I am so damned tired of the Right having all the soundbites. My anger is sharpend considerably by the Mainstrean Media. Either they are a vapid, incurious shadow of their former selves, or they are actively working against the American Middle Class, Working Poor, and just bloody Poor!
They report, with unadulterated glee, the stupidity an intellectually bankrupt Judge who rules "Obamacare" (sic) unconstitutional, yet ignore a Federal Court Judge who cries "Bollocks".
They are not on our side, they are not with us, they are against us. They are part of the enemy machinery and we can't fight them on their turf.
So we have to shift the fight to our side of the fence, and we can, and it's not that hard.
We cannot drown out the noise machine. It is too noisy, beamed into too many homes, and repeated by too many Pastors, Employers and ad hoc Tea-hardists from Seattle to Miami.
They spout a "populist" meme predicated on the ridiculous notion that "we have to protect the rich, because one day we might be rich, and we don't want to have to pay for all those poor scroungers".
This is a theme that started with Reagan, the great destroyer of the American Dream, and continues it's direct lineage through both Bushbabies, to the current inheritors, Beck, Palin, and other assorted enemies of the working class .... Oh, let's not forget the Supreme Court while we are at it.
But what we can do is talk to people. Do not underestimate the power of personal, face to face, advocacy. We can talk to people the way the Egyptians did. We can talk to them in our workplaces, in our schools and churches, in our clubs and societies.
I don't mean talk about the President, whether he is American, Muslim, Communist or any of the other things he is accused of. I don't mean talking about policies, Trades Unions, or any other dis-embodied organisations.
No forget that, unless you judge that people really do want to find out about actual ... issues. Nope, talk to them about people. (Yeah, I know that picture has my name in it. Like I care!)
The picture on the left is me getting mad at many of my Facebook friends. I know very few actual rich people. The people I know are working people, the very people who are being harmed the most by the latest round of the Culture War. Yet, time and again they won't hear what I say because they know I am a Liberal, and that's a very bad thing, being Liberal. You know, actually caring about them, their jobs, their pensions, the income of their grannies. Terrible.
So I got mad and although there are, as yet, no replies to that Status, I have changed tack. I am not interested in asking for opposition to Bill designed to strip workers Rights, Rights fought for and hard earned over generations. They don't care that their parents and grandparents fought those battles that they might have a better slice of the Dream, a larger share of the Pie. Nope, they are happy to abandon the legacy they were left, because Fox News calls it Socialism.
Well fuck them, because it's my legacy too, and they are not giving it away that easily.
So I am going to ask the kind of questions that I ask in that Facebook picture, and I am going to keep on asking them.
Don't tell me that Collective Bargaining for Teachers has to go .... Tell me which Teachers earn too much. My wife on $35k, with her skill, dedication and College Degree? Did the Union get her too good a deal?
The Police Officers, the Fire Fighters? Are they the rich spongers who are bankrupting the State? Tell me. Point them out. Do you work for the State? Do you earn too much? How much would you give up so that the Private Jet owners don't have to pay Sales Tax on their $10 million purchase?
Who are these workers who are earning too much? Point them out.
Get personal, because on a personal level we win. We win every time and we can't lose. I don't mean get angry (like I just did), just calmly, and quietly, make the point. It will sink in, they will hear it even if at first they don't respond.
Social Security too high? Really? How much income should your Granny lose? Go on, tell me. How much is she getting in Social Security, that would be better spent on Tax Cuts for the rich?
And so on, and so forth.
When we make it personal, we win the argument. Each time and every time. We can reach tens of millions through Social and Inter-personal Networking, and CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox .... They can't stop us.
Use individual knowledge ... "Your other half works for the City Sanitation Department. Does he earn too much? How much of a wage cut should he take to give to the Banks?"
Make up your own.
/rant off
ps ... I may be in for a mass "de-friending". Is that such a bad thing?