Posted on 03/19/2004 6:46:03 PM PST by Naspino
I am only going to post an excerpt of the article because it is quite lengthy and includes a couple of images. I know excerpting is evil, but please do not post the entire article as a comment.
In the last presidential election, socialist candidates received one-one-hundredth of one percent of the total vote. It follows, then, that one can conclude socialism to be a vastly unpopular movement with in the United States of America. With that said, if John Kerry announced tomorrow that he intended to switch to the Socialist Party how would his platform change?
Perhaps party labels are meaningless, used only to identify one competitor from another where all the participants share the same common goals whether they play for the Elephants or play for the Donkeys. Consider Wesley Clark, whom lavished praises on George W. Bush and the Republicans before entering into the presidential race. Having never registered as a Democrat, he received his own lavish praise from both the party faithful and the press when he entered into the race as a Democrat. Had he run a more serious campaign, he could have won the nomination.
To a majority of Americans, candidates are indistinguishable. They view politics as a sport where the mainstream parties are nothing more than teams playing the same game, by the same rules. They see the outcome of the election as having no more impact on their lives than the outcome of the World Series. In many aspects, they are right. Politicians have offensive and defensive playbooks, called propaganda, and often concede ground whenever their opponent makes an effective play. They do this not out of any principled stance or yielding of ideas, but by reluctant acknowledgement of the effectiveness of their opponent’s play. This retreat and advance tactic, seemingly devoid of principle, is the primary cause of voter apathy. In what seems like a catch-twenty-two, this apathy is what drives politicians to play the game as they do.
An adept student of propaganda once wrote, "The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and [then] to the heart of the broad masses." In other words, the art of propaganda is to transform politics from a reasoned debate of issues among intellectuals into an emotionally driven stupor of the masses. He then went on to write, "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, [and] their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out." Propaganda short-circuits reasoned debate by building a consensus outside of the political process, which can then apply significant external pressure to anyone standing in the way of the message.
This emotional appeal is why an initiative, on either side of the debate, usually involves the terminology of protecting, saving, or defending the weakest of society: homosexuals, racial minorities, women, children, animals, and trees. These appeals play to the sentiments of the masses, building a consensus that applies pressure to politicians. Not only can these appeals affect rapid change, but they can also consolidate power by providing political ammunition to their supporters should the opposition make a principled stand. Supporters can then claim that any vote cast against, say, the "Child Protective Act", for example, is a vote against the protection of children; not a vote against an unaccountable organization capable of destroying families based merely on rumor and innuendo. The press is the instrument of propaganda, able to repeat the slogan from thousands of outlets, building what seems an insurmountable consensus, and subduing the principled arguments of the debate. Consider the most popular network news programs: Dateline, 48 Hours, 20/20, 60 Minutes, and Frontline. In each, the formula is to focus, in depth, on a particular person or group in order to connect the viewer, emotionally, to their plight. Thereby, appealing to sentiment and emotion of the viewer in order to build a consensus. Often, all five programs will feature the same topic using different people and different viewpoints to reach the same conclusions. To the average viewer, this seemingly broad consensus is simply overwhelming. It forces the viewer to adopt the same conclusion or place themselves in to the bigoted hate-mongering minority.CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE
Gore and Nader were both socialists. Together, they got almost 52% of the vote-NOT .01%
You have to read the complete article, neither ran as a "socialist". When you run as a socialist on a clearly stated socialist platform few Americans are going to vote for you. This is the point of the article. If registered Democrats knew who John Kerry really was, an international socialists, and what that really meant -- would they vote for him.
But we need documented listing!
Yes -- I think we need to repeat those sound and video bites about the true nature of Socialist John Kerry over and over until every member of the public knows the message. ;)
Finally someone understands...:)
"The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and [then] to the heart of the broad masses."
In other words, the art of propaganda is to transform politics from a reasoned debate of issues among intellectuals into an emotionally driven stupor of the masses.
He then went on to write, "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, [and] their power of forgetting is enormous.
In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.
As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered.
In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out."
Propaganda short-circuits reasoned debate by building a consensus outside of the political process, which can then apply significant external pressure to anyone standing in the way of the message.
K.I.S.S. - the A.N.S.W.E.R. ;-}
What does this mean?
Did you make it through the full thing? It keeps going after the excerpt -- about 36 pages in book form.
Torture! Torture!
This is a rather silly argument, no offense. Constitutionalists get less than 1% of the vote, does that mean Americans hate the constitution? (Some do, they are dems tho) The democrat party is the socialist party. The label means little or nothing. The fact is, the dem party core ARE international socialists, and they WILL vote for Kerry. Their argument since their loss in 2000 has been that the party hasnt been far enough to the left.
The only area in which your argument stands up is with independent voters. It is questionable if a sizable number of centrists would vote for a party labeled "socialist". However, as Rush has been saying for some time now, "moderates" are really just wishy-washy liberals. When it comes right down to it, socialists are just communists who haven't had the need or opportunity to kill anyone yet. If they ever gain any real power, they will start killing the opposition just like their commie forefathers.
I do believe that is comparing apples and oranges. Americans are raised understanding the principles of our government (at least I was and I know my sister ten years younger was as well). The constitution was clearly part of that education, as was the checks and balances placed into our government, the notion of the Republic, and the purpose of the Supreme Court. I honestly believe that if the public were able to see past the facade built up around the Democrat party it would topple.
Obviously there is a large number of Republicans that do not see that the Republican Party is also at odds with the Constitution; however were they suddenly to learn that many of its members supported a smaller government, less taxation, and fewer powers of the general government -- would it topple? Doubtful because that is how we were raised.
I hope you've read the full article (9000+ words) else I don't think you'll understand my full point of view. I don't think you can argue, seriously, that should that 52% become fully aware of their agenda that they would realize it to be completely opposed to how they were raised. I am not saying their percentage would fall to 0.01 percent, but I doubt it would remain above 20%.
You are correct, jm, about the label. It would be hard to imagine what the Republicans could their name to that would both scare Americans and align with their beliefs. Socialism and Communism come with a lot of baggage.
Journalism also exaggerates its own importance by calling itself "the press" - thereby insinuating that short-deadline topical nonfiction is the whole of "the press."The Constitution, of course, protects book and magazine publishing as well as journalism - and there is of course no principled reason to expect journalism to be either as objective or as complete a discussion of a given topic as the typical nonfiction book on the same subject.
Nor is there any reason to expect that the topic of a typical news report has as much enduring significance as that of a typical nonfiction book . . .
Both beliefs are in direct opposition to the stated purposes of the Democrat Party. They believe in expanding government oversight and control, reducing state and local influences, and most importantly, that the government determines the rights of its people, instead of the people determining the rights of their government. The "rule by the people for the people" becomes the "rule of the people by its agents". To a socialist the Constitution of the United States is an anathema, because it guarantees its citizens freedom from government and precludes the government from obtaining control over its populace.Unexceptionable - but have you identified the Democratic Party in the reader's mind with socialism sufficiently to use the words interchangeably?
The vast majority of elderly folks who I know who support the Democratic party do so because "FDR did such a great job of bringing us out of the depression" and they have an emotional attachment and loyalty. If these people could understand the real nature of the Dem party today, I think lots of them would change their party loyalty.
Jefferson advocated populist control of the government, for he did not fear their influence; however, this is not what socialism is about, despite its claim that it is the party of the people. Both history and current events will bear out the conclusion that socialism views itself the guardian of the people, not their instrument.Journalism which affects to be more objective than the people inherently patronizes you. Individual journalists, like all celebrities, toady to journalism as a whole - producing gutless, pseudo courageous proclamations of why "the little guy" needs not equal protection but a helping hand from them.
They are of course far too civic minded to be in it for the money; all they want is the credit (which they will of course lard on themselves with their own PR power). And, ever-so-incidentally, political power enough to moot their need for mere money . . .
The rank-and-file Socialist Party voter undoubtedly sees it that way. But another explanation is that the Socialist Party is a stalking horse for the socialist politics of the Democratic Party. That is, the existence of an explicitly named Socialist Party positions the Democratic Party a not being socialist.
Though the south is now solidly Republican, in previous administrations Kerry’s party had total dominance over it. In the last election, Georgia elected its first Republican governor since nineteen-sixty-six when the democratically controlled state legislature overturned the popular vote for Republican Howard Calloway and appointed Democrat Lester Maddox in his place. Despite all of this control, the same issues have arisen in every single election. No sacrifice of liberty has yet been able to resolve the campaign issues of the propagandists. Thus, to a socialist the liberty sacrificed has never been enough.Two things:
Good catch. See, even I fall for their propaganda sometimes.
I am receptive to your kind of analysis, but consider that the length is probably inversely proportional to readership. When I saw 36 pp. even I got scared!!
I like your points, particularly on politics as mass psychology, the geography of American politics, and on the soundbites that are needed.
For your next segment, consider laying out a rhetorical agenda for conservatives, building on your sound bite recommendation. Regards, Monti.
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