******IT'S NOT FAMILY VALUES - IT'S VALUING FAMILIES******

[radfringe]

(I also posted this in the GD-P, but it will probably fall off the face of the earth in there with all the flamining going on...)

it's looking more and more like the repubs will be going with McCain. Speculation is high that McCain's sidekick will be Huckabee.

Huckabee would bring in the fundies who are reluctant about voting for McCain. And you can bet with the huckster for a sidekick - there will be a lot of rhetoric about family values.

in the past, the family values blather is something the dems have failed to effectively counteract

the repubs have wrapped it up in a warm fuzzy blanket, it sounds good, looks good - but beyond that their actions speak differently.

Kerry mentioned it once or twice back in 2004 that I know of and Clinton touched on it briefly in one speech I saw on C-Span

and I keep bringing it up over and over again

IT'S NOT FAMILY VALUES - IT'S VALUING FAMILIES

I've even sent a few e-mails off to the campaigns - explaining what I mean by this, but I fear they were just put in some round file. If you work on Clinton or Obama's campaign and have some contacts up the 'food chain', and agree with this perhaps you would pass it along.

here's the premise:


reframe it as "VALUING FAMILIES"
show how the family value rhetoric is just that - rhetoric period. that for all the family value talk, nothing the repubs have done show any concern for the health of families, and tend to destroy families by favoring corporations and other big wigs. that all the blather about family values are just empty words. Words do not put food on the table, nor give people jobs, nor do they provide healthcare or education.

- the way to value families is to have a healthCARE system that puts people before profits. A healthCARE system which ensures the medications needed are available, affordable and safe

- the way to value families is to enact legislation that protects families from predatory lending practices and other financial schemes which puts their jobs and welfare at risk

- the way to value families is to have an education system which educates

- the way to value families is to have an emergency management system that is able to respond quickly and effectively. to help families in the most dire time of need (think katrina and the recent tornado outbreak)

- the way to value families is to have a veterans system which helps the the troops returning from war.

- the way to value families is to have a social security system the helps families with with their senior members

- the way to value families is to have a forward looking environmental policy to provide clean air, clean water, safe food for the current and future generation

- the way to value families is to encourage job creation here at home and not reward companies who ship jobs overseas.

- the way to value families is to have a foreign policy which focuses on peace and prosperity, not on war and destruction.

- the way to value families is to have a domestic policy that embraces all families.

- the way to value families is to have a policy that is open to science and research, not one that discourages or rewrites findings.

- the way to value families is to have a justice system based on justice not partisan politics.

- the way to value families is to respect and follow the Constitution of the United States - not by looking for loopholes or weasling around it through the use of executive priviledge or signing statements.

AMERICA VALUES FAMILIES

(too numerous to list, but after each of these points - list the legislation the repubs have defeated)

[radfringe]

1. suggestion for referring to mccain-huckabee ticket

GOP HAPPY MEAL
McHUCKSTER VALUE PACK
MORE WARS
LESS JOBS
AND A BIBLE

[RayOfHope]

12. "More Wars, Less Jobs, And a Bible".

I laughed at first, then I realized its probably true. Eek.

[liberal N proud]

13. Yup!

[radfringe]

2. thank-you for the RECs

lets see if we can get this to the greatest list.

even if it's not a McHuckster ticket for the GOPers - they will be smothering us with the warm fuzzy blanket of family values

the democratic platform is one that VALUE families and be it Obama or Clinton, and even those running in house/senate races - the difference between blather and real action needs to be highlighted

[murielm99]

3. It is even more scary if you consider that

McCain is not healthy. He has cancer. He has been looking terrible lately.

He will not necessarily survive the stresses of the Presidency. Huckabee could end up as President. That is a terrible possibility.

[radfringe]

10. and that could be

one of the hooks to bring in more fundies - the possibility that Huckster would be president, if not during a mccain term, but to run for it in 2012 or 2016

[bluerum]

4. Bottom line - valuing people. Not viewing them as "the workforce" or "the consumer base."

[radfringe]

6. exactly - it's about PEOPLE - not PROFITS n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Well done.

[Rebellious Republican]

7. Well said, heres a little kick from me. N/T

:kick:

[radfringe]

8. I'm not one to grovel

at the most I'll give a post a few kicks to stop it from falling into a black hole

however - I feel this is too important to be allowed a quiet death and buried in the archives - so I'm going to grovel

it only takes a moment to give this post a kick and rec - please set aside your Obama Clinton flamethrowers long enough to kick, rec or add your comments

and please if you have contacts with the campaigns who are in a position to move it up the food chain - please feel free to do so, or if you want to cut/paste/incorporate it into your blog - it's yours

I'm only interested in getting this message out into the internet tubes

[livvy]

11. Framing is so important. Big knr here. n/t

[left is right]

9. Wow! simply Wow

Democrats are so bad at reframing. We should never debate/discuss with their terms. Yours works very effectively. Hope it gets the notice it deserves.

[RayOfHope]

14. Absolutely, radfringe. K&r

[midnight]

15. Thank you for straighting that out for me. It has been absolutely

crazy to hear about family values while so many are going without so much.

[radfringe]

16. if you have an connections with any of the talk radio hosts

or access to any widely read blogs/forums etc - consider sending them this post

we have to get our leaders to hear us above the din

feel free to use this in whatever way you think will help get the message out
grab it and use your own words for a LTTE

[RB TexLa]

17. Gag on the concept. Can't even bring yourself to say valuing people?

I know, I know, those without children don't matter. I mean, how could we ever think we could be as equal as them, or ever deserve anything. After all families are what's "valuable" right? That's what you are saying we should value, not people but families.

[radfringe]

18. DEFINE FAMILY

a family is not just two adults and a bunch of kids, a family doesn't even need to have kids to be a family, a family can be a single person

open up the box and expand on the definition of family

isn't a community a family? aren't two friends a family?

at the risk of being accused of using a cliche - we are all family
and no this is not a call to sit around a campfire, roast marshmellows and sing kumbya

[RB TexLa]

22. Oh, I guess I'll inform my wife that she and I for that matter are no longer individuals

sounds like you are doing the defining.

[radfringe]

23. THEN YOU DEFINE FAMILY

can't you see that individuals make up a family, that family is more than a legal or biological connection, that the concept of family extends beyond your front door

it's your neighborhood, your community, your country, your world, your universe

it's also your workplace, the bar where you have a beer, this forum, all of the whole freaking tubes of the internets

so instead of getting snarky and pouting on the pity pot - you define family, define individuals and explain why and how they are not connected

[Iris]

33. jeez. Ligthen up.

I'm married with no kids. We may not have any. My husband is my immediate family. And then there's our parents, my siblings, our nieces and nephews, my 90 yr old great-aunt and a myriad of people we've met a long the way who are our family. We're also all individuals.

[ordinaryaveragegirl]

19. K&R...

This values more than just families...it values Americans. We need to be humanitarian to other impoverished nations too, but it's important to start here at home. Too many people are suffering needlessly right now, and it's not fair.

[radfringe]

20. we help all of us

by helping the least of us

[antigop]

25. beautiful, radfringe. beautiful. K&R n/t

[haele]

26. True that, we are no longer citizens but consumers -

"Targeted customers" - where we are supposed to have a certain household income and annual cost level assigned to the number of people in our family unit along with a designated primary wage earner and secondaries. You are either targeted to the level you can spend, or you're targeted to be swept out of participation in society because you don't have enough to spend.

Our individual societal worth is based on a mixture of our Credit Score, the percentage of disposable cash/savings someone carries, the primary "job" in the household and whether or not we are "good consumers" - a family that has a lower rated primary income job (be they in a high position or not in that job), is constantly in debt with little savings because of a chronic medical condition, is not a good consumer family and that tends to tars the Credit Score of every potential consumer in that family with a low societal worth. Let there be some identity fraud/identity theft that happens in the family, and that makes it worse - just being a victim of identity theft must be punished as a risk behavior and lowers an individual's worth, even as the person is not actually responsible for the situation. In this society, someone in prison has about as much societal worth as a working joe with debt more than his or her take-home pay - especially if that prisoner in a prison jobs program earning 50 cents a day running call centers or assembling electronic components for a state contractor who's making money hand over fist for himself and the investors - basically off indentured labor. (And that profit is not going to, say, a victim's fund or to help support families of prisoners or to help support the prisoner for the first year after he or she gets out and goes looking for work, it's going straight to the business...)

It sucks, but there it is. Americans are no longer individuals or citizens, we're drones stuck in a consumer level slot. "Family Values" or "Value of Families" is really a reflection of how much money and free time a family can spend rather than how much a family is worth to society.
Paycheck to Paycheck multiple income families struggling to stay in a home, pay off zombie debt, and put food on the table may as well be on welfare with no job to those who spout the family values nonsense - in fact, other than potential propaganda value to make the other drones feel as if there's some reason to keep spending their way into endless black hole of debt, they have none in society.

Haele

[bdamomma]

21. kick

[radfringe]

24. going to be a nudge and kick my own thread

needs to be seen by as many people as possible...

if the warm-fuzzy family values blanket is not addressed it will continue sink the dems this year and for many years to come

[TheDoorbellRang]

27. That's BRILLIANT

That should be a talking point on our side. Literally turns it around, eh? K&R so perhaps operatives from both camps see it.

[radfringe]

28. The First Patriarch of Zen Is a Noodge

[radfringe]

29. noodge noodge noodge

[radfringe]

30. last kick and then I'll let it waste away in the archives...

[radfringe]

31. sue me - I lied... just can't let this go... so another kick

[radfringe]

32. evening kick

[radfringe]

34. thanks for taking time to read this OP

I hope some of you are able to get this to the attention of the Obama and/or Clinton campaigns

I tried finding a place to send it to the Obama campaign, but in order to leave a "comment" you also had to leave a donation, maybe there's another back door, but I couldn't find it

Clinton's website was a bit more friendlier, I could leave a comment without leaving a dollar or two

with Romney out - and the rabid-wingers in reichworld media foaming and sputtering about McCain, McCain is going to need the evangelicals, and that means the huckster riding shotgun.