[lbo-talk] The Art of Political War: How Republicans Can Fight to Win

snit snat snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com
Tue Aug 24 02:36:55 PDT 2004


At 09:39 PM 8/23/2004, Chuck0 wrote:
>snit snat wrote:
>
>>know thy enemy:
>>Dave Johnson: 'What the Republicans are up to'
>>Contributed by Activist on Monday, August 23 @ 10:02:37 EDT
>>By Dave Johnson, Seeing the Forest
>>David Horowitz is one of the main strategists behind Karl Rove's
>
>Thanks for this tidbit. What I'd like to ask folks is how we go about
>undermining Horowitz and his brownshirts? How do you defeat a network of
>demogogues? Horowitz is obviously one of the chief cogs in the right-wing
>spin machine. When is the Left going to take its velvet gloves off and do
>something about this asshole?
>
>Chuck0

I'm not sure focusing on a single asshole will do much. I've been skimming through Brock's _Republican Noise Machine_ which I'd seen on the shelves at the library, so I figured what the hell. (someone I respect says Brock was a lying asshole and remains a lying asshole....) I've mostly been skimming through it, but Brock outlines the conservative effort to shift the center of debate by taking over the media:

1. manufacturing intellectuals (think tanks) which was promoted by Lewis Powell in a widely circulated memo back in 1971 or so.

2. red-baiting the media and media figures, particularly through Accuracy in the Media

3. establishing alternative media outlets.

4. demanding equal time in the media by first claiming that the media represented the left and excluding anything right of center

Of course, a lot of these folks were former marxists and heavy users of marx, some disaffected Liberals. They claimed, especially Kristol, they were using Communist agit prop techniques (as if agit prop is the domain of a particular ideology. whatever)

I don't know. Fahrenheit 9/11 is agit prop, good agit prop. I've argued before that I think Bowling for Columbine was bad agit prop.

It seems to me that it involves, at the very least, embracing our own forms of lying by omission and manipulation.

I've been pondering your media projects, actually. Ever thought about putting together some sort of media education handbooks. Something that teaches people how to spot logical fallacies. You know, take an article a day and pick it apart to expose the fallacies?

Maybe I'll win the lottery and I can start funding my own think tank. Funny, before I even knew about the rightwing spin machine history, I've always wanted to do that: start a think tank. Hmmm. We should work on a business plan. Maybe we can get the Heinz foundation to fund it. heh.

Kelley

"We're in a fucking stagmire."

--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'



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