reaching them. If BushCheney kept their 30% through the 8 years of carnage, and likely to this very day, we are not talking about a group who can critically analyze, think, and change their minds when the data suggests that they have been had. Belief system, pride, stubbornness, culture - one issue mindset - it is going to be tough going. And don't forget - the MSM is pushing the right wing meme constantly as well, to satisfy their owners.

[bluedave]

31. right u are

may as well talk to a wall

[woo me with science]

4. Because we are being nickeled and dimed.

It is not just one theft. It is a million little thefts, every day of our lives. It is corporations reaching into our pockets all day long, every day, in every area of our lives. From car companies that are now rigging their cars so that nobody but overpriced dealers can work on them, to food companies substituting fillers and smaller packages for the good food we once knew, our way of life is being stolen from us. It is not easy to point to one boogeyman.

Most people don't realize that corporate profits are soaring. Companies are not hiring; they are demanding more work and more hours for the same money, or they are shipping jobs overseas.

Most people believe the meme that we are ALL broke and that there must be shared sacrifice.

We need to show people the truth. The problem is that the system has been restructured to steal from us. Some people are doing very well, because they have rigged the system to benefit themselves and take from us.

[onehandle]

6. None of that matters as long as we have a black President.

That's the heart of their 'problem.' See my signature.

[Horse with no Name]

8. I agree 100%

The rise of teabaggers aka racists in our area for the midterms cost us a few good people in our statehouse.

[mmonk]

7. Somehow incorporate scapegoats and racism?

Other than that, I have no clue.

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. Once they lose their Medicare and Social Security they'll wake up.

unfortunately, it won't only be them that lose out.

Those brigades of silver-headed clowns on motor scooters tethered to oxygen tanks protesting big gummint make me want to break something.

[Horse with no Name]

12. And once that happens

it will be too late to do this peacefully.

When their aging parents are kicked out the nursing homes and refused care at the hospital--they will just turn around and point their crooked fingers at the Democrats. It's a Pavlovian response.

Bush started this destruction in motion...Obama has done little to stop it. Of course, he did have republican opposition all the way down--but he, IMHO, wasn't assertive enough nor did he spend enough time calling it out. By gridlocking Congress, the republicans are just going to stand by and watch the wheels they put in motion fall.

[Cirque du So-What]

11. You know what I got for my efforts toward educating a teabagger along those lines?

I got, 'I don't care if the rich get richer. No poor man ever gave me a job.' Even though I countered with, 'ten years of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy have resulted in a net loss of over 3 million jobs,' the teabagger was unfazed - head still a stony concretion impervious to facts.

[Horse with no Name]

13. Brainwashed. n/t

[reformist2]

22. Well, at least you got him to admit he's basically a serf on the estate of the rich. ;)

[Warren Stupidity]

14. What if they are emotionally, not intellectually, unable to understand?

The problem is the narrative that has captured the mindset of a large segment of the american population. Logic and reason, no matter how dumbed down, aren't going to change the fact that they want to burn the witch. As has been pointed out repeatedly over the last decade, we need to change the narrative.

[NRaleighLiberal]

18. +1. There's the rub as I see it. n/t

[reformist2]

15. I think the first step is getting them to admit that we as a nation are not "broke".

How can we be broke when we have more billionaires now than at any other time in American history. Getting them to the place where they embrace the idea that the wealthy need to redistribute some of that wealth to the poor and middle class for the betterment of society, well that's another thing. But at least they will no longer believe that absurdity that "we're broke".

[HereSince1628]

24. Or maybe convincing them they don't need to feel so insecure

And that rather than threatening the little security they feel they have...the nation can help them.

The DLC's turn away from labor didn't help. Obama's acquiesence to putting cuts in SS and medicare don't help, mandating a new medical bull didn't help. The tbags are jealously guarding their personal circumstance, they hate anything that burdens/threatens/taxes them.

If we don't assuage their insecurity, there is absolutely no dealing with their jealousy.

[HopeHoops]

20. I think "FUCK OFF, MORONS!" covers it nicely.

It doesn't explain anything, but they can't understand actual facts anyway.

[liberal N proud]

21. You can't make the unwilling understand

They are willfully stupid.

[dkofos]

23. Too stupid to fix.

[warrior1]

25. It's hard with they can't think for themselves

I say we leave them behind.

[NNN0LHI]

26. I have become convinced that the baggers are not all on the same page here in Illinois

Reason being most the baggers I know around here are state union employees themselves or have a family member who is one. They appear to be really conflicted on this subject. They don't even want to talk about it.

But then I think back about the last election here and even after the Blago fiasco here we still held on to the statehouse and both houses of Congress here in Illinois. The only way that could have happened was that the baggers here in Illinois must be smarter than your average bagger and voted for the Democrats or stayed home because they knew they would be getting the same treatment as the Wisconsin state employees are getting right now if they voted for the Republicans who were proposing similar anti-union measures during their campaigns. In other words the baggers talk a good game here in Illinois but when the election comes they are still voting their best interests.

The baggers here really hate President Obama and the Dems but they aren't about to turn everything over to some GOP scum who wants to screw them here in Illinois.

The baggers in Wisconsin must me extremely stupid people to be supporting some dickhead Republicans who are trying to take away what little bit they have.

That is all I can figure.

Don

[Doctor_J]

27. Take the media back

by whatever means necessary. Until e do, truth is of no value.

[JoePhilly]

28. Every piece of evidence you present is proof of the liberal conspiracy.

[nenagh]

29. Very, very good question..

Perhaps it is with the sons and daughters of the TeaPeople that you start..

Getting their friends involved in the Wisconsin protest...

Also, call a spade a spade...

The average person, esp the TeaPartier hears 'Entitlements'..
and what do they think that really is?

Does a TeaPartier know what 'Astroturf' is?

Interesting juxtaposition of the Wisconsin protest containing young and old... and the TeaPartiers.. who I see with a Faux wormhole brains .. is their mind construct changed at all to see Police and Firefighters in among the Wisconsin protesters?

[SmileyRose]

30. the teabag crowd relates to fear and blame, not logic

You can't win them over.

However

If the Democratic Party as a whole was more effective on catapulting the propaganda, we would not need to win the tea party over. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it -- the Democratic Party tends to be too honest for it's own good. For instance Jimmy Carter told everyone to learn how to walk and put on a sweater - which was the correct and honest advise to America (get the fuck off oil) but we see how that went over.

The Democratic Party needs to figure out how to propagandize that in a way that makes people WANT to buy good walking shoes and lots of sweaters. Most of America is sane and rational - that few percentage that's whackoid makes for good TV and radio so they get all the coverage. Bring America along and all that's left of teapartiers will be the entertainment.

[fascisthunter]

32. I don't know.... signs with larger letters?

:shrug:

I kid .hey will have to learn the hardest way possible... some will come around.