Bold!
Red Italics!
C A P I T A L L E T T E R S w i t h S P A C E S!
We suck at messaging that inflames and goes viral.
Why is that? Why do we always take the high road?
My brother, who claims to be an "independent" (but I think he is a closet teabagger) had this as his facebook quote:
"Look, it's an all volunteer force, nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice? It doesn't compute. I thought these were people who were proud to sacrifice for their country I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow Americans." Obama 2010 (Regarding veterans carry private health insurance)
Really?
I don't think so... Snopes.. that is not true.
I called him out on it and he has since changed it to a quote from Jefferson:
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
I kinda think that is true as we have seen the biggest shift in wealth from the workers to the wealthy... it's happening before our eyes, yet I'm sure this is intended to continue the "Obama is a socialist" meme from the teabagger community.
He sent this email to me a few months ago... pasted and forwarded endlessly. Lots of font changes, color changes, bolding, and falsehoods.
The Washington Post babbled again today about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush. Amazingly enough, a lot of people swallow this nonsense.
So once more, a short civics lesson.
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party.
Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009 as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011.
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
For FY 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period: (below)
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.
If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.
After seeing Countdown and the discussion around fear-based politics, I understand why the "other guys" are better at adding fear to politics... I just don't understand why they can send this crap around and no one has a counterpoint, a comparable viral email that "refudiates" the claims and quotes...
My dad, who never voted for a democrat anything, always registered as a democrat. Being from Massachusetts I guess it was his way of staying connected to the northeast. But he always said: "I'm a democrat, not a 'dummy-crat' ". But he always had Fox News on his TV. Isn't that kinda like Jumbo-Shrimp? If I listened to Faux, wouldn't that, by definition, make me a dummy-crat?
I guess I should just start making up $#!+ and sending it out as fact...
Faux does and it works...
Or take twisted facts and put them in many bolds and font changing and color changing emails and send them out as far as I can...
Or misquote Boehner and McConnell and put it on my facebook page...
I want to fight fire with fire, but it seems that they have the lock on lies and hyperbole. Why can't we scare people to our side? The republicans are way more scary and some of them are even orange!
The first act of 2011 from republicans was to add to the deficit and take benefits away from seniors.
Why haven't we loaded lots of fear into the conversation regarding:
-the $250 that senior will have to pay back now that healthcare is repealed?
-the end of social security if republicans have their way?
-the spiraling deficit that has been created by republicans as they repeal healthcare?
- # of jobs that they destroyed in the repeal of healthcare?
But NO! We have lots of nice diaries with lots of analysis and twelve-dollar words and logic... that will not work with these people.
We need viral emails full of color and bolds that instills fear into the hearts of seniors... Should we use bold or purple, arial or italics ?
Why aren't they afraid of the republicans?
I think I can scare them to our side...
I can be as condescending as the next guy...
I think I can write that crap...
I use small words all the time...
I should start an email chain with lies and false quotes against the republicans.
I wonder how long it will take to get back to me.
Are you with me?
or maybe I'll take the high road... meh...
American Idol is on tonight anyway...
Peace.