The short version:
Mr. Luntz provides the Talking Points that make Inaction and Stalling -- Look Reasonable.
Mr. Luntz has given the GOP the Talking Points, whether True or NOT, that creates doubt and confusion about the real costs and benefits of an Issue.
Mr. Luntz provides the GOP with the Tools of Misdirection, so that they divert the Audience attention from the sources of the "real problems" -- all the while provide NO REAL Solutions of their own.
Look over here people -- It will cost you more, and you will get less. Move along now.
But what gets me -- is Mr. Luntz has empowered the GOP to Look Reasonable!
And that it usually WORKS! for most of the people, most of the time.
Maybe the People really do get the Government they deserve ...?
Right, Frank?
Now for the long version:
Mr. Luntz is a highly paid GOP wordsmith, who has given them the strategies and talking points that get repeated like clockwork. That pass for a plan.
It's mostly a charade. The GOP has NO Plan. At least No Plan to Help People.
No Plan to deal with the gravity of many serious problems still waiting out there -- somewhere, for Future Generations to deal with. For the GOP -- that's the Future Generations' Problem.
"Today" is about repeating Luntz's Talking Points. To effect Stalling.
Some cases in point.
Health Care Reform -- Luntz tells them to 'act' like they care -- but Do Nothing.
Check! Mission Accomplished.
Deconstructing Frank Luntz’s Obstructionist Health Care Reform Memo
by Igor Volsky, wonkroom.thinkprogress.org -- May 6, 2009
GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz has authored a new messaging memo defining the Republican rhetoric on health care reform
[...]
Luntz warns that “if the dynamic becomes ‘President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it,’ then the battle is lost and every word in this document is useless.’” The trouble is, it already is useless. Because rather than challenging the tenets of American reform proposals, Luntz establishes a straw man argument against a non-existent health plan.
Buried amongst the usual rhetoric about government-run health care is Luntz’s predictable contradiction: he instructs Republicans to “be vocally and passionately on the side of REFORM” but then urges GOP lawmakers to misrepresent and obstruct any real chance of passing comprehensive legislation.
“Humanize your approach,” but argue that health care reform “will result in delayed and potentially even denied treatment, procedures and/or medications.” “Acknowledge the crisis” but ask your constituents “would you rather… pay the costs [...]
What IS -- the GOP's 'Health Care Reform Plan' by the way?
'Cut waste, fraud, abuse -- and Blame the Trial Lawyers.'
Yeah, THAT will solve the problem of "Emergency Rooms used for Primary Care".
NOT.
(Bill Maher calls the "Crisis in Emergency Rooms" a "hidden tax" that we all end up paying for. Nice Framing Bill. Do you care to be the Luntz for the Left? Frank Luntz is "eating our Lunch".)
All right HCR Messaging was "child play" for Luntz. Especially after his grand success with his previous "trick" -- Mr Luntz was geared up, and good to go -- to dismantle HCR.
What Mr. Luntz had accomplished about 7 or 8 years ago, was the political equivalent of 'David Copperfield making the Mountain "disappear" in Hawaii' ...
Memo exposes Bush's new green strategy
by Oliver Burkeman The Guardian, in Washington, guardian.co.uk -- 4 March 2003
The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, [...] urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.
"The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science," Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organisation.
"Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.
"Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."
!! Poof !! Diamondhead is GONE! Did you see that! How'd he do that!?
Now you see it. Now you don't.
What a GRAND trick of Misdirection -- and American's Opportunity to LEAD the Clean Energy Age of the next century was GONE! too. Poof. Silly Audience.
And among the many sad and tragic things about this Luntz-inspired grand act of Procrastination is this -- There WAS indeed Scientific Consensus about Climate Change and Humanity's role in causing it ...
There was. Really. ... "Consensus"
LOTS of it.
Of course the 'Audience', was rarely told that. If ever. Science is too boing for our traditional Media to waste their time on. Silly Media.
Science: BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Science 3 December 2004: -- Vol. 306 no. 5702 p. 1686
by Naomi Oreskes, sciencemag.org
The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Well maybe that was just some 'Tree-Huggers', crying in their Cheerios ...
Like these, soggy-breakfast folks right here:
Scientific Consensus on Global Warming
Union of Concerned Scientists ucsusa.org -- 02/02/09
In the past few years, scientific societies and scientists have released statements and studies showing the growing consensus on climate change science. A common objection to taking action to reduce our heat-trapping emissions has been uncertainty within the scientific community on whether or not global warming is happening and whether it is caused by humans. However, there is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is indeed happening and humans are contributing to it. Below are links to documents and statements attesting to this consensus.
Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, IPCC, 2007.
American Meteorological Society - link
American Physical Society - link
American Geophysical Union - link
American Association for the Advancement of Science - link
Geological Society of America - link
American Chemical Society - link
U.S. National Academy of Sciences - link
International Academies - link
U.S. Scientists and Economists - link
But what about the World's Community of Scientists?
There must be some of that famed "Uncertainty" there,
Right, Frank?
The Consensus on Global Warming:
From Science to Industry & Religion
by Logical Science
Joint Statement I
Here is a press release from the National Academy of Sciences (USA) which opens with the words “Climate Change is real”. It’s conclusion begins with “We urge all nations, in the line with the UNFCCC principles, to take prompt action to reduce the causes of climate change, adapt to its impacts and ensure that the issue is included in all relevant national and international strategies.”
It is signed by:
1. National Academy of Sciences, United States of America
2. Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
3. Royal Society, United Kingdom
4. Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
5. Academia Brasiliera de Ciências, Brazil
6. Royal Society of Canada, Canada
7. Academié des Sciences, France
8. Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher, Germany
9. Indian National Science Academy, India
10. Accademia dei Lincei, Italy
11. Science Council of Japan, Japan
Joint Statement II
Here is another press release from the Royal Society (UK) which says “The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science.
It is signed by:
1. Australian Academy of Sciences
2. Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
3. Brazilian Academy of Sciences
4. Royal Society of Canada
5. Caribbean Academy of Sciences
6. Chinese Academy of Sciences
7. French Academy of Sciences
8. German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina
9. Indian National Science Academy
10. Indonesian Academy of Sciences
11. Royal Irish Academy
12. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy)
13. Academy of Sciences Malaysia
14. Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
15. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
16. Royal Society (UK)
Let me see now ...
Mr. Luntz + GOP Obstructionists + Science-illiterate Public + Big Oil Front Groups
vs
Science Magazine + Union of Concerned Scientists + National Academy of Sciences + UK's Royal Society
You'd think that would be one Discussion, one Debate, that those on the side of "Future Generations", would find easy to win.
You'd think.
Of course for Obstructionists and Blame-shifters -- the goal is NOT to Win arguments.
The Goals are to create doubt, to create confusion, to make people worry about some future "unknown costs" ...
BUT above all -- to BLOCK ANY CONSTRUCTIVE Actions ...
Without acknowledging the real Problems,
Without offering any real Solutions, of THEIR Own.
Check! Mission Accomplished.
Well Done, Mr Luntz. Well Done.
You've empowered a bunch of C-Student Science-phobes to Steal OUR Future Opportunities.
and to make THAT Look Reasonable. Un-freaking-Believable!
And most don't even blink an eye.
Where'd that Mountain go, anyways? How'd they DO THAT !?!
Anywho ... back to the Status Quo.
It's not like Future Generations "Really Matter" -- Do they, Mr. Luntz ???
That's THEIR Problem, NOT Ours, isn't that right, Mr Wordsmith?
