Exposing the lies, Show me your best LTE.

I am looking for help in a project I wish to see implemented among the grassroots of the progressive movement. It is no secret that we on this side of the political divide have been effectively shut out and silenced by the corporate mainstream media hacks. American airwaves and print publications are saturated with the opinions of right-wing hate mongers, bushco apologists, end times fanatics and corporate funded "fake research" reports that have nothing to do with science or truth, and everything to do with brainwashing the public.
One of the few remaining public venues available to us as a way to reach the people of our cities and towns is the Letter to the Editors section of our local newspapers. The purpose of this diary is to gather an array of concisely written arguments that can be easily referenced by those wishing to contribute accurate, definitive LTE's to their local paper.
More idea's below the fold.

I can't tell you how many times I have read  an editorial piece or LTE in my local paper that was written by an obviously devoted, loyal bush nut, and just didn't have time to write a solid, fact based reply, that debunked whatever particular nonsense they wrote about.
My hope is that readers here are motivated to share LTE's they have written, or are writing, so they can be shared amongst ourselves. The right is notorious for the abilty to almost instantaneously speak as one voice on a variety of issues using their talking points.
Why can't we?  If we had some letters that could be copied, then easily modified to suit the local flavor, perhaps we can make some positive inroads in changing the dialogue among americans.
One thing I tend to forget, most americans are not like us. We are freaks, political junkies, oddballs. Most sane people don't spend (enter your hours-per-day Kos habit here), educating themselves about the issues we face. Let's help them see the truth.

Here are a just a few frames I would like to see addressed:

1. It's not a War, It's an Occupation stoopid.
Using appropriate language of course, I'd like to have a tight, categorical rebuttal of the common framing of the Iraq fiasco as a war. We Kossacks know the "war" was over the day they captured Saddam, and has now degenerated into an occupation that can never be "won". Mom and Pop american still doesn't get this idea. It's a frame we need to change in middle america.

2. Fighting them there, so we don't have to fight them here.
This one is so stupid that it would seem easy to refute this. I have heard this argument so many times not only in the paper, but in a one on one situation. How do you expose this as nothing more than a scare tactic? Show me what you have so I can use it.

3.  Global warming isn't a fact.
We have all heard the lies and corporate rhetoric about this.
Give me your best shot exposing this for what it is.

4. National healthcare will bankrupt america.
Another blatant lie. There are several excellent writers here that are on top of covering the healthcare crisis. Most notable is nyceve. What I am looking for here is another concise explanation why national healthcare is not only needed in america, but affordable as well.

5. America is safer under republican rule.
Again, this is laughable, but it is still a dominant way of thinking across the country.
How do you put this lie to rest in 250 words or less?

To reiterate the purpose of this diary:
To gather short, concise, progressive arguments, that deftly refute that most basic wingnut talking points.
Make them available to all Kossacks for the pupose of providing a quick way to fire off that scathing, fact filled LTE you've always wanted to write but didn't have the time to construct.
To help facilitate the evolution of thought in america by reframing the lies so prevalent in our media. Please do not limit yourself to the points I outlined above.
Go get'em!

•  tips for truth

  I know there a thousands of excellent writers here, many of them still consider themselves "lurkers". Maybe you don't want to publish a diary, but have some great ideas. This would be a good place to try them out. All efforts will be greatly appreciated.
  peace.

  by FireCrow on Sat May 12, 2007 at 08:29:34 AM PDT

•  FireCrow, I don't have my best one

  It wasn't published under my name but was in the New York Times years ago, signed by a batch of well-known American writers, and was about the McCarran-Walter Act - which at that time was the law used to keep "dissidents" like Graham Greene and Farley Mowat and Gabriel Garcia Marquez out of the U.S.  Now we have Homeland Security.

  Recall being pretty proud of it, not that it did much good in the long run. Though McCarran-Walter did go away for a while, during the Clinton administration.

  Okay, will rally and think up a new LTE soon, to be signed by me.

  by javelina on Sat May 12, 2007 at 08:38:49 AM PDT

•  Here's one I wrote for my local paper this week

  The Laurel your paper gave to the President for vetoing the Troop funding legislation last week was the last straw and today I cancelled my subscription to the Freeman.  I suggest others do the same.  

  The editorial page of the Freeman has steadily went downhill over the past few years and I ignored how pathetic it was because I am proud of my city and liked reading local stories and knowing about upcoming events in the area.  Unfortunately after reading the parroting of a political groups' (Republicans) pablum about tieing the president's hands I couldn't stand it anymore.

  Our great country has functioned through time because of our system of checks and balances where we have 3 coequal branches of government.  Our legislative branch chose to do its duty and hold our president accountable in some way for his disastrous policies but unfortunately your editors chose to praise incompetence.

  It sickens me that our citizens and the Freeman editors can be so naive, with little to no long term memory.  Four years after "Mission Accomplished" thousands of our citizens are dead and tens of thousands more maimed for life.  100s of billions of dollars gone.  VP Cheney has repeated for years that the insurgency is in its throes.  We have had numerous new phases with numerous people taking charge.  Now the president is looking for a new War Czar to make things all better.  By the way Where’s Dead or Alive Bin Laden and the Anthrax killer.  

  Wake up zombies and take some advice from a writer last week.  She was a life long Republican until she started thinking on her own and asking questions instead of listening to mindless parrots repeating the same crap over and over.  She then realized how wrong she had been all these years.  

  by Packer Fan on Sat May 12, 2007 at 08:55:10 AM PDT

  •  nice job

    thanks for the contribution.

    by FireCrow on Sat May 12, 2007 at 08:57:59 AM PDT

    •  Thanks

      I have some diaries with other letters I wrote if interested.  Overall I think my letters are a little strong for the readers of this site.  I think we need to be strong but most here are more passive.

      by Packer Fan on Sat May 12, 2007 at 09:05:52 AM PDT

•  I am a dedicated...

  ..LTE writer to my local paper, the ever-red Dallas Morning News.  They have published three or four of mine, but only those that I couched my liberal-ness in cleverness.  For instance, shortly after Katrina hit and the mess came to light, I wrote:

  There is something about hurricanes that don't like Presidents named Bush.
   Where are the National Guard vehicles and troops to help the citizens of New Orleans?  Baghdad.
   Where are the MRE's that could feed the displaced and homeless in the Superdome and around the city?  Baghdad.
   You'd think that Bush the second would have learned from his father that a hurricane can blow away any good will or political capital you could have had.

   That letter was about up to their tolerance limit.  
   One other LTE I had published in the Morning Snooze that I was particularly proud of I wrote in response to the vote on the Defense of Marriage Act:

  I have asked my elected representatives to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act currently before Congress.
   The framers of our Constitution were very careful to outline our freedoms in that wonderful document.  I don't think that they would ever consider amending the Constitution in a way that would restrict freedom.

  by drchelo on Sat May 12, 2007 at 09:05:20 AM PDT

•  For No. 3, on Global Warming, I quote

  the Scientific American Magazine, their Sept. issue on climate change. Their lead in has a paragraph that says: "The debate over global warming is over...". It has a few paragraphs that explains things simply. I'll go look for the issue. For the most part it shuts up the skeptics on the local blog. The main argument I get back is that scientists are on the take, they're  making a lot of money. Then I'll argue back: "Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Academic Research Scientists, and Big Pharma. Which of these doesn't belong?" Then I explain that if you are smart enough to be a research scientist, you were also smart enough to get a MBA, Law Degree etc, so you could have chased the big money if you had wanted to, but chose science because you liked it.

  by kkjohnson on Sat May 12, 2007 at 09:45:05 AM PDT

•  well, I have had both op eds and LTEs

  and other short pieces published, mainly but not exclusively in Washington Post.  I have also been written about, mainly by Jay Mathews, principal education writer for the Washington Post.

  Let me provide a link that will take you to annotated lists, not all of which are for material in print, but it should be clear which are.

  This is a link on my homepage, whose primary purpose is inform my students about their assignments.

  Try this

  hope that helps

  by teacherken on Sat May 12, 2007 at 10:31:03 AM PDT

  •  lte in the post

    I have the hardest time getting in the post. I live in CA so I wonder if they are geographically biased.  

    by cascott on Sat May 12, 2007 at 10:38:17 AM PDT

•  latest nyt lte published last saturday

  This is a LTE that I wrote that appeared in last saturdays LTE for the NYT

  you would think from David Brooks's description of events that Paul D. Wolfowitz's only sin was not playing nice with the locals. Republicans like Mr. Wolfowitz do not run into trouble because they cannot
  handle bureaucratic infighting. They run into trouble because their certitude in their own self-importance makes it impossible for them to recognize improper or incompetent behavior in themselves. As a result, they have no way to answer the legitimate concerns about their stewardship without resorting to cries of being victims of baseless partisan
  sniping.

  Michael Scott San Francisco, May 3, 2007

  by cascott on Sat May 12, 2007 at 10:31:19 AM PDT

•  lte that was published in the SF chronicle

  This appeared in the Chronicle in response to a rueben navarette article.

  Rueben Navarette may be happy to score one for Team Bush, but the result is Americans will have to rely on a highly politicized Justice Department, which takes their marching orders from White House staffers and is led by a man whose only competency for the position is his obsequious relationship to the President, to defend our constitutional rights.

  May 3oth 2007

  by cascott on Sat May 12, 2007 at 10:33:09 AM PDT

•  This is like shooting fish in a barrel

  Dude:
  ° Bush was the one that told us the war was over. Remember that Mission Accomplished Banner? Heck, we have a president that was against nation building before he was for it and now he has us stuck in Iraq, exposed as impotent should North Korea or Iran attempt something.

  ° We were already fighting them HERE before we were fighting them over THERE unless you didn't notice. WTC I, OKC, Atlanta Olympics, Abortion clinics, gay bars, etc. Except for WTC I all of those acts of terrorism were done by WHITE CHRISTIAN  AMERICANS to other Americans.

  ° lots of luck denying global warming. If you don't notice a difference in the last 20 years, you haven't been paying attention. BTW, it is wingnuts who think GW doesn't exist because they all believe in Armageddon so it doesn't matter if they trash the planet.

  ° Private insurance IS bankrupting America. The only ones getting rich are the insurance companies. The cost of health care has been rising on average about 15% a year for the past six years under Bush — or it has gone up 100% since Clinton left office. Expensive insurance leads to outsourcing and also huge fiscal responsiblity for US automakers and other major pension funds.

  The Kerry plan would have at least put the cost of catastrophic insurance on the feds dime, but IMO single payer is the most practical solution and more efficient too as we spend about 25% of health care on the paper work. Goverment bureaucracy like the Veterans Administration spends less than 3% of its overhead on administrative costs.

  • We weren't attacked before 9/11. Granada and Beirut (Reagan); Panama and Kuwait (GHWB); Afghanistan and Iraq (GWB). Also, don't forget Ford's ill-fated rescue of the USS Mayaguez resulting in significant loss of American lives.

  For the Dems in the last forty years: Carter, zero wars although some military deaths during attemped rescue of hostages. Clinton, Somalia and Kosovo. However, Bill did not start Somalian operation as it began under GHWB. Kosovo largely seen as a success with minimal or no loss of us troops.

  by Dirk McQuigley on Sat May 12, 2007 at 11:15:15 AM PDT

•  Here's one on single payer

  that appeared this week in local Santa Barbara CA newspaper. I've since developed this "business frame" further for our grassroots lobbying efforts to describe single payer's role working with business in Califoirnia where we have a full-fledged single payer bill in the works in the state legislature.

  Single payer has not been covered well by the print newsmedia in California, despite having a bill in Sacramento under the media's very noses, so we have used LTEs and op eds extensively to make up for this major hole in the news, to get the message across to average citizens who generally like single payer once they learn it exists and how it works.

  Thanks for doing this diary highlighting LTE's as an important "under the radar" and straight-to-readers communications system

  ^^^

  To the Editor, Santa Barbara NewsPress, May 9, 2007

  How single payer helps business

  Responding to Mr. Engle’s letter (5-3-07) calling the SB 840 single payer legislation "socialized medicine," News-Press readers should know that under single payer, doctors don’t work for the government but rather maintain their independent practices; make their own medical decisions; and consumers choose their own doctors, so by definition single payer is not "socialized medicine."

  The proposed single payer plan for California -- passed last year; vetoed by our unwise governor and wisely reintroduced last month -- is a single fund everybody pays into which in turn pays all the bills without peeling off a fat profit to Wall Street. SB 840 uses its market clout to bargain down drug and equipment prices, and cuts costs with more efficient administrative systems.

  Single payer offers savings for companies that will make them more competitive, better able to retain and create jobs. And we can change jobs and stay insured. Mr. Engle’s concerns about "socialized medicine" are wasted on single payer which in fact has a positive effect on capitalism by freeing up capital for investment back into companies to make them grow.

  Imagine single payer as if it were an insurance system operated as a "department" within a company; we wouldn't expect that department to make its own profit but rather it would be part of the cost of doing business. Single payer can also be imagined as a non-profit public utility (from Latin for "useful") supplying a low-cost useful service (like electricity or water) to industry -- except the public utility is affordable healthcare. Single-payer is an ideal business-friendly solution because of its inherent economy.

  Get on board SB 840 single payer at www.healthcareforall.org.

  J.W.P.

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  by wardlow on Sat May 12, 2007 at 12:21:21 PM PDT

  •  Fire Crow, BTW

    You had asked for "national healthcare" but the framing in my letter can be applied nationally as well. I'm personally putting efforts into our California bill in hopes that once CA single payer passes (all we need is a halfway enlightened governor), we can model it for the rest of the country, shake out the bugs and eventually take it national. The design of the plan is quite good. If you're interested, take a look at clear, well-written essays by the sponsor of SB 840, Sen. Sheila Kuehl, easily one of the most brilliant minds in America on health insurance, not only single payer but all kinds.

    by wardlow on Sat May 12, 2007 at 01:12:20 PM PDT