Reply #102: Are we Pod People? Daleks?

[mojowork_n]

Actually, I don't disagree with this at all, but I think it's worth taking a minute to drill this comparison down a little.

Well-paid spokespersons for the Busheviks, like Coulter and Limbaugh and Hannity and the rest, aren't journalists. They're don't address "issues", or any real-world, practical concerns any of their listeners may have.

What they do is exploit the naivete, naked self-interest and reptile-brain subconscious prejudices of their audience (or the lowest common denominator of that audience, on which their appeal is based), to twist any and all real-world issues into Republican talking points.

What they are is full-time propagandists, who've taken an existing art form and transformed it into a facade of ***newsiness***. (Apologies to Mr. Colbert.)

They're salespeople. Shamelessly ripping off the best patter-song verbal riffs from the Carnival Barker/Atlantic City Boardwalk school of hucksterism, they're really no different from the pitchmen who sell baldness cures and boner pills on late night TV info-mercials. The mostly white, mostly male, ill-educated-and-proud-of-it knobs who follow their line, pulling the lever as they're told on election day, are a robot army of republican daleks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek


They believe they've been transformed into "winners" by these hucksters, even as they vote against their own self-interest, because these guys always stay on message and never giving up on closing a sale.

So I'm a little concerned about any attempt to compete directly. (Like getting involved in the proverbial pissing contest with a skunk, there is a tipping point at which the skunk must automatically lose. He's a skunk, after all. You just don't go there.)

All that being said, though, we *do* need better debating strategies and a healthy dose of attitude. Getting everyone on our side "on message" is always going to take more work and effort, just to penetrate the fog and noise from the other side.

I was sort of encouraged by this front page story in my local paper, this morning:

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=439958

but annoyed by the framing, which looks even worse in print than it will on your electrons. The Bushevik spokesperson from the Realtor's Association is given first-billing in the quote/reaction column, and also shows up at the article's conclusion.

I would encourage anyone with practical ideas to log in to the new website:

http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/

with suggestions, feedback and commentary.