General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWe have come a very "long way" since Reagan said that ketchup was a vegetable
We knew back then that they war had been declared against the Democrats, the liberals, and the New Deal. It was a given, and Pat Buchanan said this on CNNs Crossfire unabashedly, that their desire was to roll back any programs which assisted the poor, helped educate the masses, gave women and minorities equal rights and footing, and rollback not just abortion laws but also the legality of contraception. I recall Michael Kinsley with his mouth open wide and thought to myself liberals dont have aggressiveness or answers for this kind of assault.
Then, at the terminus of the Reagan presidency, I heard a speech by one Craig Fuller and thought to myself that I had never heard language used in this Fashion. It was Prototypical of what we hear today: the garbled lies masquerading as assertions of the right wing, couched in convoluted language.
We need to step it up. We need to learn how to fight dirty, to knock the underpinnings out from under them. We cannot win this fight by being nice guys, reasonable, thoughtful, reflective, philosophical, taking the long view, or any measure which is not nuclear in nature. We have allowed this to happen by saying that we are Above the fray, that the voter will know whats right and wrong. Let me tell you, despite the fact that people knew that cigarette smoking was bad for your health since the early 20th century, (and that is a fact), cigarette commercials promoted not only The allure of smoking but that it was actually healthy for you. Despite everybodyknowing the opposite, when I was growing up virtually everyone smoked. Perhaps Tommy Lee Jones this character in mthe film Men in Black said it best: individuals may be smart but people are stupid.
What we need to do is to get down on every level: whether it be boycotts, paid commercials which denigrate to an extreme degree the other side, demonstrations both peaceful and if provoked, violent. How many movies have you seen where the protagonist starts out as passive, and becomes aggressively insane and wins the day against the evil doers? Its a common theme in Hollywood and it should be in our party. If you think theyre all done when they finish with abortion, you have another thing coming.
You know, these people are not particularly creative. What they do is go to established literature or historical Chronicles and draw up plans which have worked in the past, or sound great on paper. There is no question in my mind that the Trump administration, via Stephen Miller and others, went to both Mein Kampf and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L Shirer, took notes, and drew up a plan in a few days. And Of course it worked: The Germans were much more sophisticated and educated than Americans and the Nazis convinced the country to declare war against the world and against minorities. We saw it here after 9/11, a time when even bright progressive people became concerned about the clerk at the 7-Eleven because he could be a terrorist. We are prejudiced, we are also at times not too bright. It is time to take the sword out of the scabbard and get to work fixing this country. The other side did it and has had remarkable success in very few years, we are fully capable of the same, we just have to get up the guts to do it.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,525 posts)I find myself nodding at all your thoughts.
Now, we just have to somehow get the current Administration to adopt and use them!
doc03
(35,296 posts)that are easy to put on a bumper sticker, nothing that requires any critical thinking. What was it I heard when you have to explain your answere you are losing. Simple things God, Guns, race and sex.
gulliver
(13,168 posts)If we holler and protest, we don't want it to be the hollering and protesting they were hoping for. They want to own the libs. Some shows of anger and outrage, even boycotting, just give the Republicans confirmation that they succeeded in owning us.
It's possible that one or two Trumpies are versed in Nazi literature and use it as a source for ideas. The Big Lie technique is pretty obviously in the Republican playbook now, for example. Still, the Nazi ideas (rile the yahoos and do evil) predate the Nazis, and it's hard not to stumble on and "rediscover" them, even if you're just a twisted, runty jerk like Stephen Miller.
I like how Biden is tough. It's a strong suit for him. He coolly rises above and stands over little men like Trump.
I like how the Lincoln Project works too.
We do it all. No more halfway measures. They have not worked.
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)SWBTATTReg
(22,077 posts)this, I thought took the cake...
--snip--
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
Congress wants to keep pizza and french fries on school lunch lines, fighting back against an Obama administration proposal to make school lunches healthier.
The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year, which included limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line and delaying limits on sodium and delaying a requirement to boost whole grains.
The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to prevent that.
--snip--
PCIntern
(25,489 posts)Its a brand or knock-off of 1930s Germany.
Next up: mustard. Or the Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie.
SWBTATTReg
(22,077 posts)aspects of anything anyways, "I'm making too much money!" says all of the millionaires and billionaires (and despite what a million doctors, a million health specialists, sports therapists, etc. say too, about what constitutes a bad diet, day in, day out)...
MuseRider
(34,095 posts)I remember thinking that that was one of the cruelest, clueless most disgusting thing I ever heard a president say. LOL, I had little babies at the time so there was not much time to hear the rest of that but really.....defending not helping people with nutritious food by making a stupid comment like that and sticking to it just blew my mind. Now look where we are.
UTUSN
(70,649 posts)PCIntern
(25,489 posts)rickford66
(5,521 posts)No. Just not be afraid to use the available laws .
PCIntern
(25,489 posts)We gotta nail these SOBs to the wall.
SergeStorms
(19,186 posts)trying to earn a little money for baseball cards and such, toiling in my grandfather's ketchup fields in the hot sun, wishing there were a better way to grow those ketchup plants.
Maybe better irrigation, or a way to keep those darned relish plants from invading the acres upon acres of ketchup plants, which were my grandfather's pride and joy.
We considered those relish plants an invasive species. It was horrible. You'd just get all the dill relish plants pulled, and there would come those sweet relish plants. Then the corn relish plants, and don't even get me started on the succotash plants!
Good times. I miss those days of my youth, but sometimes when I'm sitting in my rocking chair on the front porch, I wonder if the corporate ketchup growers have those same good memories. Probably not.
czarjak
(11,254 posts)elleng
(130,740 posts)to knock the underpinnings out from under them. We cannot win this fight by being nice guys, reasonable, thoughtful, reflective, philosophical, taking the long view, or any measure which is not nuclear in nature.'