Calling people "stupid racists" is not an argument

[humanmachinery]

I find many of the arguments and tactics used by right wing propagandists in the healthcare debate disgusting, but boiling it down to a simple narrative of ignorance and prejudice will not sell anything to anyone. Liberal bloggers and the presidential administration need to craft a coherent response to their critics, and do it fast, because the corporate lobbyists and free market fetishists are not going away or shutting up.


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You won't win the healthcare debate by calling people stupid racists

Elite right-wing foes of healthcare reform are telling lies. The folks listening to them are mostly just scared

By Gene Lyons

Aug. 20, 2009 | As a beginning rider, I once asked a racehorse trainer for advice about my quarter horse, Rusty. When he'd freak out over, say, a wind-blown plastic bag, was he really afraid? The trainer said the horse was simply testing me and needed very firm handling.

Soon afterward, I stopped to talk with a friend who was holding a fishing rod. Rusty started stamping, blowing, rolling his eyes and throwing his head around. I made it a contest of wills, jerking hard on the bit to make him stand still.

Then my friend dropped the fishing rod.

Rusty bolted, hit warp speed in about three jumps and stampeded us through a magnolia tree. It took me a quarter mile to bring him back under control. I was lucky a black eye was all I got out of it. Another trainer gave me better advice: Horses aren't smart enough to lie. If they act scared, they're scared. And when they're scared, they're very dangerous.

True, fear is partly a confidence issue. A horse that trusts its rider is far less skittish. Over time, we learned to take care of each other. But nothing could keep Rusty calm around anything resembling a whip; I'm sure he had his reasons.

Fear is, of course, largely a confidence issue among human beings, too. Anybody who's watched flash mobs shouting down Senate and House members over the Obama administration's health-insurance reforms ought to see that. For every dogmatic tough guy who's channeling some talk-radio blowhard, there are many citizens who give every outward indication of being scared witless.

Video of a town hall meeting with Democratic House members at Arkansas Children's Hospital showed protesters trembling with emotion. Writing in the Washington Post, historian Rick Perlstein [["Nixonland") noticed the same thing: "The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president – too heartfelt to be an act."


Stage managed? Absolutely. Somebody like Betsy McCaughey doesn't invent a lie as brazen as the so-called death panels out of nowhere. She's a professional; a paid propagandist for the right-wing Hudson Institute. Back in 1993, her article "No Exit" in the allegedly liberal [[but incompetently edited) New Republic magazine helped sink President Bill Clinton's healthcare initiative.


Then McCaughey claimed the Clinton bill made it a crime to buy supplemental insurance or pay your doctor out of pocket. The bill itself said, "Nothing in this act shall be construed as prohibiting ... an individual from purchasing health-care services."


But McCaughey's a poised and superficially attractive woman who performs capably on television. So why wouldn't low-information voters get taken in all over again? Particularly after her "death panel" falsehoods got amplified by figures like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and the supposedly "moderate" Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.


Perlstein: "If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both [mad lies and heartfelt fear], you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests."


And yet the Obama White House got caught napping as the paranoid train left the station once again. Presidential aides told reporters that the barrage of falsehoods and insane comparisons to Nazi Germany "had caught them off guard and forced them to begin an August counteroffensive."


So where were these geniuses back when Clinton was being called a drug smuggler and mass murderer? When militiamen spotted U.N. "black helicopters" over Western skies? When thousands hoarded canned food and bottled water in advance of the imaginary Y2K catastrophe?


Conservatives determined to prevent Obama from succeeding understand that their best chance is to frighten poorly informed voters historically susceptible to conspiracy theories – particularly in rural states far from centers of power.
Too often, the Democratic response goes something like this: "The claims can be debunked a million times and it would make not one bit of difference to them. They hate President Obama, most of them are racists, and they are out to destroy him. They are irrational [[barely) human beings with no conscience."


Persuasive, don't you think? OK, so I took that from a fellow on my Facebook page. It's sadly typical. For a generation now, the well-organized and lavishly funded right-wing noise machine has dominated American political debate with poisonous nonsense like McCaughey's, with little effective pushback.


To the extent Democrats resist, it's mainly on Web sites like the invaluable Media Matters for America. What's needed, however, is a strong counter-narrative informing voters that they're being had: conned, tricked and manipulated by, yes, New York, Washington and Hollywood "media elites" who lie for money. Vulgar? You bet. It's called "populism," and it once dominated the very states where talk-radio bombast now holds sway.


No, the argument can't be won overnight. On the other hand, it can't be won at all by calling people stupid racists.

http://mobile.salon.com/opinion/feat...20/town_halls/

[humanmachinery]

The 'hood is not the center of the universe, and Detroit cannot secede from the rest of the world.

One of democracy's virtues is the need for cooperation and consensus. You need to get a large number of different groups on board if you want to make an idea work. Before you get people on board, you have to sell that idea to them, and you can't well do that if you're busy marginalizing and insulting them.

Of course, there will always be a certain percentage of the population who resist logic and reason, but the best way to respond to them is by attacking the argument, not the arguer. The only thing an ad hominem accomplishes is generating sympathy for your opponents.

[ccbatson]

Liberals playing the race card by calling conservatives racist with absolutely no factual foundation for the allegation....not going to work libs.

[Detroitej72]

What the liberals need to do is learn to hit below the belt, as conservatives have mastered for the past 20 years or so.

Libs need to employ people like Karl Rove and his ilk to craft, spin and distort facts to fit their agenda. Until the folks on the left fight fire with fire, they will continue to come out loosing the war of words, and public opinion.

[Detroitej72]

On the topic of health care, the conservatives, many on the payroll of the insurance companies who don't want to loose their gravy train, have distorted and flat out lied about so much that many folks are lost on the true reform bill.

Then you got the a$$holes like Beck and Rush claiming that senior citizens, terminally ill, and the disabled are going to be euthanized. That is terrorism at its finest and these terrorists should be prosecuted as the scum they truly are.

And I have to laugh when they claim there will be health care rationing. We already have rationing, its called HMOs.

[elganned]

Liberals playing the race card by calling conservatives racist with absolutely no factual foundation for the allegation....not going to work libs.

Why not? Conservatives playing the Hitler card by calling liberals fascists with absolutely no factual--or historical--foundation for the allegation seems to have worked pretty well for the right.

[ccbatson]

Fascism is a word with a definition that fits Obama's ideology, and he is a liberal, so....

THe racism label is so clearly wrongly applied that it is obviously a desperate tactic on the part of the left.

[Detroitej72]

Conservatives, by and large tend to be the majority of racists, but I've known a few who were left-leaning.

[UFO]

What the liberals need to do is learn to hit below the belt, as conservatives have mastered for the past 20 years or so.

Libs need to employ people like Karl Rove and his ilk to craft, spin and distort facts to fit their agenda. Until the folks on the left fight fire with fire, they will continue to come out loosing the war of words, and public opinion.

I think both sides hit below the belt pretty good.

Hell whenever I watch Fox or MSNBC I feel like my head is going to explode from all the misinformation being spread to everyone.

No wonder there is so much fighting between the 2 parties.

I have to pick and choose stories from those 2 stations, cnn,bbc, and about 4 other news orginizations from around the world to try and figure out what the real truth is.

Ill be glad when I am homeless and cant watch tv anymore.
This shit is mentally exhausting.

[Gistok]

Yawn...worthless advice..ignore..

Thanks for the advice.... maybe we should ignore you like we're doing on the Bill Cosby thread....

My mother, who lived thru the horrors of Nazi Germany in that country, mentioned how frighteningly familiar this propaganda war sounds to the one that Goebbels waged back then.... the Republicans should be proud of taking a page from the Nazi's propaganda machine...

[elganned]

Thanks for the advice.... maybe we should ignore you like we're doing on the Bill Cosby thread....

My mother, who lived thru the horrors of Nazi Germany in that country, mentioned how frighteningly familiar this propaganda war sounds to the one that Goebbels waged back then.... the Republicans should be proud of taking a page from the Nazi's propaganda machine...

They're just adopting a "best practices" program; if you're gonna do it, you should study the best.

[elganned]

Fascism is a word with a definition that fits Obama's ideology, and he is a liberal, so....

THe racism label is so clearly wrongly applied that it is obviously a desperate tactic on the part of the left.

Fascism is a word you redefine to your liking so that it will fit whomsoever you choose to label with it. How is the racism label wrongly applied if someone chooses to play as fast and loose with definitions as you do?

You remind me of all those people who have practiced tortured numerology on people's names through the ages so that they could hang the "666" tag on them.

[ccbatson]

Words have definitions, I use them as they are defined...the left ignores said definitions.

[Lorax]

Hitting below the belt is exactly what Liberals need to do, in response to the bullying of the Fascist Reich.

These bitches will fold like a lawn chair when presented with a little in-your-face time from the likes of the Liberals I know. They are basically cowards, and shout the loudest since they are out of power- mostly scared little ladies, the men included.

We had a town hall meeting with our representative Kendrick Meek, here in Florida, and I took great pleasure in trouncing the frothing freaks of the right who were trying to shut it down.

They were unsuccessful, and I didn't even have to bite off anyone's finger!

I am blogging for, and working toward the nuclear option on health care- go to resolution, with a 51 vote majority, and threaten to do the same with each and every piece of legislation that the majority Democrats put forth. Tush & Cheney wouldn't have thought twice about resolution, and in fact, did go there on many occasions.

[Danny]

How can you define racist person?

1. Person who hates you for the color of your skin.

2. Person who hates you for your religion.

3. Person who hates you for personality.

4. Person who hates you for attitude.

5. Person who hates you your famous.

6. Person who hates you too rich.

7. Person who hates you for too poor.

8. Person who hates you because are homosexual.

9. Person who hates you because your a man.

10. Person who hates you because your woman.

11. Person who hates you because your a boy.

12. Person who hates you because your a girl.

13. Person who hates you because you are different from anyone else.

14. Person who hates you because you too weak.

15. Person who hates you beacuse you too strong.

16 Person who hates you because you too neutral.

17. Person who hates you because you too friendly.

18. Person who hates you because you hateful.

19. Person who hates you for you can't play sports.

20. Person who hates you too political.

21. Person who hates you for not poltical.

22. Person who hates you because your are a democrat.

23. Person who hates you because your are a republican.

24 Person who hates you because your are independent.

25 Person who hates you because your are nerd.

26. Person who hates you because you fart a lot.

27. Person who hates you because your wear glasses.

28. Person who hates you because you have sex.

29. Person who hates you because you didn't have sex.

30. Person who hates you because you didn't like their food.

31. Person who hates you because you have cut from the team.

31. Person who hates you because you convert to different religion.

32. Person who hates you because you are a socialist.

33. Person who hates you because your are communist.

34. Person who hates you because have no political views.

35. Person who hates you because you are good.

36. Person who hates you because you are evil.

37. Person who hates you because you are shy.

38. Person who hates you because you are greedy.

38. Person who hates you because you are jealous.

40. Person who hates you because you are envious.

41. Person who hates you because you are slacker [[sloth)

42. Person who hates you because you are self centered.

43. Person who hates you because you are love everybody.

44. Person who hates you because you are love yourself.

45. Person who hates you because you are ugly.

46 Person who hates you because you are beautiful.

47. Person who hates you because you don't like music.

48. Person who hates you because you are do like music

49. Person who hates you because you are gifted.

50. Person who hates you because you love God.

51. Person who hates you because you Jesus.

52. Person who hates you because you Holy Ghost.

53 Person who hates you because you are a Idol worshiper.

54. Person who hates you because you are Devil worshiper.

55. Person who hates you because you afraid of something or someone.

56. Person who hates you because you are brave.

57. Person who hates you because you are hero.

58. Person who hates you because you are villian.

59. Person who hates you because you are a police officer.

60. Person who hates you because you are firefighter.

61. Person who hates you because you are President of the United States.

62. Person who hates you because you are a mayor of a specific city.

63. Person who hates you because you too old.

64. Person who hates you because you change the world.


WORD FROM THE STREET PROPHET

Can you list more people that they are racist?

[humanmachinery]

Fascism is a word with a definition that fits Obama's ideology, and he is a liberal, so....

THe racism label is so clearly wrongly applied that it is obviously a desperate tactic on the part of the left.

*sigh*

I'd try and explain fascism to you, or that it's far FAR different from liberalism, but this is lost on the Ann Coulters of the world.

[elganned]

Words have definitions, I use them as they are defined...

...by you. But not the generally accepted definition; that would prevent you from putting the 666 label on the people you wish to demonize.

the left ignores said definitions.

...when they aren't the commonly accepted, generally understood definitions. And they are right to do so. Somebody has to stand up to the insanity. The right certainly hasn't.

[elganned]

I have an interesting perspective on the definition of "racism" as used by many in the black community.

Years ago when I was in college I volunteered for a student organization which was a sort of quasi-Big Brother-type outreach to the kids in the surrounding community, which was poor and predominently black.

Before I could actually go do anything with the kids, however, I had to sit through and "orientation" where a community leader came in to give us "cultural sensitivity" instruction, including racism as he defined it.

As I sat through the presentation, it sounded more and more familiar. I'd heard all this before. And it dawned on me: Political Science class. What the man was describing as "racism" was, in fact, the class struggle of classic Marxism. Only the role of the proletariat [[which word didn't actually show up in the presentation) was re-assigned as meaning "black people", rather than "the workers".

So I raised my hand and politely pointed that out. I even told him where his presentation was going to go next, what elements he hadn't touched on yet, and so on. Even though he acknowledged my predictions, he would not believe that his definition of racism as an institution was identical to Marx's definition of capitalism as an institution. We argued in friendly fashion for over an hour, and even continued the debate over pizza at a local watering hole afterwards. I never managed to convince him.

So ccbatson is not the only one guilty of redefining terms and words which are--or were--commonly accepted as meaning something else.

Even that long litany just posted by Danny wanders far afield into areas that most people would scratch their heads over and wonder, "What in the heck does that have to do with racism?"

[humanmachinery]

Marx actually wrote quite a bit about racism and the way that it's interwoven with class struggle. He was one of the first people to make such observations.

His political and economic ideas were half-baked insanity, but he was a brilliant sociologist.

If you don't believe me, read Mark Twain. He got a lot of his satirical venom and piercing criticism by reading Das Kapital.

[ccbatson]

"Brilliant Sociologist" whereby his utopian societal experiments have always failed and caused incalculable suffering and oppression...brilliantly wrong.

[East Detroit]

"Brilliant Sociologist" whereby his utopian societal experiments have always failed and caused incalculable suffering and oppression...brilliantly wrong.

Actually, it is the base animal types with their selfish greed that have subverted these "experiments" and caused suffering. Everyone who has a modicum of political education and is a semi-astute thinker [[and reader) is aware that these "experiments" by others [[not by him) did not follow his precepts but rather were ruined by people who want only for themselves [[AKA your precious capitalists).

[Lorax]

Redefining words to suit a particular political agenda is nothing new. It's been done for centuries.

Call it a lack of "truth in advertising" which one should assume is always front in center in any discussion where one party is trying to sway opinion from another.

Things are not as they seem, more often than not, and many have a problem with the willing suspension of disbelief.

Racism as strictly defined wouldn't include most of what the above poster listed ad nauseum.

Fascism as Batts defines it is the opposite of what the rest of the educated world defines it as. Hitler and Mussolini were fascists- the blending of corporate and government interests to the point where one is unrecognizable from another.

In our dealings with the America of the last 45 years arguably, it has become indistinguishable from a large corporation. Monopolies abound in our society, encouraged by the government of Republicans, and to a lesser extent the Democrats.

The government as corporate model, and vice versa has been the accepted path for these last 45 years or so, lending creedence to the belief that only the moneyed interests are ultimately going to survive, and any economic benefit for the masses will have to "trickle down" as opposed to being derived from the ground up, as our society had always operated before.

So, we could define our current situation as that of a fascist state. There is little difference in being able to exact satisfaction from a government or corporate entity, unless, of course you have the means to sue for your rights as a citizen.

People wonder why we have the worst record on health care of any of the most industrialized nations- it's simple, there is no competition, while a few giant multi-billion dollar corporations rule the day.

Our society has set us up as a population to be nothing more than consumers, with few choices in our everyday life. Those without means are further disadvantaged with limited choices in a variety of arenas of everyday life, not only medical care.

Consumerism accounts for 70% of our economy, which is an awful figure to have to wrestle with. With the current state of the economy, spending will not return to what it was without additional sources of revenue- jobs, credit, oh, did I mention jobs? And such levels of spending will not return in the forseeable future.

We reached the tipping point last fall, and now we have a permanent shift in how "consumers" will be spending their scarce resources going forward.

The agenda set by the Republican right on destroying the middle class, credit markets, union busting, and bringing our standard of living down to third-world status is finally taking form.

I would suggest getting used to it, or electing officials [[not Obama) who will take this country further toward a socialized ideal of universal health care, subsidized education through college level doctorates, much as the rest of the civilized world does.

We have allowed a small group of the entitled class in this country to destroy our way of life for short-term profit, and we will be living the aftermath of those decisions for generations.

[ccbatson]

East Detroit...please explain how capitalists were responsible for the failures of communism and socialism. I could use a good laugh.

[Stosh]

East Detroit...please explain how capitalists were responsible for the failures of communism and socialism. I could use a good laugh.

I get a good laugh every time you post here. It's criminal.

[Lorax]

Batts would have been the poster child for the John Birch Society. Overly starched Brooks Brothers button down stripe shirt with a red tie, preaching the gospel of free-market capitalism.

Truly a Zona Comatosa.