We need to keep fighting to make sure we win. I hope we do win! <knock on wood>. That being said, I have a few thoughts if we do.
This hasn't just been a presidential election. It's been a revolution. We're definitely fighting to dismantle the Bush coup. The Bushites have been above all un-Constitutional. More than that, hey've undermined the basic American values for which the American Revolution was originally fought. We're fighting back and reclaiming America for true Americans!
If we win, we'll have won a revolution, not just a presidency. However, I think if we do, after we finish celebrating, we should think in careful, nuanced ways about what we want to do next; what we want to accomplish. I've noted that these social revolutions in America seldom know when to stop. If left to run, they tend to keep pushing things as far as there will go, only to create a backlash. I think the Neoconservative revolution this decade has been an example of that. They came to power and they went hog wild. They were snide and disrespectful of us. We should learn from their mistake.
Now, I definitely believe we should keep fighting for what we truly believe in: true Progressive values. In that sense, I say keep going. However, I suggest that we take stock, post-revolution, and see what we're doing as an opportunity to build something: an opportunity to create a new Golden Age in America run by the Progressive values we know work. I just think that we should be even-keeled about it. For example, I suggest that we avoid disrespecting Conservatives. That will serve zero purpose. It will only make them angry and make us look bad. Besides, it's against our ethics. Instead of dissing Conservatives, we should promote Progressive values in a civilized way and respectfully disagree with them. We can think of ourselves as the new civilization in America, rather than the underdogs fighting oppression, and we should act like it. We have a new duty to set a good example of people living the values we promote. I suggest that we avoid anything punitive to innocent people. I have Republican friends whose frienships I value. I respectfully disagree with them. We can disagree with people, while still being respectful and civilized.
If we lord it over anyone, it will only create a backlash and it will make us hypocrits, ethically. However, if we take the ethical high ground and act civilized and respectful, while still firmly promoting the Progressive values we love dearly, I think our fellow Americans will have an opportunity to see just how well they really work. And... they'll come to see us as the good upstanding citizens that, if you think about it, we really are.
John McCain has been running a character assassination campaign against Barack Obama. He's been playing a con game to try to shift around Bill Ayers and Barack Obama to try to somehow associate Obama with Ayer's militant anti-war activities during the Vietnam War (which happened when Obama was a kid), just because Obama, along with countless respectable citizens, both Democrats and Republicans, served on the board of directors of a non-profit organization that Ayers, now a respected Professor of Education, happened also to be on.
John McCain has been playing a shell and pea game trying to make people associate Obama with certain bad apples in an organization called ACORN who were trying to make false voter registrations. The truth is that ACORN is a bipartisan get-out-the-vote organization and they were the ones who blew the whistle on their these bad apples as soon as they found out they were doing it. What that means is that all they want to do is just register as many people to vote as they can, but they leave the decisions up to those people. The problem is that some of the people they hired to get the vote out (and, as you can imagine they hire thousands of people), want to cheat to make money, so they'd fill out phony voter registration forms. This goes totally against what ACORN is trying to do. This link explains it:
http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=17855
It's true that the Obama supports ACORN, because, as a good, honest, upstanding citizen who supports Democracy, he wants everyone who's eligible to vote to be registered and vote, regarldess of whether they vote for him, for McCain, for Ralph Nader, or for someone else. That's Democracy at it's finest. He and ACORN are both blameless in this regretable act by a few bad apples.
But, McCain didn't stop his smear games there. He's authorized robocalls and mailings to people all over America saying nasty, hateful things about Barack Obama. These robocalls and mailings try to make him out to be a terrorist or claim that he's a Muslim. The truth is that Obama's a Christian. The truth is that Barack Obama's an upstanding citizen who cares about protecting America from terrorists.
What you can do.
Contact eveyone you know and tell them this. Stop dishonest character assassination attempts this elections season. Write letters to the editors of your local newspapers (you may even be able to do this online, just go to google.com, search for your newspaper's name and you may be surprised to find that they're online and you can send a letter to the editor over the internet right now). Do whatever you can to get the word out about this dishonesty from the McCain camp.
One reason I'm voting for Obama is because I think he's simply more honest than McCain. McCain just seems like an oily con artist to me.
If you'd like to donate to my grassroots campaign for Barack Obama, click the link below:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/ivanrichmond
Want to know what Carl 'Saruman' Rove of Many Colors, Bush's former campaign advisor and propaganda sorceror is advising McCain to do? Read his article here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122471862591760559.html
We've got to know what the opposition is planning. Sounds like Rove's advice is more smears and more reframing of Obama's tax plan from a conservative perspective.
Fortunately, our language framing wizard, George 'Gandalf' Lakoff the White has an outline for strategy for the Obama campaign. It's a bit old (just before the elections), but still looks good. View it here:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/01-0
If you'd like to donate to my grassroots campaign for Obama, click on the link below. This is a real close race and we need all the help we can get. You can make a difference. Even $5 will help.
Obama's tax plan will invest in the average American worker who drives our Capitalism economy. It will get water to the root of our economy and it will really invest in two ways. It will give ordinary working people financial relief in this economic crisis. Under his plan, if you make less than $250,000 a year, you'll get a tax break. Also, small businesses will get a tax break as will any business that keeps jobs here in America
But it will also invest in society. By having big business carry more of the burden, it will invest in things like schools, roads, public transportation and health care. All of these things will benefit everybody. Our children will be able to get the education they need. Families will be able to have continuous, affordable and fair health coverage. People will be able to take improved public transportation systems to work instead of having to pay huge gas prices at the pump.
All of this will provide the groundwork and opportunity for us ordinary Americans to regrow our economy from the roots up. But, we'll have to do our part. We'll have to take advantage of it and participate by using our savings wisely and by going to work and working hard. But, I know that we Americans are up to the challenge, provided the opportunity to rise to it and that's what Barack Obama will provide us: the opportunity to rise to the challenge as a nation.
If you'd like to contribute to my grassroots campaign, clickon the link below. We've got to keep fighting to make the Obama movement a reality. Even as little as $5 will make a difference.
I found a great article about the Progressive view on taxation and how best to frame that view to the public:
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/lakoff/progressive-taxation-some-hidden-truths.html
We may want to use these ideas in counteracting McCain's smears, like calling Obama's tax plan "socialist" or "welfare".
McCain is now saying that Obama's tax policy is "Socialist". Of course, we know that's poppy cock, but the problem is it's a frame and should not be underestimated. To understand how frame's work, read UC Berkeley linguist George Lakoff's article here:
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/lakoff/howtorespond.html
The idea behind describing Obama's tax policy this way, I think, is that conservatives place strong importance on discpline. If someone succeeds, they think it's because they were disciplined. Disciplined, and therefore successful people, they think, deserve to be rewarded. They think of people who are struggling to make it as lazy and undisciplined. To describe Obama's tax plan as McCain does makes it sound like a free gift to the undisciplined. We need to fight this frame by reframing it. Here are my suggestions.
Have you heard the latest smear? Now, McCain's criticizing us for having raised "too much" money. See here:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081019/ap_on_el_pr/mccainCan you believe that guy? I mean, in the past few elections, it's always been the Republicans who have raised way more money. I seem to recall that Bush raised $300,000 in 2000, 3 times what Gore raised, all because he had some of the wealthiest voters imaginable. Now, we have this grassroots effort to raise money. If you're like me you've been donating $20, maybe as little as $5 at a time, when you can afford it, and it's not been easy in this economy. But, I for one keep donating because I really care about these elections. I'm really tired of seeing Bush tear down this country, rip up our Constitution and attempt rape on Lady Liberty. I'm livid! I want a president who will respect our Constitutionand actually do what's best for the people for once. What does McCain think we should do, just not donate? I'm sure he'd like that.
But, what's going on here is framing at it's nastiest. Most Americans vote based on character, rather than on policies. McCain's frame is that Obama is dishonest. We need to reframe this. For more on framing, see framing guru and UC Berkeley linguist George Lakoff's article here:
She's cast a glamour on herself to make her seem like a nice lady and a goody-two-shoes soccer mom. The truth, however, is a lot worse.
If you'd like to donate to my grassroots effort, click below:
Hi,
I just read this really interesting article by George Lakoff, the UC Berkeley linguist and progressive who has been talking so recently about language framing in political campaigns. We're doing well, but I'm worried that we could still lose if we con't reframe McCain / Palin. Here's the article:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1743
We're really close and we can win this. But, we have to fight the smears. Palin has been running around to swing states talking about this whole ACORN smear. The fact of the matter is that ACORN itself is a legitimate voter registration organization and it's only certain members of it who are under investigation for false voter registration. This isn't actually voter fraud. In order to commit voter fraud, one has to actually cast a vote more than once. Of course Obama and our campaign support voter registration. So, naturally this Obama campaign gave money to ACORN, thinking that money would go to legitimate voter registration. But, Obama and our campaign are totally unconnected to the falsified voter registration of ACORN. The whole thing's a dirty smear and we have to fight it.
In order to do this, I think we need to come up with some sort of short, to the pont phrase that makes these facts clear. I'm not sure how to do that, but I'm not a speach writer. If I think of something, I'll let you all know. %-)
McCain keeps hammering away at all their poppy cock about Ayers. Ayers did some fairly nasty stuff, it's true, but Obama's only connection to him is that he served on the same board with him, as well as with plenty of pillars of the community: Republicans, Democrats, executives and university heads. It's guilt by association and we have to stand up to the smear.
Again, I don't know what words we'd use exactly, but as I've said, I'm not an ad author.
I've signed up with adwords.google.com to get some little text ads to support Obama (those text ads that appear to the right of the screne sometimes when you search on Google). It allows you to put in keywords, bid on those keywords, create multiple ads with multiple sets of keywords and even target the ads to specific websites. I targeted a bunch of ads raising awareness about how bad Sarah Palin actually is on women's issues to women's sites, for example. You only pay if people click through on your ad and you can specify a daily maximum. I specified $2 as my daily maximum. Which means it costs my $60 / month. It's a bit of money, but so far, my ads have shown up a total of 449,092 times and I've had 273 people click through. Not great as far as click-thrus, I realize, but each of my ads says something specific about _why_ I support Obama, oppose McCain, oppose Palin, etc. So, not so many people may click through, but almost half a million people have seen what I've had to say, and all that for just $60 / month.
If all of us did that, we'd get incredible visibility.
If you'd like to donate to my grassroots campaign to support Barack Obama, click on the link below:
Good news! It's looking really good out there. Every sign seems to be show that Obama's ahead. That's great.
But it's not over. I guarantee you, the Republicans are going to keep on smearing Obama, bashing him, putting Palin up there to look pretty and talk to us all with her coy sexiness about how hungry everyone is for Alaskan oil. It gives me the creeps. So, we've got to keep fighting. Now that we're ahead, let's stay ahead. We can't give one inch. But, we've got to keep being civil. We're the good guys, so we should continue to act like it. But, we've got to keep fighting. We can win this and end the Bushite regime, but only if we give it everything we've got up until Nov. 4.
Sarah Palin opposes the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It was a bill that was defeated by Republicans in Congress this year, which would have extended the 6 month limit of time that a woman can sue her company for paying her less than a man in the same position.
Sarah Palin does not! She's a Dominionist. See these articles here:
http://dogemperor.newsvine.com/_news/2008/08/29/1803647-sarah-palin-dominionist-stalking-horse
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/WireStory?id=5723050&page=2
Dominionism is the belief that Christians should rule America and that the Bible, as opposed to the Constitution, should be the highest law in the land. Here's what Wikipedia says about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism
If you'd like to make a donation to my grass-roots fundraiser for Barack Obama, click here:
Sarah Palin does. When she was mayor of Wasilla, she forced rape victims to pay for forensic examinations and for the special medical kits required for such exams, which are routine parts of rape investiagations. It's all right here:
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/sarah_palin_rape_kit_wasilla.html
If you'd like to donate to my grass roots fundraising drive for Barack Obama, you can do so here:
NOTE: I tried to create a Google Adwords ad for this post, but they wouldn't let me put either the word "rape" or the phrase "sexual assault" in the ad. At the time of this writing, I plan to change the ad to say, simply, "assault", since I'm out of options.
I got $300! I'm amazed at how well this fundraising stuff is going. I've done several things that have helped.
1. I invested in my own adwords ad on Google. adwords.google.com.
2. I listened to the grass-roots talks at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/gfcresources.
If you'd like to donate to my grass-roots campaign, go here:
We still need more money. A lot went to the primaries and it's a really tight race. Even $5 will help.
Also, if you haven't yet, setup your own fundraising page.
Here are some of my thoughts on reframing Sarah Palin. First, the Republican frame is this:
* She's a good mother and as a stateswoman, she's the mother part of the strong father model. That is, she plays a supporting role, as a lady-like and merciful queen, who nevertheless warns that father will beat you when he comes home. This reinforces the top-down authoritarianism of the strong father model (see George Lakoff on this at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-palin-choice-and-the_b_123012.html).
How we can reframe this:
* She may be a good mother to her children (we don't want to go dissing her there, or the McCain camp will say we're fighting really, really dirty), but she doesn't care enough about other people's children:
* She's opposed to women's reproductive rights, even in the case of rape (I think this is true -- needsd to be fact-checked about the rape part). She supports her daughter's right to make a decision about this, but when it comes to your daugthers', she wants the government to force teenage girls who get raped to go to school pregnant and suffer further humiliation because they're pregnant, despite the scientific fact that in many cases, it's only a non-sentiant micro-organism that's being aborted anyway. Even fetuses, at the point in development when they'd be aborted, don't have their sinapses hooked up in their brains, so they can't feel any pain. A teenage rape victim can feel plenty of pain, yet Sarah Palin wants to force them to suffer.
* Palin claims to be in favor of female power, yet when it comes to reproductive rights and the rights of women to make their own moral decisions about whether or not to end a pregnancy by aborting either a microscopic organism or a fetus that can't feel any pain, because it doesn't have sinapses in the brain hooked up, she wants the daddy government to make the decision for the woman and force her to suffer. She doesn't think women are capable of making their own moral decisions.
* War is terrible business, and human beings of strong moral fiber know, deep in our hearts, that war should only be waged when absolutely necessary. Iraq never attacked us. They never had weapons of mass destruction. In fact, Saddam Hussein, as bad as he may have been, actively opposed Al Qaida. The Bush administration deceived us to get the country to go along with an invasion of Iraq, which never did anything to us. This has put our country trillions of dollars in debt. Why did he do it? Although he denies it, the only logical conclusion is that it was to take their oil. But, it's a totally unethical solution to our energy problem and we know it. Moreover, we've already ousted Hussein. If there's resistance to our occupation, it's because the Iraqis don't want us there. We're beating a bee hive and complaining about being stung and it's wrong. It's also keeping us from responding to real problems that our military may be needed for. Yet, McCain and Palin want to keep us in Iraq indefinitely. Palin may be a good mother to her children, but when it comes to our children who are fighting for America, she wants to keep them fighting a war that we all know we shouldn't be fighting just so that oil companies and military contractors like Dick Cheney's company Haliburton line their pockets and go into Iraq as carpet baggers. Palin may care about her children, but not about ours in the military, who could be doing what really needs to be done to defend America instead of ripping off Iraq.
For more information on language framing see:
The Rockridge Institute at: http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research.html
Buy George Lakoff's Don't Think of the Elephant.
