Progressive Movement

Great, California is about to burn up, and Condi Rice decides to tell Iran where they can stick it. Just as I was about to go to the Caribbean for a wedding. Lovely. Hopefully WWW 3 will not have started by the time I get back on Sunday and I hope California will not have completely burnt to a crisp and fallen into the ocean.

Seriously, the hardcore sanctions the U.S. is unilaterally imposing on the Iranian military, certain banks, and some individuals really ratchets up the tension. And of course, many of the accusations are groundless or unproven. None less than Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, claims Iran’s nuclear program has shown no signs of military capabilities and that our rhetoric is unfounded.

No worries, the U.S. media will not highlight the voice of reason. Everything will focus on the trumped up charges we have made against the Revolutionary Guard and the Quds force. Such focus makes the charges seem real, and few media outlets will go after these erroneous charges, except maybe Keith Olberman. Oh, and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but what else is new.

This is the second step in the march to war. First the trumped up charges that justify the nation as an enemy and threat. Second are the sanctions (unilateral and international). Third comes the alleged failure of any sanctions and then corresponding Security Council votes condemning the trumped up charges and alleged nuclear capabilities. Lastly war.

We have entered phase two. This will last awhile, but expect phase three to come late Spring/early Summer followed quickly by military action in mid-Summer. Help the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation put a great ad in newspapers across the country calling on Congress to stop Bush from going to war with Iran. Good headline on the ad too.

Let me know what you think. Am I being too skeptical? I am going to Nevis in 7 hours, so I can be as skeptical as I wanna be.

Iraq, Analysis, Condi Rice | No Comments »

We all know the House could not override Bush’s veto of SCHIP, basically dooming 10 million children to poor health and development unless Congress can come up with a bill to sway 13 more Representatives.

And of course, you have heard all the pontificating. Fair enough, no need for me to go into all that.

What I did find enlightening in all of this was the fact that despite the massive PR effort in swing districts to sway Republicans, the veto override actually lost one Republican vote! All that effort and money and nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada.

Also look at the letter Senate Democrats wrote to Clearchannel Communications asking them to pimp slap Rush Limbaugh after his “phony soldiers” comment. Any Republican signers? You guessed it. None. How many Senate Republicans voted to censure MoveOn.org over the Petraeus ad? This is too good to be true – all of them.

Here is my point: Republicans do not fold. All that insane pressure on SCHIP and the withering blasts of hypocrisy over the Rush/MoveOn debacle and they did not budge.

This shows how unified they are in the face of opposing public opinion and embarrassing flip-flops. Look at Larry Craig. That guys not only likes balls, he has a huge pair. I have said it before and I will say it again, this sort of steadfastness really speaks to how Republicans will doggedly pursue their objectives, and that is what people want in their Presidents and Party.

This is why Republicans have better party identification. You know what you get when you vote Republican. Democrats? Not so much.

Moreover, these votes/events show the Republicans understand one key truth about politics. Compromising does not get you elected. Fighting for the principals of your hardcore base gets you elected. If you vote for someone, you want them to fight tooth and nail for your ideals, not cave in every time they face opposition.
And this is one of the things that irks me about Democrats. (more…)

Messaging, Republicans, health care, SCHIP, MoveOn.org, Rush Limbaugh, Bi-partisanship | No Comments »

Wow, in his press briefing today, Bush said he vetoed the SCHIP to be relevant, and will continuing vetoing stuff to remain relevant. Nice, denying sick, poor kids health care because your ego demands that you be ‘relevant’. He then proceeded to blame Congress for not getting stuff done (not an entirely unfair attack). Gee, I guess your vetoes of SCHIP, stem cell research, and the Iraq supplemental bill had nothing to do with that, not to mention your obstruction of Congressional investigations and sticking by the dead weight Alberto Gonzales.

But I digress.

Bush wants to have kids be sick so he can be relevant.

Shout it from the rooftops. If this gift of Bush’s cannot be used to get the last few votes Pelosi needs to override Bush’s veto, then Democrats are lousy at messaging. Oh, we already knew that.

Uncategorized, Bush, SCHIP | 1 Comment »

So Bush has basically threatened the Russians and the Iranians with WWW3 if Iran gets the bomb.

Now, of course he puts the blame for starting this war on Iran, although he implies that if the world community does not face down Iran, he will take action to prevent them getting the bomb. Of course, such action may itself precipitate WW3, but according to Bush that would still be Russia and Iran’s fault, since the U.S. attacking other countries is never our fault.

What I find ingenious about this is how Bush and the neocons are triangulating on Iran. They support terrorism, they are killing American troops by arming and training radical Shiite militias in Iraq, and they want the bomb. All lies, but Bush states them as if they were fact. We heard the same thing about Saddam, except in place of arming Shiite militias, put in gassing his own people and human rights abuses.

Bush does not need is to convince a majority of the public we need to bomb Iran, he simply needs to get the pundit class to talk about military action on Iran as a serious concept, despite its utter lunacy. That will be enough to scare Democrats into giving Bush the green light to take military action against Iran, which they already have for all intents and purposes. Dems simply run in fear of voting in a way that Republicans will construe as anti-military or weak on defense. Create enough fear about Iran and the Dems are cooked.

Also, do not forget that conservatives are pushing hard to persuade everyone we are making progress in Iraq. If we are winning, then we have the successful formula and capability for attacking Iran. Add in the above trifecta of rationales for war, and you have yourselves a Middle East throwdown. Heck, maybe even WW3 if you are lucky.

Not convinced the public will warm to the idea of attacking Iran? (more…)

Messaging, Iraq, Iran, Bush, Polls, Analysis, weak on defense label, Foreign Policy | No Comments »

If you saw the headline of the Washington Post story on Monday regarding the war in Iraq (“Al Qaeda in Iraq Reported Crippled”), you would think we were one inning away from sealing the victory.

If you read the second paragraph, or for that matter the rest of the story, you would think we are no closer to stabilizing Iraq than we were in 2003.

“I think it would be premature at this point,” a senior intelligence official said of a victory declaration over AQI, as the group is known. Despite recent U.S. gains, he said, AQI retains “the ability for surprise and for catastrophic attacks.”

Yet you listen to Tony Snow on The Daily Show, and he states that the Post said we beat Al Qaeda. This is the power of a headline my friends. And this is why we have to be on the lookout for bias and call the media when they mislead.

Headlines are summaries, and people like summaries. They read the headlines and assume they know the gist of the story. They might read the first paragraph. And the first paragraph often just restates the headline. So then they run around telling everyone what they know, but they really just got it from a headline. And if the headline is wrong, as the one for the Post story is, then Tony Snow can go on The Daily Show and make a point against Jon Stewart with a false claim and everyone accepts it.

On a more specific level, this headline feeds the lie that things are getting better in Iraq, although the full story does not. And if the lie that the escalation is working grows, then confidence that we can then attack Iran grows. And confidence in the Bush Administration grows, and confidence that Republicans are better than Democrats at defense grows.

So the march to war with Iran goes on, and the Washington Post, wittingly or unwittingly, helped move it along.

Uncategorized, Messaging, Iraq, media, Daily Show | No Comments »

“The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.” Al Gore

See, Al Gore gets it. Unfortunately, almost no media outlets picked up this quote, preferring to focus on a potential Al Gore run for the big house (not that kind of big house!) and what everyone else said about him. They did pick up his, “It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level” quote in several stories. I do not like this one as much, since it sounds new agey.

But casting this as a moral and spiritual challenge is brilliant. First of all, that is what it is, but secondly, it elevates it beyond being political, left vs. right, enviro vs. corporate. Hence, it makes it something everyone can feel comfortable embracing, since everyone sees themselves as moral and/or spiritual.

Of course, the best part is now, by definition, if you oppose working to stop climate disruption, you are immoral and godless. Excellent. This is why it is important to lay out the terms of the debate first. Your opponents then have to spend precious time trying to redefine the terms, not actually make their argument.

If you want to motivate people, cast your cause as religious. That motivates people more than any logic or facts ever can. Fear works well to, and by calling global warming a “climate crisis”, and “planetary emergency”, Gore is touching that as well. And then he grabs the motivational, inspiring microphone, claiming this is “the greatest opportunity we have ever had.”

All in all, a great series of quotes, despite the media not picking up the best one.

Messaging, Climate, Morals/Morality Frame, Al Gore | No Comments »

Wow Republicans love to hate. They now have decided to attack a 12 year old kid and his family because they dared to go on a TV ad and support SCHIP. This coming from what should be a typically Republican family. The audacity!

Messaging

This banal lynching party can be a boon for progressives if they take advantage of it. And they really do not have to work that hard since the Republicans are showing their true hateful colors. But they will miss an opportunity to highlight that rotten core of modern conservatives by just sitting idly by. Luckily the progressive blogs are doing their part to bring the dark secret of conservative philosophy, intolerance and hate, to the public’s attention.

True, the Dem leadership has rebutted some of the inaccurate claims made by the rapid likes of Michelle Malkin, but they still do not understand the overall context.

The real issue here is that:

The Republicans are smearing an innocent boy and his family to cover up their pathetic desire to take away health care for kids.

That is it, in a nutshell. Why will Reid or Pelosi or the whole cacophony of elected Democratic officials not say this? Maybe they will soon.

At least the TV ads by the pro-SCHIP advocacy groups have been good.

Strangely, (more…)

Messaging, Analysis, SCHIP | No Comments »

Here is an interesting contrast between Carter and Pelosi on the issue of torture.

Carter says he knows we are torturing. Pelosi says it appears we are. Subtle difference, but important. While current elected officials always hedge bets for political reasons, from a messaging standpoint they sound weak. In the long term, rallying the public around a cause is harder if you do not have black and white rhetoric. If I do not want to believe the U.S. tortures, I will not believe it. But if I am at all persuadable, I am not going to be persuaded by ‘appears’ or ‘allegedly’. I might be persuaded by someone of the stature of former President Carter telling me he knows we torture.

If the truth is ugly, but you leave room for doubt, people will chose the doubt, no matter how slim the odds. Carter, over the last few years at least, understands this. Republicans understand this, even the elected ones. Why do Democrats not understand it?

Do not leave any grey areas. Either we torture or we do not. None of this mamby-pamby ‘maybe’ stuff. If you are not sure, say so. Or say you are ‘looking into it.’ But remember, this is politics. If you say it loud and long enough, it becomes truth to a lot of people. That is why large percentages of the country still believe Saddam Hussein had WMDs and a role in 9-11.

So if you want to stop torture, and I have to believe the majority of the Democratic party wants to, then get out there and be clear that the U.S. tortures.

Messaging, Pelosi, Jimmy Carter, torture | No Comments »