The fact that self-proclaimed liberals have been responding to rightwing bullshit claims with a laughably inept parade of wonky details doesn't mean that the best approach is to say, well, they're bullshit, but since we can't argue effectively against their assumptions, just remember that we're really smarter and nicer, too.
________________________________ Wojtek S wrote:
[WS:] There is hardly anything worse than picking up a fight and launch an inept offensive (or defensive) only to be thoroughly beaten by your opponent. This demonstrates your weakness for everyone to see. If you abstain, people may suspect that you are weak, but they can never be sure.
Counteracting every bullshit claim made by the right is counterproductive, because it allows the right to call the shots and set the agenda for the debate. Ignoring their diatribes - i.e. much of what the right wing media are spewing - and instead picking up and publicizing the battles in which the left has a chance of winning seems far more effective.
For example, instead of denunciation of teabaggers (which only gives them more publicity) a far better strategy would be what Michael Moore did in "Sicko" - showing how inscos screw up ordinary hard working people who have private insurance, instead of bemoaning the lack of insurance by the "less fortunate." Unfortunately, the liberals missed that boat again and instead focused on "helping the uninsured minority" and unconvincing refutations of the preposterous right wing claims that Obama care = government takeover=bad thing. Guess what, most people I talked to believe that shit now.
Wojtek
On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Gail Brock <gbrock_dca at yahoo.com> wrote:
> When done well, ridiculing them works. Ignoring them doesn't. That was
> the tack tried when the vicious Lee-Atwater style attacks and dog-whistles
> began. The high-minded kept insisting that the public would be revulsed by
> the gutter tactics, but the tactics won elections and I think were
> successful in moving the whole discourse to the right, to neoliberal
> veneration of the privilege of wealth that they call markets.
>
> I think it was a mistake to back down from the anti-theology assumptions
> and language. Every incidence of "Good news as labor costs are held in
> check" ought to be attacked as the bad theology of "Workers are not sharing
> the fruits of our economy."
>
> ________________________
> Wojtek S wrote:
>
> The proper response to the anti-government diatribes of the right is not
> debating their theology and even positing anti-theology (i.e. critique of
> the market) but unmasking the "men behind the curtain" i.e. attacks on the
> messengers not the message (e.g. by publicly ridiculing them, as Michael
> Moore has been doing, or by refusing to engage in their flame wars, as
> Obama does.)
> ____________________________________
>
>
>
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