The GOP's "controlled controversy"...outrageous enough to make us angry. Deliberate.

[madfloridian]

It is not accidental, it is planned. They want us to be angry, it is their goal. I thought about this the other day when the College Republicans renewed their "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" game. I realized it was meant to be stupid, meant to be outrageous, meant to make us angry.

The girl behind it was a field supervisor for Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, who had other great alumni like Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, and Jeff Gannon. And the GOP can deny responsibility because there are degrees of legal separation between the groups.

DNC calls on RNC to stop the College Republicans "Catch the illegal immigrant" games.

The RNC said there was nothing they could do.

Do you remember the purple band-aids stunt they pulled in 2004? It was meant to outrage us, they enjoy doing it. Be sure to read all of this article from 2005 by someone who spent a training session there.

My Right-Wing Degree

"Can anyone tell me," asks Gourley, a veteran mock electioneer, "why you don't want the polling place in the cafeteria?"

Stephen, a shy antiabortion activist sitting toward the rear of the class, raises his hand: "Because you want to suppress the vote?"

"Stephen has the right answer!" Gourley exclaims, tossing Stephen his prize, a copy of Robert Bork's "Slouching Toward Gomorrah."

Not a Republican organization....one of those 501s.

Yet Blackwell's foundation, the Leadership Institute, is not a Republican organization. It's a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) charity, drawing the overwhelming majority of its $9.1 million annual budget from tax-deductible donations. Despite its legally required "neutrality," the institute is one of the best investments the conservative movement has ever made. Its walls are plastered with framed headshots of former students -- hundreds of state and local legislators sprinkled with smiling members of the U.S. Congress, and even the perky faces of two recently crowned Miss Americas. Thirty-five years ago, Blackwell dispatched a particularly promising 17-year-old pupil named Karl Rove to run a youth campaign in Illinois; Jeff Gannon, a far less impressive student, attended the Leadership Institute's Broadcast Journalism School.

Courtesy Salon graphics

Here is the part about their planned outrages...designed to make us angry. They like to appear to be obnoxious, they think it is a good idea. They carry these ideas over into their Campus Leadership Program.

Unlike chapter-based political organizations, CLP clubs are unaffiliated with either the Leadership Institute or each other. According to Blackwell, this trait offers a serious advantage: "No purges." The clubs' independence also comes with the benefit of plausible deniability. "You can get away with stuff that you would take a lot of flak for doing in the College Republicans," says CLP director Dan Flynn. "Because we're independent, we can do activities that push the envelope," agrees University of Miami senior Sarah Canale, whose CLP-organized Advocates for Conservative Thought threw an affirmative action bake sale last year in which the price of a cupcake varied according to the race of its buyer. That it was controversial, she believes, was a victory in itself.

The Leadership Institute teaches the same principle. Controlled controversy -- making your point in a manner so bombastic that your opponents blow their cool -- is a Blackwell specialty. Before the 2004 Republican Convention, the conservative elder personally went to a drugstore and bought little pink heart stickers, bandages and purple nail polish. At home, he made the "Purple Heart Band-Aids" that he later distributed in Madison Square Garden to mock John Kerry's war wounds. From Blackwell's perspective, the Kerry camp's outrage at the gag was a tactical disaster. Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe, Blackwell says, kept the story alive for days by "running around like a chicken with its head cut off."

How did this happen here in my country. Causing deliberate anger, laughing and thinking it is fun when we get mad. Blackwell thought Jeff Gannon's access to the White House press group was just so funny. He laughed out loud. Then he said:

"The moral is that if it's your tail that's being clipped, you want it clipped once," concludes Blackwell. "But if you get a chance to clip your opponent's tail, clip that puppy as often as you can."

[donkeyotay]

1. You asked "how did this happen"

How did this happen here in my country. Causing deliberate anger, laughing and thinking it is fun when we get mad. Blackwell thought Jeff Gannon's access to the White House press group was just so funny. He laughed out loud.

Well, first they dehumanized us. They've been at it for years. They used radio to create a club of superior citizens (after all Jesus was in it). And then they declared war. They didn't want to win an argument. They wanted to destroy the Left. Now, the Left has never set out to destroy half the country, and if you think about it, to want to do so is the ultimate anti-Americanism. To want to divide the country, to weaken it, and to game the democratic system is deeply unpatriotic.

[madfloridian]

2. The words of Heubeck and Weyrich stick in my mind. They will destroy the Left.

I will refer to Wiki and Tapped, as I can not find it at the Free Congress website.

These are their goals for achiving the Conservative majority:

He said they wanted us to "fear" opening our mouths.

"There will be three main stages in the unfolding of this movement. The first stage will be devoted to the development of a highly motivated elite able to coordinate future activities. The second stage will be devoted to the development of institutions designed to make an impact on the wider elite and a relatively small minority of the masses. The third stage will involve changing the overall character of American popular culture..."

"Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them. We will endeavor to knock our opponents off-balance and unsettle them at every opportunity. All of our constructive energies will be dedicated to the creation of our own institutions..."

"We will maintain a constant barrage of criticism against the Left. We will attack the very legitimacy of the Left. We will not give them a moment's rest. We will endeavor to prove that the Left does not deserve to hold sway over the heart and mind of a single American. We will offer constant reminders that there is an alternative, there is a better way. When people have had enough of the sickness and decay of today’s American culture, they will be embraced by and welcomed into the New Traditionalist movement. The rejection of the existing society by the people will thus be accomplished by pushing them and pulling them simultaneously."

"We must create a countervailing force that is just as adept as the Left at intimidating people and institutions that are used as tools of left-wing activism but are not ideologically committed, such as Hollywood celebrities, multinational corporations, and university administrators. We must be feared, so that they will think twice before opening their mouths..."

The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Integration_of_Theory_and_Practice

It was a strategic plan published in essay form in 2001 by the Free Congress Foundation. It was written by Eric Heubeck with guidance from Paul Weyrich.

Those are scary words. I wonder how all these groups interconnect.

[madfloridian]

3. Mind-boggling how many right wing groups there are....list from PFAW

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=3147

"For over 25 years, People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) has countered the Right Wing’s efforts to roll back, or stop, social justice progress and to reshape government and society to its liking. Our research center monitors the power of right-wing groups, documenting their connections, funding, and reporting on their political influence.

Right-wing organizations come in all shapes and sizes, from think tanks to legal groups, local and national lobbying organizations, foundations and media forums. At any given moment, the Right is at work in our public school systems, courthouses, in Congress and state assemblies. At the same time, right-wing groups are reaching huge audiences through media outlets they own or influence—promoting regressive policies that seek to drive wedges between and among Americans."

Accuracy in Academia
African-American Life Alliance
All Children Matter Inc.
Alliance Defense Fund
American Center for Law and Justice
American Civil Rights Institute
American Conservative Union
American Enterprise Institute
American Family Association
American Legislative Exchange Council
American Life League
American Society for Tradition, Family and Property
Americans for Tax Reform
Arlington Group
Black America's Political Action Committee
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Campaign for Working Families PAC
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
Cato Institute
Center for the Study of Popular Culture
Christian Coalition of America
Christian Legal Society
Club for Growth
Collegiate Network
Coalition for a Fair Judiciary
Committee for Justice
Concerned Women for America
Eagle Forum
Eagle Forum Collegians
Family Research Council
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Focus on the Family
FRCAction
Free Congress Research and Education Foundation
FreedomWorks
Heritage Foundation
High Impact Leadership Coalition
Hispanic Alliance for Progress Institute
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace
Independent Women's Forum
Institute for Justice
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration
Judicial Confirmation Network
Landmark Legal Foundation
Leadership Institute
Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research
Madison Project
National Association of Scholars
National Center for Policy Analysis
National Right to Life Committee
National Taxpayers Union
New Coalition for Economic and Social Change
State Policy Network
Students for Academic Freedom
Toward Tradition
Traditional Values Coalition
WallBuilders
Young America's Foundation

[madfloridian]

4. Andrew Sullivan calls Coulter the new face of Republicanism.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/03/coulter_in_her_.html

And he does not mean it as a compliment.

She is one of those I mention in the OP, nastiness for the sake of outrage. It is planned and organized nastiness.

[donkeyotay]

5. Hi, madfloridian. I meant to get back to you on this, but life intruded

Is it planned and organized nastiness? Yes. I don't think it's to make us mad as much as to silence us. It's standard brownshirt stuff. They are really reaching down into their hate base now because they are getting desperate. It's good in some ways, but it's also a dangerous time.

I was looking for the infamous quote from the upstanding Republican, friend of the Christian Right, Jack Abramoff. As head of the College Republicans he made a speech about destroying the Left. I can't find it at the moment, but perhaps the more important thing about Abramoff (other that he's now referred to as a "disgraced lobbyist" instead of a powerful, influential Republican) is that he was involved in creating the Christian Right's astroturf, and they used a lot of non-profit fronts for moving money around.

Remember that anger is energy, and quite a bit of it is being channeled on DU into bringing this injustice to an end. Carry on, madfloridian.

:hi: