Posted on 08/18/2002 5:18:22 PM PDT by Auntie Mame
Dear Freepers:
I just returned from the First Annual Free Republic Network Convention in Las Vegas.
The Free Republic Network Cruise last October was the most fun I've ever had in my whole life. The Free Republic Network Conference I just attended was the most informative and inspiring two days I've ever had in my whole life.
The Free Republic Network is stretching its muscle, not by talk, but by action. The Free Republic forum is liberty's college. The Free Republic Network is liberty's workplace.
If you attended, please use this thread to post your observations, comments and highlights of the conference. I will give mine below. But before I do, I'd like to take this time to thank Bob Johnson and the FRN board for putting on this conference. It's hard for me to find the words to adequately describe how great this experience was--and how much I learned.
Huge thanks are due to BobJ, Diotima, and all of the members of FRN who worked so hard preparing the meeting. These people gave a tremendous amount of time, talent, and treasure to make this a successful event. (In the future, ways must be found to spread out the work load. We don't need burn out.)
It was an honor to speak with Jeff Head about his activism and the struggle of the farmers in Klamath. He is an inspirational leader and I hope to hear big things from him in the future.
The Leadership Institute, which you've been reading about on this thread, will be holding a training session in Madison, WI, on August 31. I have requested info about this and will post it to the Wisconsin page when they reply.
Vegas is best described as "sensory overload" in the desert. It was a pleasure seeing verdant, productive Wisconsin farm land and lakes out of the jet window on the way home.
Can't one also repeat the truth until it becomes accepted as the truth?
No offense, but you are missing the point others have been trying to make. Carville and Begala weren't effective because they were lying, they were effective because of their tactics. The same tactics can be utilized by the right using the truth with similar results.
Allow me a question, what do you think was the tactic employed by Carville and Begala?
Perhaps 50,000 paragraphs were spoken, and one paragraph was on abortion. Muth said, "You'd better be prepared for your thoughts in this arena," or words to that effect.
AM, I was so excited this morning. I wanted to give all the information I had which we learned in this fantastic meeting. But I can't and I won't.
But, "reason" is at the very heart of why repetition is a successful tactic. On average, a person has to repeat a message 7 times before the average person understands it. And you can't start the clock on that 7 repetitions until your target hears it for the first time.
Let's assume that you're running for President and that there are potentially 100 million voters you would like to try to persuade to vote for you. If you deliver a speech even on a major network or a well-attended rally, we can safely assume that only a small percentage of that 100 million will be tuned in to hear it. You need to repeat that message, over and over again, for the message to register with more and more of your target audience, until you have covered a meaningful segment of the audience.
But, hey, if it brings you a win, what does it matter?
Winning is good. Winning means that I have the opportunity to participate in the democracy and make more of a difference, both for me and for other candidates that think the way I do. The Demos are doing it this way, and we should too.
It's obvious that the liberal faction of the Republican party has already gone down this road, past the point of no-return.
It ain't just the "liberal" faction that is doing "it" (repetition). Any faction of any political party who wants to be elected knows this principle and uses it to win. As Charlie Brown once said, "Winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything."
It's a pretty pointless game when both teams wear the same color, use the same playbook, and both run to the same side of the field to make a goal. When that happens, it's time to fire both teams.
That's called practice or a scrimmage, and you use it as a football team to get better. Why fire the members of a team who are merely trying to get better? In a real game, the objectives are very, very different. And, we are the team in white; if the other team is trying (and succeeding) using trick plays, then we had better have some trick plays in our playbook as well.
At a dinner with about 14 FReepers last night, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Nick Danger. He is a man of few words, but does he ever make them count!!! Not that any of us were especially LOQUACIOUS. A bunch of shrinking violets, really. yuk,yuk,yuk
Sometimes the problem these huge meetings has is you don't get to talk to everyone whom you want to talk. You, of course, were accessible to me. Thanks, Faraday!
There are so many new folks I met there, and, oh, it was wonderful meeting them. WIMom, for example. What a super-duper-trooper she is. Dang, she's been through a lot and came out on top. I'm so proud to be considered one of her "friends" on line.
I'm not only irritated, but somewhat frightened.
Are you saying one should not study or try to understand evil simply because it/they are evil? You don't advocate studying an opponent or enemy so as to be able to at least identify them or at best defeat them in the future? Remind me not to make you captain of the intramural FReeper softball team.
This is one reason too many conservatives get their butt's kicked in the media game. They're too principled to utilize time tested and effective mass communication techniques like repetition and simplicity in the way they deliver their message. The next time Daschle, Gephardt, Kennedy and Hillary all have simultaneous press conferences on the same morning, repeating the same sound bites, while Lott, Hastert and the other bumbling leaders of the GOP mumble incoherent and unconnected pitheries to no one in particular, I'll remember this exchange. Conservatives are tired of losing, it's time to try a new strategy.
Until conservatives wake up and at least recognize the modern facts of how and why the average Joe absorbs information, information that leads to opinions and voting patterns (however objectionable to one's high sense of principle, as personally satisfying if yet lacking in effectiveenss as that may be), we will ultimately be destined to occupy the second rung in the political ladder, punctuated only with the occasional win that fate has occasion to toss us.
BTW - I agree with your earlier statement...let's save this discussion for another thread, not one about the conference. Go ahead and start one, I'm sure others will jump in.
Nick's one of my favorite examples of a "high signal to noise ratio".
Not that any of us were especially LOQUACIOUS. A bunch of shrinking violets, really. yuk,yuk,yuk
It's just our cross to bear.
I had a blast talking with you and the other shy freepers.
That's a clean distinction, though as you noted the word has effectively been rendered unusable.
George Orwell, call your office...
It was good working with you this weekend -- I think we got some useful things done.
Voting is not a responsibility, it is a right. Studying, being knowledgeable about the issues and voting with a fair degree of familiarity of the issues and the candidates, that is a responsibility.
I may have diced that a little...
Close enough. He also said he'd like it better if the clueless didn't vote. Chuck impressed the heck out of me with his ideas, his ability to present them and his sense of priorities.
As he pointed out, we don't have resources to burn on the nonessential stuff...
Not in the VFW (in which I am a member). I have to be careful when coming directly from a VFW meeting to posting here; if a Freeper whose screen name is the Russian word for "arrow" allows a stray "comrade" to slip into any of his posts, people might start getting erroneous ideas about him ;)
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