It is extremely important to control as much as possible the language of political debate as well as the content of political issues. The emotional content of language is as important logic of the policy content in developing public support on the issues. Examples can easily be found in the various policy debates of the past two Presidential Administrations.
For example, the Republicans have been pursuing tax policies that concentrate an ever growing percentage of the national wealth into the hands of the very small economic elite. The income tax cuts enacted into law by the Bush Republicans benefited primarily the wealthiest of wealthy Americans. Many Americans pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. Payroll taxes fund the Social Security and Medicare programs of the federal government.
Income taxes are progressive meaning that those with the ability to pay more because of higher incomes do so. Payroll taxes are a fixed percentage of income up to a certain level of income. All income over this level is taxed for payroll taxes at zero percent. Combined income and payroll taxes as a percentage of income are higher for incomes of 50, 000 dollars or 80,000 dollars a year than they are for a million dollars a year. The higher the income level the lower the percentage of combined payroll and income taxes paid to the federal government.
The Bush Republicans did nothing to cut payroll taxes which are running a surplus. They instead cut income taxes for the wealthy so much that the government budget deficit exploded. Under Clinton, the annual government budget was in surplus and the national debt was on schedule to be paid off. Under Bush, because of his tax cuts for the wealthy, the national debt has more than doubled. The annual deficits are being funded by stealing the Social Security surpluses and borrowing from foreign governments like Japan and Communist China.
Republicans sold the plan as "cutting taxes for those that actually pay them." This has emotional appeal to the public but is intellectually dishonest. The Corporate Media which is owned and controlled by the wealthiest of the wealthy concealed the real facts from an uninformed public.
Another tax example is the Republican effort to repeal the estate tax. In a brilliant and dishonest public relations move, Republicans labeled the estate tax as the "death tax." Actually, this tax is a tax on very large inheritances only. Republicans claimed family farmers were losing their farms because of this tax but farmer associations failed to find even a handful of examples of this apparently false claim. The tax impacted only a few tens of thousands of all estates each year. The bulk of the taxes collected were from a very small percentage of those estates.
The Republican "death tax" label is designed to make the uniformed think the federal government were taxing death instead of huge estates. The public overwhelmingly support taxing huge estates.
The Republicans claimed that taxing huge estates is an unfair double taxation of income. This sounds unfair on the surface. However, almost all income is taxed more than once. Wages are taxed when earned as income and payroll taxes and again when spent as sales tax. Income spent on homes is taxed again as property taxes. Taxing huge estates is no different except that only the wealthiest pay federal estate taxes. The wealthiest have the ability to pay higher taxes since they pay lower combined payroll and income taxes.
For the Republicans, tax policy languages helps sell unfair tax policies that benefit wealthy Republican donors to a uniformed public. Democrats must strive to challenge the Republican corruption of political language by telling the truth. In the long term, I believe truth will triumph over Republican Spin. Propaganda will not conceal reality in the long term.
As Democrats, we cannot use evil Republican tactics. Voter suppression and vote fraud can never be tolerated in the Democratic Party. We need to constantly attack the tolerance of these tactics and other dirty tricks by Republican politicians and Republican Party leaders. These tactics should be condemned by all Democrats vocally and often. They are part of the Republican culture of corruption. The stench of corruption has become so strong that it is already changing voting behavior. We won control of Congress in large part because of the Republican corruption issue. Democrats need to crusade against corruption publicly in every way possible. Opposition to vote fraud, corruption in government spending, corruption in campaign finances, legislation favoring large Republican donors and similar issues should be staples of Democratic dialogue.
Competency and reality-based policy are certainly weak points of Republican politicians once they have obtained office. Republicans waste tax dollars to reward their supporters in massive amounts. We need to aggressively criticize this tendency and publicize examples. Right Wing ideology should trump reality in designing government programs or determining public policy. This fact seems self-evident but Democrats need to drive home the point over and over again. We need to make it a central point of political thinking for all voters. Examples are everywhere. Iraq, the response to hurricane Katrina, tax cuts for the Super Wealthy, the government budget deficit and the explosion of unfair trade agreements are just a few examples of Republican Rightist Corporatist ideology trumping reality and simple common sense. Democrats need to cite them and add others to support our arguments.
Winning elections are important. We need to educate voters so they understand that politics will impact their lives. Politics determines wages paid, working conditions, food costs and safety, education opportunities, police protection, privacy, housing, freedom of expression and almost everything else in life. Democrats need to reach out aggressively to recruit non-voters into the election process. Non-voters on issues lean heavily Democratic. Reaching and recruiting them are sure paths to election victories everywhere.
Democrats must find ways to connect with these citizens. Involving them is not only good for the Democratic Party but is even better for American Democracy. These non-voters need to be given hope. The nastiness of the Republican Right in political terms is no accident. They want fewer voters. The negativity of political campaigns turns off many citizens to politics and helps the Corporate Republican Right obtain and retain power. The Republican biased Corporate media promotes to these citizens the myth that there is no difference between the two major political parties.
As Democrats, we must combat these tactics to keep potential Democratic voters from the polls. We must show that we are not the same as our Republican opponents. We wear the white hats and should show that in all our statements and actions. We need to show in action and words that we have a different, better vision for America's future than the opposition.
Our Party is not monolithic. We are diverse. This is both our strength and weakness. In some ways, we are more of a movement that an organized political Party. We can get better organized without completely abandoning our traditional diversity. We can still speak with many, many voices and still offer a much different and better vision for the future of our nation.
Our challenge is to speak up more often for our core values. We need to define ourselves instead of letting Republicans falsely define us. We need to point out examples of when we are falsely defined and when the Republicans are falsely defining themselves.
You are well on your way to recognizing the need to establish a new agenda that can unite people. The hitch remains holding on to the agent of that change as the Democratic Party. See also http://www.beyondthechoir.org/wordpress/?p=23 in regards to an analysis regarding the Lancaster anti-war movement and the lessons it holds for us all.
The best advice is not to presume that the engine for change can be attached to the box cars of defending the status quo. Start from the obvious don't ignore what is apparent. Build what you need to get what you want.
by
Martin Zehr (38 articles, 2 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 77 comments)
on Saturday, February 17, 2007 at 12:19:13 PM
Just because R's are bad doesn't mean D's are good.
Essentially, you're doing a commercial for Democrats, here. Your attacks on the R's are all quite accurate, but you're implying that this means the D's are "good" -- and it doesn't mean that at all.
For instance, you write that R's "...are Right Wing Corporatists really representing only the wealthiest of the wealthy and international corporation(s)." Okay, that's true. But the very same thing can be said of D's as well. For instance, despite their occasionally populist rhetoric, it was Clinton-Gore that pushed through NAFTA, the Telecom Act of 1996, and "welfare reform" -- all measures that greatly favored the wealthy corporatists, & harmed everybody else.
If the US was really a democracy, it would be possible to have more than 2 big-business parties to choose from. Yet D's & R's collaborate in enforcing a system that makes it impossible for serious alternatives to get a public hearing. The 2 parties insist on a system where only with mega-dollar corporate backing can one get on the ballot, afford the TV ads that make candidates "viable," and partipate in debates.
The D's are every bit as adamant about maintaining this wretched system as the R's. If they really approved of the principles of democracy (small 'd'), wouldn't they support opening up elections to more than just the 2 parties of Wall Street?
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1231 comments)
on Saturday, February 17, 2007 at 1:25:27 PM
You do not know anything about being a Democrat. Your lack of understanding of our arty is almost complete. You should confine your comments to subjects you know something about whatever that may be.
The Lancaster County Democratic Party is overwhelmingly against the war and strongly supportive of economic justice issues like almost every other county level Party organization in the nation. The grassroots organizations are the engines of change pushing the officeholders everywhere.
Howard Dean is our Party leader and one of the first national political figures to come out against the Iraq War.
by
Stephen Crockett (128 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 113 comments)
on Saturday, February 17, 2007 at 6:32:47 PM
I was a Democrat for 28 years, & certainly learned a thing
or two about the party in that time. I learned that while they indulge in occasional populist-sounding talk, when it comes to policy & high-level candidates, they serve the corporate oligarchy.
If I were you, I'd be careful about telling me that I "don't know anything about" this or that subject. For instance, this morning, in another thread, you told me that Kerry had attacked Bush in the '04 campaign about the non-existent WMD. Anyone who looks at that thread will probably be quite entertained by the links & quotes I provided. They show that actually, in '04, Kerry was still arguing that his vote FOR the IWR was correct, & his spokesman said Kerry would have invaded Iraq, if he were pres., even "knowing what we know now" -- ie, even knowing there were no WMD!
Here, you say that Howard Dean was one of the first national figures to come out against the war. However, there are different degrees & ways of being "against the war." One way is to oppose it morally, on grounds that it involves killing large numbers of innocents in the victim nation, because one desires (for example) to control their oil. Another way is to oppose it because it might harm the aggressor's reputation, or put excessive strain on its military.
Now what Dean did is much closer to the second of these. He said in '03 that invading Iraq was the "wrong war at the wrong time." That's far less than principled moral opposition. And since that time, he has not denounced the occupation. He has not said it's a war crime. He has not emphasized the highly-regarded Johns Hopkins study (which estimated that 655,000 Iraqis have died in the war), & tried to hold Bush accountable. Nor has he criticized the many Democrats who refuse to cut off funding for the war, because it would "harm the troops." A child could see that this argument holds no water, yet many Democrats, including Pelosi, use it constantly.
So on balance, Dean (far from the most reactionary Democrat on this subject) is not really a strong opponent of the war. Rather, he has some tactical criticisms of the way in which the war has been conducted. But he has always supported the Afghan war, & the (utterly bogus) "war on terror," & has never called for cuts in the military budget. He thought the invasion was unwise -- from the viewpoint of the interests of the aggressor. He deserves some credit for this, certainly more than Dems like Kerry, Edwards & Hillary, who actually voted for this disaster. But let's not confuse it with a principled opposition to unjust war, or to the US occupation.
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1231 comments)
on Saturday, February 17, 2007 at 7:46:54 PM
The other thread was my article "Bush and the Iraq Blame Game" click here
You claims were refuted by myself and writer Steven Leser.
Mr. Leser said among other things, "Everything Crowd". I've tried appeals to logic with them on numerous occasions and gotten nowhere. I cited evidence (in the form of statements by Republican Senator Hagel) that agreement on IWR staved off a more broad resolution that would have given Bushco ability to go anywhere in Asia minor. In fact, that agreement came with assurances from Bush to both Republican and Democratic legislators that every possible option would be exhausted before going to war. Obviously, Bush lied. There were many other things that could have been done.
I also mentioned that in no other Democratic country do people blame the minority party for actions of the majority that simultaneously control the executive and legislative branches of government. That such blaming is intellectually dishonest at best, but none of that sinks in.
They desperately want to Blame Democrats for Everything. If you are familiar with the psy-ops campaigns that are waged by intelligence organizations of many countries, their sound-bites sound quite familiar. It really seems like they are themselves agents trained in psy-ops on the payroll of the GOP or they have been influenced by agent provocateurs for Republicans whose goal is exactly as you stated, divide the left so they cannot be an effective opposition."
I am in full agreement.
Readers should explore the link to read more content concerning the arguments and anti-Democratic bias of the critic.
by
Stephen Crockett (128 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 113 comments)
on Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 4:20:36 AM
Thanks Stephen. I will repost part of a comment further down
in that thread:
.
.
.
"Sometimes you have to give ground for time in the hopes that soon or someday things will be different and you can mount a counterattack. I can give you more examples than one can count. But lets look particularly at the war and the war vote. Consider these polls around the beginning of the war:
Gallup Poll and USA Today/Gallup Poll. Adults nationwide.
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"
Not only did the Democrats have to deal with minority status, they didnt in general have support of the people of this country and the President did. Not only that, the people supported the war in the beginning by overwhelming numbers.
I have to ask those of you in the Blame Democrats for Everything crowd exactly what you expected them to be able to do in this environment. Its like a flea attempting to hold back an avalanche. You dont have the votes in either house, you dont have the support of the people, there is a popular President in the party opposite. Checkmate."
At the time of the beginning of the war, over 70% of the American public were behind the war. A similar percent was behind George W. Bush. 60% disapproved of the Democrats in congress.
I dont know where the "Blame the Democrats for Everything" crowd was during this time. I was protesting the war on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fl working with United for Peace and Justice and enduring a very hostile reaction from most of the people on the street. During one of our protests, two of us were assaulted. People threw things at us and spit at us on a regular basis.
When are we going to get intellectually honest comments from those currently in the Blame the Democrats for Everything crowd?
by
Steven Leser (228 articles, 49 quicklinks, 34 diaries, 1647 comments)
on Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 4:49:59 PM
6 comments
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