How? – Moon of Alabama

March 7, 2005

How?

Newsweek, via Dan Froomkin, on a Bush "townhall" meeting:

Carlos Huertas was billed as a concerned grandfather and hard-working engineer when he sat onstage next to President Bush to talk about retirement accounts in downtown Tampa, Fla., last month.

…
The Florida granddad is an activist for FreedomWorks, a conservative group founded by former vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp and Dick Armey, the former House GOP leader.

The pressure groups website says:

FreedomWorks recruits, educates, trains and mobilizes hundreds of thousands of volunteer activists to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom.

Recruit, educate, train, mobilize to fight – interesting language …

Bush plans 60 "townhall" events in the next 60 days. The format is not for discussion. The idea is to stir up the his troops. An additional effect is the local and national press reporting on them in a fair and balanced way.

Social Security is not an urgent problem. It is not even a problem. Medicare and Medicaid have financial problems, Social Security has not. But by repeating and repeating and repeating the people are made to believe that there is a problem and that it is urgent. It worked on Iraq, in worked in the campaign and it may work again.

Distribute doubt and fear, and when these have grown enough, come down as the archangel and solve the problem. The people will be grateful. Ten years later, they will recognize they have been had.

This tactic has worked in my country some 70 years ago. Currently nobody would try them in any systematic way. But such methods do spread, especially when they are successful.
Blair has already copied much of this modus operandi.

So here are the questions:

How does one counter this method?
How does one counter militant groups like FreedomWorks?

I really do not know. Please give me some ideas.

Posted by b on March 7, 2005 at 20:36 UTC | Permalink

Comments

We find out about the “more”–those “surprises” in store for us, the names of the thirteen states, etc.–and we publicize them and discuss them in advance. This will drain those events of their drama, and give the White House the idea that they don’t control the gossip chain quite as much as they would like to do–or feel that they have to do.
The point is raise the stakes, making the White House spend more, and more, and more. Just as the insurgents have done in Iraq. And this will take its toll–not only on us, to begin with, but also on them as well. And the cost to them is the point to remember, because we fight these fights for our kids, not just for ourselves (and I’m speaking, it’s true, from a grandfather’s point of view).

Posted by: alabama | Mar 7 2005 21:31 utc | 1

on a broader front one tactic much needed is increasing outside criticism. at some point, the global community is going to have to call a spade a spade & stand for something that distinguishes themselves from endorsing the actions of madmen & war criminals. i can’t recall any countries leaders bragging about how much they supported hitler back in the days. an orchestrated campaign of brutally honest critiques, relentless in scope and scale, could easily overwhelm the pr apparatus & central braintrust currently ruling over unaffective opposition here & abroad. at a minimum, it would put them on the defensive to the degree that either trips them up, pisses them off, or forces them to change their positions. not that i have given up on my countrypersons around here when i say that i’m also looking outward for solutions, but we can only try everything and anything.

Posted by: b real | Mar 7 2005 22:16 utc | 2

They are getting slicker. When they launched the ‘end social security’ campaign, they wheeled out an “Iowa single mother” named Sandy Jaques to sing its praises– but it was easy to discover that she was a paid lobbyist and Iowa State Director for this same group, Freedom Works (http://www.prwatch.org/node/3127). Now they’re reaching down to find people who don’t have such obvious strings attached – a “hard-working grandfather” this time. Mr Heurtas doesn’t show up on Google but he must have a past if he’s an “activist” – someone should be able to investigate it.

Posted by: jr | Mar 7 2005 22:39 utc | 3

The other day on Lou Dobbs, they (can’t recall who the guests were) were practically jeering Bush’s social security program, noting how hopelessly unpopular it is. They mused that we would soon see a social security “exit strategy”, where some ‘crumb’ of the program would be implemented just so the President could save face while quietly scrapping the bulk of it. If the MSM (particularly the Lou Dobbs segment of the MSM) is sounding the death knell of this idea, could it be that it really is dead? Or is it just wishful thinking?

Posted by: kat | Mar 7 2005 22:58 utc | 4

@kat –
I thought it was dead, but now I don´t think it is dead, though if people would think a bit rational, it would be in a cheap coffin ready to burn. But Rove’s/Bush’s deceiving operation is purely about emotion and psychological tricks.
They have a plan and even if it takes a year they will follow their script and they will probably keep it going for the 2006 election. I misunderestimated them here.
(Bombing Iran will come inbetween. – A slight disturbance and the (much) higher gas prices will enforce their campaign because it underlines insecurity.)
Rove is so good at this that even Goebbels could have learned from him on these issues.
The dems need all their power on this one and they need to stick together EVEN if there is pressure building. I am afraid that there are too many disguised republicans with dem labels (Lieberman comes to mind) to hold the front.
I do not have a recipe how to fight this. That’s why I ask. Let’s brainstorm.

Posted by: b | Mar 7 2005 23:25 utc | 5

b, go to kos and read the stuff on Greenspeak. The attacks are taking place, but on the edges, where the Bush campaign machine can’t come out and defend. It was absolutely brilliant for Sen Reid to call Greenspeak a hack and point out his potomic two step on tax cuts, then call for spending cuts including SS. Then the piling on started. Krugman called Greenie a hack, now Ron Brownstein of the LA times has taken on Greenie and the tax cuts, and a story on Yahoo said Greenies getting to political and could make it hard for the next Fed chair.
If you can undercut St Greenspan and his argument, then you can undercut Bushie and his admins logic. Nothing happens without his blessing. Greenie has been god like, now theres a chink in the armor, and with only a year left in his term, many are willing to slaughter this sacred cow.
I have called my senators and legislators every week on SS, bankruptsy, today on the minimum wage bullshit that that dick Santorum was pulling. Rise up. Be heard. I believe the blogs have left the MSM out in the cold and some are finally trying to catch up. Brownsteins article is just a start, but a small step is better than none.

Posted by: jdp | Mar 8 2005 1:26 utc | 6

b real…..interesting comment. the lack of backbone in the international communities’ dealing with bush reminds me of the way the international community never stood up to hitler.
of course, the leaders of the first world are mainly employees of the multinational cabal.

Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Mar 8 2005 6:41 utc | 7

“the lack of backbone in the international communities’ dealing with bush reminds me of the way the international community never stood up to hitler”
Of course the wingnuts never realised that their comparisons with Munich – the one the used before the war to shame Old Europe – was indeed most appropriate: an insane tyrant decides to invade a harmless country that never attacked his own country, and the guy, bent on world domination, declares to the rest of the world: “Either you allow us to take it, or you don’t and we’ll take it nevertheless”.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Mar 8 2005 9:12 utc | 8

criticism of freedom works (armey’s army?) in the news : Nonprofit group skirts lobbying laws, critics charge

Posted by: b real | Mar 8 2005 15:11 utc | 9

I once watched a Young America’s Foundation (YAF) panel discussion on C-SPAN. One of the speakers said, “never meet a good idea you aren’t willing to steal.”
b, you said it yourself what to do:
Recruit, educate, train, mobilize to fight
There is nothing that says that the sane & humane people of the country (the people’s party) can’t use their methods for populist purposes.
What is that purpose? Well, for openers, it would be to counter their demagoguery by consistently drawing the curtain back and pointing out the man behind the curtain. Meaning, pointing out their lies, how they are lies, and why they are lying. Also, point out the speakers’ connections to the right wing machine; and most importantly, the way they are being whipped up to ignore the legislation that would really hurt average working people such as the bankruptcy bill and what that would mean for them should they ever get sick or hurt.
This is how I think we can begin to fight back.

Posted by: NeoLotus | Mar 11 2005 1:12 utc | 10

Back to Main