Obama, This is Your Army - We Will Win That War! by AnthonyT

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Obama, This is Your Army - We Will Win That War!

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Monday, September 12, 2011 06:54
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VIEWED: 2293
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Friday, September 9, 2011 5:50 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Anthony,

Quote:
With rhetoric like this, this man is becoming a parody of his own enemy

That about says it, except that for them it WORKS, for him it only gave them fodder to get attention complaining about, and an example to bring up to show "Dems do it too".

Quote:
I am upset to see members of the Democratic party adopting the rather disgusting rhetoric of their opposition. The guy sounds like a Tea Partier of recent vintage. In any context, it makes me shake my head.

Me, too. But for one thing, he was speaking to HIS base and riling them up, which is what both parties do. And I have a suspicion that, by putting the "vote" stuff in there just before, he thought he could say that and have justification for his comments. Like I said in my other post, I don't think those on the left are nearly as adept at utilizing this tactic as those on the right are, so all it does is provide a weapon to use against them.

Of COURSE nobody else enjoys that kind of communication, but you can't argue that it HAS been immensely effective (look at the health care debate and how they managed to destroy any real communication at some of those town halls!). The problem with the high road when it comes to this is that it doesn't get you to the village with the ignorant members of the society as quickly. The article Sig put up shows why perfectly.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 9, 2011 6:00 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"The problem with the high road when it comes to this is that it doesn't get you to the village with the ignorant members of the society as quickly. The article Sig put up shows why perfectly."

Hello,

This presumes that you can't have effective language that is also not aggressive language.

I disagree with that presumption.

In a recent meeting at my place of business, I was informed about a merger that would create a 'right size' for various departments. The merger will probably create 'efficiencies' in these departments. But no matter what the future holds, we can all be proud as we think back on our accomplishments.

So there will be a reduction in the department which will result in layoffs and therefore we may want to update our resumes.

But you will note that the language in the first paragraph holds only a hint of the depression and panic delivered by the second paragraph... at least amongst people who don't scratch past the surface.

I hate corp-speak, but I must admit that it is often effective at corralling the sheep until it is time for slaughter.

If the Democrats want to compete with the Republicans, they will need their language experts and speech-writers to create words and phrases that convey their intention better, not words and phrases that push Conservative power buttons.

The winner in the latter scenario is never going to be the Democratic party.

Better language. Not more aggressive language. Not the opponent's language.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Friday, September 9, 2011 6:05 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Mal4, mea culpa.

Yes, I did get you two confused...you are the two posters here I hold in the highest estimation, so it's akin to me confusing Wulf and Raptor in my head. Please forgive an old lady for her senility!

And of course I recognized what FoxNoise did immediately, and it came as no surprise whatsoever. It's no more or less than I expected. Jon taking the whole thing on would have been funny, yes, I'd like to have seen that!

I wouldn't have fired him, but I think Wsserman-Schulz missed a chance to spit in their faces. I would have had a one-sentence remark in response to Carlson's needling, to the effect of "given the context, I think most people understood hew as talking about "voting" them out, but the wording was unfortunate, yes" and then ignored any further attempt to get into it. I think ASKING if anyone had refuted violent rhetoric from the right was a mistake; a short comment that nobody calls them on their many uses of visceral rhetoric would have been a better comeback, then again, going on to ignore Carlson's needling. Hindsight is always easier, but if it had been me, I'd have been expecting her to go there and would have been ready. She had to KNOW they were going to play that card for all they were worth!

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 9, 2011 6:13 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Anthony, I will happily agree with you that the Dems need to be better at their speech writing and use more effective language. What they do only enhances the claim of "elitism", and assumes a level of understanding not in keeping with what a lot of the population possesses. But I still believe when it comes to getting a reaction, the visceral will always work better--people remember bites and how those bites made them feel more than they do logic, sadly.

I also think, which seems like a dichotomy, that people know "corp speak" well enough to interpret that first paragraph quite clearly as BEING corp speak, and understand what it actually means. I'd like to think people would appreciate direct language more, but corp speak was created for a reason, and probably because it DOES get a better reaction--or used to, before we got so familiar with the buzz words that we interpret it now.

I don't think appealing to people's intelligence will ever have the impact visceral, emotional language ever will have. I wish it did.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 9, 2011 6:19 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Sometimes I think back to great speech-makers like Martin Luther King, Jr. and see that you can have a visceral, emotional impact without taking an aggressive posture.

This is the kind of language that got Obama elected, incidentally. Positive emotional language. It won out over the other stuff.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Friday, September 9, 2011 6:22 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:

I think it is possible to use better language without using more aggressive language. The speech that spawned this thread was not using better, more effective language. It was just parroting aggressive elements of GOP/Tea Partier language to push the same buttons.

I find it a bit ironic that you don't see raffling off a Glock handgun as being an example of "more aggressive" language, or of being "lamentable" behavior. Such an action, in the very district where a Democratic congresswoman was shot in the head, and several others killed and wounded, seems a direct confrontation to me, and at best a veiled threat.

What would have made you find such actions lamentable or beyond the pale? If they engraved the handgun "For Gabby" ? If they included targets with her picture on them?

I find giving away Glock handguns after a woman is brutally attacked with a Glock handgun as being quite a crass action to take. Sorry, but I find such actions far more distasteful than a union leader saying that we can use our votes to take out the GOP SOBs.

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Friday, September 9, 2011 6:30 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:

I think it is possible to use better language without using more aggressive language. The speech that spawned this thread was not using better, more effective language. It was just parroting aggressive elements of GOP/Tea Partier language to push the same buttons.

I find it a bit ironic that you don't see raffling off a Glock handgun as being an example of "more aggressive" language, or of being "lamentable" behavior. Such an action, in the very district where a Democratic congresswoman was shot in the head, and several others killed and wounded, seems a direct confrontation to me, and at best a veiled threat.

What would have made you find such actions lamentable or beyond the pale? If they engraved the handgun "For Gabby" ? If they included targets with her picture on them?

I find giving away Glock handguns after a woman is brutally attacked with a Glock handgun as being quite a crass action to take. Sorry, but I find such actions far more distasteful than a union leader saying that we can use our votes to take out the GOP SOBs.

Hello,

I'm afraid I don't see the raffle itself as aggressive language. I remember Bowling for Columbine tried to make a similar statement about Charleton Heston, the NRA, and the Columbine shooting. The movie was way off the mark, but the director succeeded in using the connection to push emotional buttons in his audience. The truth of the matter notwithstanding.

Now yes, if you find GOP representatives somewhere making a connection between this raffle and some kind of negative statement about the victims of gun violence, I will see it as offensive to the max.

As it is, I think it was just a raffle. I don't think they were making a statement with the raffle beyond, "Look, 10 bucks for a chance to win a gun!"

There are lots of things the GOP and Tea Partiers say that leave me dismayed. Holding a gun raffle doesn't do it for me. My standards of proof are a bit higher, and I have seen nothing to indicate that the raffle was intended in the way you perceive it.

They added a second gun to the raffle, by the way, because it was proving to be such a success.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Friday, September 9, 2011 1:14 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
As it is, I think it was just a raffle. I don't think they were making a statement with the raffle beyond, "Look, 10 bucks for a chance to win a gun!"

And I listen to Hoffa's speech and hear someone saying that we can take Republicans and teabaggers out of office with our vote. I fail to see how it's remarkable to say such a thing.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Friday, September 9, 2011 1:19 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
As it is, I think it was just a raffle. I don't think they were making a statement with the raffle beyond, "Look, 10 bucks for a chance to win a gun!"

And I listen to Hoffa's speech and hear someone saying that we can take Republicans and teabaggers out of office with our vote. I fail to see how it's remarkable to say such a thing.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

Hello,

Well, then it seems we have some basic differences of opinion on this topic.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Saturday, September 10, 2011 1:59 PM

MAL4PREZ

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Fair point(s).

And I'm not trying to attack you or Niki here, just point out that while I get called on the carpet for letting Rappy push my buttons, I'm far from the only one who responds to him.

Hey Kwicko. I have this problem that I can't connect to this site at work, and by the time I get home there are so many posts that I'm overwhelmed. But I don't want to miss replying about this.

If it ever sounds like I'm getting down on you, that is purely bad communication. I think you do good things. Even when you're living up to being the angriest man on the interwebs, I don't mind you. You do angry in a charming way. Well, and I tend to agree with you on all the salient points. That helps.

I have also noticed Niki's tendency to get down on others who aren't in line with her current mood re: directly addressing he-who-shall-not-be-named. I think her heart's in the right place though, so I haven't wanted to call her on it. (Other than doing it indirectly here - sorry Niki.)

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Saturday, September 10, 2011 2:16 PM

MAL4PREZ

Anthony,

If I may digress a second, please bear with me...

Evolution is generally thought of as a ladder. Start with a pool of mud and gunk, and climb those rungs until you get to something higher and better. The monkey rising as it becomes a human.

This is bunk. Evolution is not about reaching upward, it is about surviving. I'd bet money that there have been plenty of brilliant, complicated, amazing life forms that didn't make it because the Earth just happened to get colder or hotter or richer in O2 or whatever. Sometimes the ugly, base form of life made it through, just because the roulette wheel chose it.

You see where I'm going, right? I don't like this rhetoric Hoffa used, I wish all this anger and separatism would just stop. But looking bigger picture: this is what works right now. This is what survives. And he did it without blatant reference to guns and second amendment. What he did was play to the emotions of the crowd in that instant of time, and if that is what it takes to counter this insanity of the right wing religious whacks...

Well, I still don't like it, and I'll still watch it closely because any real incitement to violence needs to be stopped. But playing up emotion? It ain't pretty, but it what needs to happen in order for sanity to survive. The left wing needs a backbone, needs to use the middle finger for a while. I'm all right with that.

Short of actual violent rhetoric, that is. "Fuck off" is one thing. Crosshairs are another.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Monday, September 12, 2011 6:54 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Quote:
I wish all this anger and separatism would just stop. But looking bigger picture: this is what works right now. This is what survives. And he did it without blatant reference to guns and second amendment. What he did was play to the emotions of the crowd in that instant of time, and if that is what it takes to counter this insanity of the right wing religious whacks...

Well, as usual, she's got it. The emotional-appeal speeches of the past were just that, "of the past". Times are different now, more people have lost hope, and the base of the right has been stirred up into such a frenzy, that no "gentle" emotional appeal will have any effect, in my opinion. Remember that when King spoke, we were at a time when we truly believed we could change the world for the better, so we listened to him. Now we're a mass of disenfranchised, first-time homeless, long-time unemployed, HUGE spread between rich and poor, and nothing looks to go in any other direction.

Yes, I'd like to see the Dems show some balls. But I also have qualms about whether they could even DO it right. They don't have the practice at hate speech the right does, and they haven't been what they DO have to effect the past couple of years. It's a time in our country's history, to me, when appeals to people's better nature fall on enough deaf ears not to be effective, fear and anger are more instinctive. It's kind of funny that so many bought into "hope and change" (especially given that's what every politician since Day One has promised). At that time, after eight years of Bush and war and bad economy and increased divide between rich and poor, I think people were ripe for hoping it could change. It's been proven that it's not been changed fast enough or well enough--it couldn't be unless Obama and the Dems stood up for what he SAID he believed in, and unless he/they fought back, instead of bowing down every damned time.

So now people are doubly angry, doubly fearful--especially as it's personal for more and more of them--and the Tea Party appeals to that anger and foments that fear, so they're effective enough to garner support enough to make them powerful. They are a danger to everything this country stands for, but people are too filled with anger/fear to see that...maybe they're just desperately hoping that, if fairness and "coming together" didn't change anything, hatred and anger WILL. If so, they're in for a helluva shock. It will get worse long before it gets better.

That's the point I would have made if it hadn't been made for me. Yes, emotional speech which calls for decency, etc., has worked in the past. But the times aren't only a-changing', they've changed; 9/11 changed us; BUSH changed us; the ultra-religious Tea Party changed us. Now hatred and fear appeal, that's the crux of it. Maybe someday we'll get back to the kind of things King said working--hopefully!--but it isn't this time in history. At this time, the angels of our better nature have been pushed to the back of many of our minds that those of us consumed by them are willing to think in terms of destroying rather than fixing.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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